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“You’ve got to be joking. No. No way.” Fabian’s mouth is flat and unamused as he crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “I refuse.”
Riz doesn’t even bother suppressing his sigh. “I know this is asking a lot, but can you please just try and be reasonable for once?”
Fabian scoffs. “Oh, I’m the unreasonable one here? Me?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“The Ball.” The longer their arguing goes on, the more Fabian’s lip starts protruding more and more. (Riz just takes this as more proof that he’s in the right here: no one with a pout that dramatic is in the right. Just, like, objectively.) “I know you have a hard time letting things go–”
“Oh bullshit,” Riz interrupts, planting his hands on his hips. “Don’t make this about some, like, emotional attachment–”
“Okay but if it’s not an emotional attachment, that’s even worse. Be logical here.”
“You be logical!” he snarls. “It’s perfectly fine! There’s no need–”
“–if you would just let me–”
“–I swear to Cassandra, one day you’re going to try to just throw money at a problem and it’s not going to work, and then what will you do?”
The eyeroll Fabian gives him is just as pissy as the rest of him. “Then I’ll take out my sword.”
He says it so seriously, but there’s a glimmer of amusement in his eye despite the annoyance still painted over his face, and Riz only barely manages to bite back his own laugh. “We are not dueling over this,” he says, pointing a finger at Fabian in warning. Especially since Riz’s whole left side is still aching from his latest LPRTF mission and his fingers are still too stiff from pain. (He swears, every healing spell does less and less to get them to loosen up, but he’s not going to be a baby and ask for a Greater Restoration every time he gets a cramp.) He’s come a long way in swordplay over the years between the Task Force’s training on close combat and Fabian’s insistence on training with him until he was good enough to spar with on a regular basis (“For your own good, The Ball; we both know you’d rather lurk far away from the front lines, but– humor me.”) but there’s a huge difference between bare-handed sparring and clanging his Sword of Shadows against Fandrangor for the fun of it and agreeing to a one-on-one fight when Fabian wants to prove a point.
There’s something satisfied in the way Fabian’s eyebrow arches that says he knows it, too. “Then will you just give in already and stop being a child about this?”
“I’m being a child?” Riz’s jaw drops. “You’re the one who’s being all spoiled about this!”
Fabian gives a deep, deep sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look. Riz. I know you don’t– why are you fighting this so much? What’s the big deal? It’s just a couch.”
He’s actually starting to look upset, and Riz sighs, too, the wind going out of his sails some. It’s– maybe about more than the couch, he thinks. It’s absolutely about the couch, too, because it’s their couch. Three out of four legs are all fucked up and there’s a big patch on the back and there’s visible thread where the torn fabric had to be sewn by hand instead of Mended and the cushions are misshapen from a poor attempt at re-stuffing them and it’s more discolored than not, but it’s theirs. Growing up, everything was secondhand and battered and worn to all hell. The few times he’d commented on it as a kid, his mom had tried to spin it into something positive: not used, but well-loved. He’d used it as a thought experiment, let his imagination run wild attempting to investigate what might have caused every stain and scratch, what things the furniture might have seen before finding a second (or third, or fourth) home in the Gukgak residence. But no matter what adventures he created in his mind, he didn’t know for sure.
He knows all the stories here on this couch. Some of the stains are from coffee cups he spilled when he fell asleep with them still in his hand until they tipped over and woke him with a splash, some from sunny mornings or drunken evenings with Fabian next to him, the result of an overeager jostle to the side or dramatic flailing of arms. There’s a barely visible blotch of darker brown from the first time Riz turned down a heal after a mission, deciding he’d rather deal with the sluggishly-bleeding but manageable cut to his arm instead of waiting around for a spell that always left him feeling out of it, and Fabian’s dark cheeks had gone ashen and grey and he’d tugged Riz to the couch, insistent on seeing the damage for himself. There’s a mark on one of the back legs from where Gorgug’s axe had been placed down a little too clumsily when they’d come back from a fight drunk on victory and sleeplessness (and, fine, actual alcohol, too). One of the front legs is shredded from when he’d disastrously agreed to watch one of Aelwyn’s cats when the latest addition had to be quarantined. The mismatched fabric on the middle back cushion is a concoction of memories, from when Fig had been in town and had wrestled Fabian over the back of the couch and one of her piercings caught on the fabric, and the poorly-Mended hole got worse when Kristen tried to fix it the next time she was over. The patch that covers it now is Fabian’s handiwork, and Riz had stood next to him the whole time, holding the crystal up so Cathilda could walk Fabian step by step through the process, trying and failing not to laugh every time the needle fumbled and getting progressively dirtier looks for his efforts. The bit of mismatched fabric that’s on the leftmost cushion is his own fault, the fabric worn thin from too much idle scratching and rubbing his fingers over the same bit, over and over while reading books and files and things on his crystal until it’d gone threadbare and needed to be covered. The other half of the couch is lumpy and sags but is almost always layered by Fabian’s ever-growing amount of pillows that he lounges on like some spoiled prince.
Riz is excited about moving. Really, he is. Their new place is pretty much perfect. It’s much bigger than any house he’d ever imagined living in – when he’d been bold enough to imagine living in a house at all, that is, and not on his own in endless variations of dinky little apartments similar to the one he’d grown up in – but considering the ridiculous grandeur that is Seacaster Manor, Fabian had restrained himself, looking only at places that Hallariel had called cozy with enough surprise that Riz had been torn between offense and pride and amusement at his best friend’s expense. They’ll actually have a third bedroom to use as a guest room, something Fabian had been inordinately thrilled with for all that Riz has a suspicion it will hardly get used: when their friends come back to town, it’s just as likely as not that they all end up staying up late enough to crash on the living room floor or couch, or they go back to Mordred Manor and its plethora of bedrooms. The living room is big enough that, yeah, fine, Fabian has a point, and this couch will look absurdly small. Neither Riz nor Fabian really cook all that well, but the kitchen is so big, especially with the attached nook, that even if– when– their whole party is there, they’ll be able to talk and move around each other and sit at the island (He’ll have an island. Who even is he anymore?) and laugh and not be crammed in like Fabian’s kippers the way they are here at their old place. If he hadn’t been sold on it just from the look in Fabian’s eye when he described it to a Riz who’d been too wrapped up in an assignment to make it to the initial tour, it hadn’t taken more than a few minutes of seeing it with his own eyes to fall in love, too.
It’s just… a lot changing all at once. And maybe it doesn’t sit well with him, the fact that Fabian is so eager to move forward and be rid of as much as possible from last three years they’ve been roommates in this townhouse. And maybe he knows that it’s not worth arguing about money with Fabian anymore, not when even agreeing to buy a house and not just rent had meant several arguments and unbearably uncomfortable heart-to-hearts about how much Fabian wants to be able to use the money he has to give himself and his friends the kind of life they all want, but it doesn’t mean there’s still not something itchy and awful about the idea of Fabian dropping a ton of money on a new, fancy couch when the old one is perfectly fine. (Well, maybe not perfectly, but it’s fine.) Especially when he and his girlfriend are getting more and more serious by the day, so no matter how much Riz doesn’t want to bring it up yet, like, at all, there’s still the possibility that whatever he and Fabian are buying together now won’t even be for him and Fabian for that long, so surely it’d be smarter to just wait and see how things pan out rather than going hog-wild right away with all sorts of new things.
It’s… probably not at all about the couch. Damn it.
He gives a weak shrug. “I like this couch.”
Fabian’s frown just deepens, but he looks at Riz for a long moment before sighing again. “What if we kept it and got a new couch?”
Riz hesitates. It feels ridiculous, how relieved he is at the idea that he doesn’t have to get rid of it for good, especially because Fabian hadn’t been wrong, exactly, when he’d suggested that it was in such poor condition that they wouldn’t even be able to pawn it off on Crystalbook Marketplace. He sighs, feeling his shoulders slump. “Where would we even put it?” Even he can hear the note of defeat, but no matter how much his cheeks burn at it, he won’t apologize. “I might be able to squeeze it in my room, but I’d rather have the space in case I need it for a clue board or something.” He regrets it almost immediately, because he knows the argument that’s about to come out of Fabian’s mouth for the millionth time. Before Fabian can do more than rub at his brow, Riz heads him off. “I don’t need the third room as an office, let’s not start that again.” He at least tries to keep a better work-life separation now than he had when he was younger, and that’s the excuse he’s sticking to, if only because it’d been a far more convincing argument than anything related to how uncomfortable he is at the idea of taking up more than his fair share of space. (Well. ‘Fair share’ itself is a loaded statement, given how laughably little of his money is going into this in comparison to Fabian’s, and even that little bit had been a hard-won thing.)
It’s so obvious, how much Fabian really wants to have the argument again, but he pinches at the bridge of his nose and lets out this loud sigh. “I still have that storage unit from a few years back. We can put it in there until we figure out where to put it.”
Or until Riz inevitably moves out, more likely. He lets his grin spread wide and pleased, and it only takes a moment for it to be mirrored on Fabian’s face. “Thank you.”
Fabian, predictably, brushes off the gratitude with a scoff and hip-checks Riz as he walks past. “Don’t thank me, The Ball. You’re the one who’s going to have to figure out what dumpster will accept it once you finally get over your snit and realize it was ridiculous to hold onto it in the first place.”
The silent, ‘of course’ and ‘whatever you want’ are audible even through the exaggerated grousing, and Riz feels his heart swell with affection as he rushes to catch up to Fabian’s side and elbows it in retaliation. However much time left he has of this, he’s going to treasure every minute of it. It’s worth it, no matter how it ends.
It always varies so much, what Riz feels when he takes down a clue board. Usually it’s satisfaction, the physical evidence of a case closed. More often than he’d like, it’s anger and self-reproach, when things don’t go the way he’d planned and the only real closure he gets is this dismantling. Right now, as he unpins Kaja Leven’s picture, the last of the missing persons cases tying back to the warlock that’d kidnapped Ayda, it’s a strange mix of so much more than either. Grim, dark pleasure that the warlock is finally dead. Grimmer, darker frustration that he hadn’t been there to help ensure it. Satisfaction that he officially can wipe his hands clean of the Council of Chosen now that there’s no loose strings tying him to the cold cases they’d started him with. A hollow kind of sorrow and fury and relief that he’s closing a door that’d brought so many conflicting experiences and emotions at all.
And when he takes down the last of the papers and takes a step back to look at the fully bare walls, joining all the rest is an awareness that’s only barely getting more familiar, of just how much has changed. It’s not even been three months since Brookwish handed over the folder containing the files he’s now clutching in his bare hands. It feels so much longer ago.
There’s a low whistle from the doorway. “That didn’t take long,” Fabian says.
Riz snorts. “Always how it goes, isn’t it? So much easier to take down than put up.”
Fabian just grins. “Another case done and dusted, then,” he says, like it’s just another case instead of the clusterfuck it’s been from start to finish, instead of it likely being the thing that finally closes the book on the Council for good. Maybe with time it’ll feel like just another case. Maybe Riz will even come up with some kind of snappy name for it, reduce it to a quip instead of something that’d run them ragged and frustrated and terrified and furious for far too long. It’ll probably be a while before he can even consider that, even now that they’re all safe. “What next?”
Work wise? Riz has no fucking clue. It’s daunting in the way where he doesn’t even want to think about it for too long. Working with Brookwish and the Council hadn’t always been easy or satisfying, but it’d been something to do, and the idea of a suddenly much-lighter workload brings far more stress and terror than relief, even if he still thinks it’s the right call. Not work wise? …Honestly, he still has no clue, but winging that has had far better results, especially as of late. He turns from where he’d still been staring at the blank stretch of wall to look at Fabian. Fabian’s also still looking around the empty room, and Riz doesn’t miss how his eye keeps snagging on the mattress still propped up against the wall. A smile slowly dawns as he comes up with at least one idea for a plan. “Do you still have that storage unit downtown?”
“Yes?”
He hooks a thumb towards the mattress. “Think there’s room for that? Seems kind of silly to set it back up when it’s just going to be unused anyway, but I’d hate to get rid of it permanently.”
Any night that he’s spent at home since the last few days of October has been spent in the same bed as Fabian, so it’s not like this is in any way new information. Still, Fabian’s face lights up, something far too relieved and far too pleased visible in the grin that forms. It’s not a surprise, necessarily – it hasn’t escaped Riz’s attention, how carefully Fabian’s been referring to it as ‘the’ bed and ‘the’ room, like he hasn’t been sure whether to call it ‘his’ or ‘theirs’ despite the fact that Riz’s bed has gone untouched for months and his clothes have long since joined Fabian’s in the closet and the wardrobe. (Hell, at this point, the only thing that hasn’t really migrated is anything from Riz’s bathroom, and that’s more from not wanting to fight with Fabian’s extensive array of beauty and skincare and haircare products for counter space than anything else.) The intensity of the relief is a little surprising, though, and not for the first time, Riz can’t decide if he likes watching the happiness that dances across his best friend’s expression or if he’s already looking forward the time to when it no longer surprises them both, when they’re so used to this partnership that it’s just another steady, constant part of their lives.
(He suspects the answer is, just like so much else of this, somewhere in between.)
“Absolutely.”
Almost as though Fabian’s afraid he’ll change his mind, they’re off pretty much immediately, just one Enlarge/Reduce later. It’s not something Riz has planned, but the second they’re standing in the unit and Fabian is returning the mattress to its normal size (he’d learned the hard way, apparently, to always reverse the spell and fit things the way he wants, rather than letting physics take their course when the spell wears off), he spots their old couch in between the eclectically-collected items from various phases of Fabian’s life and makes a split-second decision. “Cool. And I’m bringing that back with us.”
Fabian’s eyebrow arches up until he sees what Riz’s pointing at, and then it comes down as he lets out a dramatic, full-body groan. “I don’t suppose it’s any use in suggesting we just buy you a new couch for what I assume will be your official home office space.”
“Nope,” Riz says cheerily, popping the ‘p’.
The sigh Fabian gives is far more befitting of some truly grave slight, rather than just Riz having an attachment to a piece of furniture in less-than-ideal condition. “I don’t even know why you insisted we hold onto this in the first place,” he grumbles, but there’s enough defeat in it to clearly say he’s not going to give more than just lip service to fighting Riz on this.
Riz knows it’s hypothetical, that Fabian’s not really looking for an answer, but he still finds himself shrugging and saying, “It was one less thing to buy again later. And, I don’t know, I liked the idea of having something that was both of ours when I moved out.”
There’s no reason to still think that way, and surely, surely Fabian knows that, but he still rears back as if Riz has slapped him. “You were planning on moving out?”
His voice sounds small in the way Riz hates, especially with how big and bold it is normally. Riz can only stare a little, because… seriously? “I mean, not actively. But I just figured– you and Eillana were already getting serious.” He shrugs again, more hesitantly this time with how this suddenly feels like a minefield. “I just figured… you know. Sooner or later, you’d want me to move out, and her to move in.” Fabian looks thunderstruck, mouth still downturned. “And if it turned out it didn’t work out that way with Lana, then just– whoever came next, you know?” He sure as hell never expected that ‘whoever came next’ would be him. In all the ways that matter, anyway.
There’s no way this can be a foreign concept to Fabian, not with how it’d gone down when Lana had broken up with him. But he doesn’t look any less surprised, any less upset at the idea. “That wouldn’t have happened,” he says stubbornly.
It’s easy to say now, and the corner of Riz’s mouth quirks upward as he’s filled with the all-too-familiar mix of affection and resignation. “I mean, yeah, knowing what I know now–”
“No, The Ball,” Fabian interrupts. “I mean– even if I’d never realized the way I– or even if I’d never fallen in the first place. That wouldn’t have happened.”
The conviction is sweet, in its own way, but despite that, Riz feels a twinge of annoyance. That, he can only really chalk up to the fact that Fabian being so dismissive of something Riz had not-so-lowkey dreaded for years. “So, what, in some alternate universe it’d be you settling down with someone and me just tagging along for the rest of our lives?”
“I don’t know if I’d have phrased it that way, but yes. Absolutely.”
It’s… a lot, for all that it maybe shouldn’t be. Fabian’s so stubborn, and so devoted, and so unable to be objective about pretty much anything. It makes sense, that he can’t be logical about this kind of thing when he’s got such massive blinders on now in the form of being in love. This is the same man who’d confessed his feelings and immediately declared that their friendship and those feelings were more important to him than actually being in a relationship with anyone else who might reciprocate in the same way or with the same things. It’s the same man who, not even three months into their quiet, clumsy attempt at figuring things out, had beamed at all their friends and said so plainly that he never wanted to be with anyone else ever again even if things didn’t work out. It absolutely tracks that now he’d be unable to consider a world where he sat Riz down and fumblingly explained that things were getting serious with whoever he was dating, that their friendship was so important and that that wouldn’t ever change, but that it may be time they went their separate ways, at least when it came to living together. “…Okay, well, I didn’t see that happening.” Riz should probably just leave it there, but he can’t help but add, a little snarkily, “And I don’t think most people you dated would’ve been cool with that indefinitely.”
Fabian, to his surprise, just makes an amused noise. “What do you think Mazey told Lana when we started seriously dating?”
“That… you were in love with me, yeah?” It still doesn’t feel any less surreal to say, even months and months on.
“That was more Lana reading in between the lines, it turns out.”
Despite himself, despite how hearing about this makes him feel all sorts of strange – Fabian being open and blunt about being in love with him still sometimes makes him feel twitchy and awkward in a good way, but the idea of other people gossipping about it isn’t nearly in as good a way – Riz is curious. He hadn’t even known that Fabian had talked to Mazey about this in the few months since getting reacquainted. “Yeah?”
Fabian’s smiling again, at least, as he shakes his head. “Apparently, Mazey told Lana that if she wasn’t okay with you having a non-negotiable place in my life, that if she was going to feel insecure or neglected or anything by our friendship, that she and I shouldn’t let ourselves get in too deep.” There’s something pointed, something smug about the way he adds, “We’re a package deal, The Ball. We were even before any of the rest.”
That… puts into a whole new light, some of the interactions Riz had had with Mazey while she was dating Fabian, at least. He’d chalked it up to a combination of her making an effort to try to get to know one of the tougher eggs to crack when it came to Fabian’s friends, and… well, maybe no small amount of pity, especially with how clearly Riz struggled all of their senior year with their impending separation, especially with how much most of the rest of the Bad Kids so easily coupled up leaving him the odd man out more often than not. “Oh,” is all he can really say, somewhere between pleased and flattered and overwhelmed and off-kilter. Like, admittedly, he still doesn’t know that he’d have wanted to live in a house with Fabian and his hypothetical spouse. But the idea that that was more comprehensible to Fabian than the alternative, that even in a world where Fabian had never developed romantic feelings for him he couldn’t picture preferring to live without Riz soothes the old familiar bruise of loneliness, of feeling like he was doomed from the start to never being someone that other people needed or wanted the same way that he needed and wanted them.
(Riz meant it when he said he loves that Fabian loves him. He believes it, every time he’s told himself that Fabian falling in love with him doesn’t mean that things mean less or more. But maybe, no matter how much the rest is true, it also soothes something in him, hearing that that was always the case and that Fabian’s so sure that that would’ve always been the case, with or without the parts that came later.)
“Yeah, ‘oh,’” Fabian says, in what is a terrible imitation of Riz. It’s hard to do more than just shoot a halfhearted scowl his way, though, what with how pleased his partner looks as he reaches a hand out for Riz to take. There’s a moment of quiet when their hands loosely wrap together, warm and affectionate, until Fabian breaks it again with a pointed, “So since this is no longer a representation of our impending separation and you won’t have to just longingly stare at it and think of the good old days when we lived together, can we please throw this out and get something nicer?”
Riz snorts. He pretends to think about it just long enough for Fabian’s eyebrow to twitch upwards in surprise, then he says, “Yeah, no, still no. I’m keeping it.”
Fabian lets out another dramatic groan, but this time the effect is ruined by the smile, still broad and pleased, on his face. “Fine, but that’s all you, The Ball. No way am I sitting on that thing when we have a much better, much bigger, much comfier couch right downstairs,” he says, like a liar.
Riz laughs. “Sure. Okay. Works for me.”
“Oh no,” Fabian deadpans as he sprawls out on the other side of the couch, letting one socked foot thwap into Riz’s lap, jostling the notebook he’s been poring through. “So clumsy of me. If only we had a couch big enough for us to have our own personal space.” As if that would happen even if they were downstairs.
Riz is in a good enough mood – and the notes he’s been nose-deep in aren’t about anything incredibly pressing or time-sensitive – that he just laughs outright instead of feigning offense. “Good news,” he says, mirroring the same, too-even tone as he shoves Fabian’s leg out of his lap and turns so they’re more facing one another. “There’s one right down the stairs that I’m told is much better and much bigger. You just take a left out of that door. Can’t miss it.”
For all that Fabian is a very good actor when he wants to be, he’s terrible at hiding his grins when he’s being a little shit. Even the exaggerated, sorrowful pout feels closer to a smile than anything else. “I don’t know, The Ball. I might need someone with better perception to help me find it.”
Riz grabs the one pillow that’s been spared from Fabian’s tower of them and slides it behind his own back as he readjusts, tucking his feet under Fabian’s outstretched leg. “You’re so annoying.” There’s far more amusement and affection in it than heat. He’s used to it at this point: for all Fabian’s whining about the state of the couch, he’s spent nearly as much time on it as Riz has. The more that time goes on, the more comfortable he gets with it, intruding into Riz’s bedroom-turned-office and demanding attention when he’s decided Riz needs to take a break.
(And only when it’s about Riz, he very quickly learned; it’s been an uphill battle, both of them trying to learn how to be open about needing or wanting something from each other, but Fabian’s still more likely to retreat into himself rather than be upfront about feeling lonely. It’s… they’re working on it.)
Fabian very pointedly looks at the way that Riz’s tail has curled possessively around Fabian’s ankle and his lips twitch even more. “You like me that way.”
Riz would like to argue that, no, he only barely tolerates it, but… no. He really does like it. A dramatic, annoying Fabian is almost always a silly Fabian, a Fabian who feels safe and confident enough in whatever’s going on to be over the top in his emotions. Riz will always take a Fabian who delights in poking and prodding and pouting over the quiet, tentative, lost versions of him. He doesn’t even try to deny it, just gives this little ruefully amused smile of his own. “Not sure what that says about me,” he jokes.
Fabian preens. “That you have excellent taste.” He winces immediately, even before Riz’s eyebrow arches, and he corrects himself with a grimace. “Well, no, actually, you have terrible taste in general–”
Now it’s Riz’s turn to laugh aloud. “You like me that way,” he echoes with a smirk, letting his knee splay out to knock into Fabian’s shins.
There’s so much warmth visible in Fabian’s expression and he has no response to that other than a big, showy harrumph. In lieu of any coherent argument, he turns his foot so his toes poke into Riz’s leg. “Are you close to being finished yet?” he pouts.
‘Finished’ is a loaded word: the work Riz has is rarely finished, more often stalling out or holding up for new developments or being put on the shelf for later. This isn’t even one of those. Riz could easily put it down right here and now. He could give in and let Fabian drag him up off the couch and out of the room and to whatever he’d prefer they do on a rare Saturday with both of them home. Selfishly, he thinks he wants to indulge in this for just a little bit longer.
He really does love their couch downstairs, how obnoxiously big and decadently comfortable it is. He loves that it’s big enough that their entire party can spread out on it and clamber over each other in the too-rare times that all six of them are in town. He loves that there’s so much space that both of them could fully stretch out and there’d still be space between them, and loves even more that that so rarely happens: it feels even more like something silly and fond and precious, when the two of them end up curling up with each other on one side of it instead.
But there’s something he loves about this one, too, how he doesn’t feel dwarfed by it. How familiar the threadbare parts are. How it fits just as well in his office as it had in their old living room. How it’s molded itself to the bumps and divots of Riz’s claws and knobby knees and Fabian’s thighs and tower of pillows. How there’s no way he and Fabian can both sit sideways on this without their legs tangling up, and how easily they do that these days.
It’s just… something he sees a little bit too much of himself in, he thinks: it’s tattered and messy and worn and covered in scars and scratches from memories both good and bad. Maybe a little used, but so well-loved.
“Yeah,” he says with a tiny huff of laughter. “Just give me, like, five more minutes.”
Fabian lets out a huff of his own and lets one arm come up to rest on the back of the couch, but otherwise makes no effort to move. “Five minutes,” he agrees. “Then I’m dragging you out of here to do anything other than work. Whether you like it or not.”
Riz lets his gaze drop back down to his notebook, like that’ll hide how wide and fond his grin is. “Deal.”
