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"You don't have an eye!"
Huge yellow eyes with pupils blown wide are staring up at him, accompanied by a near-manic grin full of fangs and viscera.
"Take his eye, man!"
There's a line of blood trailing from the corner of a fanged mouth, dripping sluggishly, beginning to congeal into a rusty streak that contrasts awfully with apple-green skin.
"Do you want me to bite it out for you?!"
"Calm down, The Ball," says Fabian, though he's really not sure how he gets the words out.
It's been a godsdamn bitch of a day. Fabian's house is mostly exploded. His papa is dead, and he's been wondering distantly whether they'll find enough of him to give a proper burial. His mama- he can't even think of her without feeling like his stomach is boiling. The adrenaline of battle is starting to wear off, his father's eyepatch is stuck to his face with dried blood, and Dayne Blade's hand is in his suit jacket pocket, and what the hell is he even going to do with it, put it in a jar?
Everything is so, so much that it feels like nothing at all; like the world is very far away, and Fabian's just puppetting this facsimile of his body through heroics like a paper knight in a storybook.
Also, Riz Gukgak is standing in front of him with bits of Kalvaxus stuck between his teeth, practically vibrating with enthusiasm as he offers to bite an eye out of a corpse for Fabian to stick in his own head. Fabian vaguely considers that he shouldn't feel quite so touched by the situation, then shrugs the idea off. The Ball has done weirder, more violent shit, and will undoubtedly continue to do weirder, more violent shit. After the interrogation at the arcade-
("We're gonna go slower this time. I'm gonna give you twenty full seconds to tell me, and this time I'm gonna blow your fucking head off-"
Kristen and Fig are trying to play bad-cop weird-cop in unhinged and unnecessarily violent ways that Fabian's papa would surely have been proud of, but Fabian can't tear his eyes away from Riz. Riz, who is eerily still save for his lashing tail, whose arcubus is aimed dead between Biz's eyes, and Fabian doesn't doubt that Riz is ready to kill this man. It's stunning, this level of savagery. Artistry, really. Fabian should ask Riz for pointers.)
-offering to defile a corpse on a friend's behalf really shouldn't be so shocking.
Riz is easily dissuaded from flaying Dayne's face, too full of the adrenaline of victory to press the issue. And then the vanished maidens are back, and Aguefort is asking Kristen to revivify Kalvaxus, and Fabian and the other Bad Kids all get herded back to Strongtower Luxury Apartments, which Fabian complains loudly about while being silently grateful that no one points out he could just get a hotel room.
Fabian sits on the floor in front of the Kugkak's ratty old couch, which has disowned whatever color it originally was in favor of a well-worn beige. He joins Adaine in pointing out the fallacies in the swashbuckling high-adventure film they find on fantasy-cable, with asides to Fig on how the central romance o the film could be made more salacious. He pushes his untouched slice of pizza onto Riz's plate while Riz and Gorgug are busy discussing battle tactics between opponents of unequal size.
Sklonda gathers up as many blankets as she can find from around the apartment to start bedding everyone down in the living room. Sandra-Lynn brings over an armload more. Gilear shows up with a towel, claiming he spilled yogurt on his bed and his blankets are now full of stinging ants, and that's about the point Fabian stops listening.
He cocoons himself in a fluffy white duvet, curls up with his back to the group, and is left alone except for when Kristen trips over him, managing to step on his hand and kick him in the stomach at the same time. Despite this, the room eventually stills. Fabian can hear his party members breathing, slow and deep. Kristen occasionally snorts. Gorgug wheezes. Fig, from the sound of it, kicks Adaine at least twice. Fabian finds himself slowly sinking into oblivion, his thoughts finally slowing, his limbs feeling like ballast.
"Fabian?"
The whisper jolts him awake immediately. His heart is pounding in his ears and his sword is in his hand and thin, cold fingers close gently around his wrist, claws scraping against his pulse.
"Just me," says Riz quickly, "it's- you're okay."
Fabian bites down hard on a laugh. Okay. Sure, yeah, he's okay.
Riz must see something of Fabian's thoughts in his expression, because his face falls, and he lets go of Fabian's wrist, stepping back.
"...Come with me," he says quietly, "let's get you cleaned up."
"I usually shower in the morning, The Ball," says Fabian, putting down the sword, "and usually alone."
Riz rolls his eyes and just turns away, heading for the bathroom. Fabian has to admit, the lack of frantic energy and flustered protests is... intriguing. Enough for him to disentangle himself from the duvet and follow Riz to the bathroom.
He finds Riz up on the counter with his stolen Aguefort Adventuring Academy first aid kit and several threadbare washcloths. He has the sink running, and keeps swiping his fingers under the tap, apparently testing the temperature.
"I'm all good on hit points, The Ball," Fabian reminds him. Riz, apparently satisfied with the temperature of the water, wets a washcloth and wrings it out, careful not to rip it. How does he manage avoid tearing things with those sharp claws?
"Come here," Riz tells him, and Fabian complies without thinking, stepping up to the sink.
Riz stands on the edge of it, and they’re about the same height like this. This close, Fabian can see dark green freckles dusting Riz’s nose and cheeks. There’s a small scar on his lower lip, right where one of his fangs tends to poke out when he’s deep in thought. His eyes are more gold than yellow, threaded through with faint filaments of orange, like strands of fire.
Something damp touches Fabian’s cheek, just below where his right eye used to be, and he startles back so violently his head collides with the cabinet behind him. His lungs are on fire. He feels sick and his hands are shaking and where is his sword, how could he be stupid enough to leave it in the other room-
“Fabian- Fabes, you’re okay- you’re okay, Fabian, it’s fine, you’re safe-”
This time Fabian does laugh, a harsh, rattling thing that rips out of his throat like gauze stripped from a slow-healing wound. He keeps laughing, because it’s a ridiculous notion. Safe? Safe? What the fuck is Riz on?
The laughing makes his lungs hurt even worse, and his face is hot and wet, his vision blurry, and that’s when his legs finally give out.
…
Riz wishes he could say he doesn’t know how long they’ve been sitting on the bathroom floor. There’s a clock on the wall right outside the door, though, and the ticks that sound minutes are a little different than the ones that sound seconds, and if Riz has been counting right, it’s been about eleven minutes of rubbing circles into Fabian’s back and trying to come up with reassuring things to say to him while the other boy trembles and lets out breathy, wracking sobs.
It should be someone else sitting here with Fabian. Riz knows what a panic attack is, of course he does; he’s read dozens of accounts on how they feel, and the kinds of things that help people come down from them. After Adaine had shared that she struggled with them, Riz had put together a panic attack flow-chart to add to her file. He even had Jawbone proofread it.
Riz knows, intellectually, how to help Fabian right now. Riz also knows that he is not a comforting person. He’s too… he’s too sharp. He can’t hold on to people too tightly or he risks scratching them. He’s not good to vent to because he always jumps to looking for a solution when – apparently – all someone wants is to be listened to. He’s too nervous to be an anchor for someone, too small to hold them properly, too ready to offer violence (“do you want me to bite it out for you?”? What the hell was he thinking?), too- too Riz. He’s not good at this.
But Fabian’s never broken down like this in the time Riz has known him, never willingly shown any sort of vulnerability, and it’s late and everyone else is asleep and Riz can’t just go wake someone up and put Fabian’s breakdown on display just so Riz won’t have to deal with it himself, and anyway, that would mean having to walk away from Fabian right now, and he’s not doing that. He isn’t going to do that.
So Riz tries his best. He keeps one hand on Fabian’s back and the other on his shoulder, and tries not to be too twitchy, and keeps talking, mumbling variations of I’m here and it’s okay and you’re safe until Fabian’s body calms down enough to let him breathe.
Sixteen minutes and twenty seconds, and Fabian seems to have tired himself out. He’s breathing shakily, but he’s breathing, and the small, spasming sobs have slowed and slowed and – Riz thinks – stopped. Somewhere around the eight minute mark, Fabian had curled towards Riz and wrapped an arm tight around his middle, hiding his face in Riz’s chest. It’s an awkward angle, obviously, because Riz is literally half Fabian’s height, and even with Fabian on the floor he can’t exactly hold him effectively, but Fabian seems to find it grounding, so. Sure. Riz cautiously pats the top of Fabian’s head.
“...Fabian?”
“...Yeah.”
“I, uh. I’m- I’m really sorry.”
A sniffle, and a deep breath- it stutters on the way in, but it’s a good, full one. Good.
“‘S okay,” Fabian mumbles, and Riz grimaces.
“I just- I should’ve asked before- shit, I’m so sorry, I just thought-”
“A heads up would’ve been nice,” Fabian laughs weakly. He squeezes Riz a little tighter in their awkward, uncomfortable hug, and sighs. “But, um. It- it would honestly also be nice if, um.”
Fabian finally pulls back and wipes his nose on his sleeve, glancing apprehensively towards the door. Riz winces; the crying didn’t do much to clear the blood from Fabian’s face, and the eyepatch is still basically glued on.
“...Do- do you want me to, um. Try that again?”
“Yeah,” Fabian admits, “I- yeah, that’d be good. Just… slower this time?”
Riz grimaces and nods, and Fabian offers him a shaky smile, and Riz experiences the bizarre urge to hug him again. They’re finished with that, though, and Riz isn’t a hugger, and he has a task to do, so instead he waits for Fabian to climb to his feet, then hops back up on the sink, narrowly avoiding knocking over the whole first aid kit in the process. Fabian snorts.
“What’s your dex mod again?” he teases, and Riz glares.
“Shut up.”
“Mhm,” hums Fabian, still looking deeply amused even through the remnants of snot and tears and blood and exhaustion. He steps up to the sink again, and Riz hesitates.
“...if you want, I can- I can leave all this stuff here, and you can-”
“Can’t exactly see what I’m doing,” Fabian jokes, and apparently the way Riz cringes at that is funny, because Fabian presses his lips together and pretend he isn’t trying not to laugh his ass off at his own objectively terrible joke.
“Fabian,” Riz scolds, and Fabian actually lets out an honest-to-gods giggle before burying his face in his hands and reining his amusement back in. Riz watches him carefully, but he doesn’t collapse this time, and he’s still breathing, so- probably not another wave of panic.
Probably.
“It’s my trauma,” says Fabian eventually, dropping his hands and smiling tiredly, “and I get to upset you with it. But- yeah, I- I’m not exactly a healer, The Ball, so if you could- do your field medicine thing, that would be… appreciated.”
Riz nods. He tries to remember how unexpectedly gentle Kristen’s hands are when she heals, how calm and steady Gorgug can be when he feels sure of himself, how warm Fig is when she tells her friends she loves them. Maybe if he concentrates hard enough, he can… not make Fabian feel any worse.
The bar is on the floor by now, but still. He can try.
…
Fabian breathes in and out, and doesn't flinch when the warm, damp washcloth touches his cheekbone. Riz carefully dabs at the dried blood around the cut which… yeah, isn't fully healed. Fabian might have been obfuscating the truth a bit when he told Kristen he was fine on health. His major wounds were all healed up, many of his cuts and scrapes soothed, but one way and another he’d managed to avoid letting anyone near his face. Until now, of course.
Fabian could be doing this himself, he knows that. He also knows that he’d have to… well. He’s grateful that Riz happens to be blocking the mirror, is all.
Riz’s frown lines deepen as he carefully skirts the edge of the cut with damp cloth and dry gauze.
“...I thought you said you were good on hit points,” he murmurs. Fabian rolls his eyes. Eye.
“I am. I’m only a few down, The Ball, it’s not a big deal.”
Riz gives the sort of disapproving huff Fabian had thought Sandra-Lynn had a monopoly on, and Fabian smiles despite himself. “Okay, well, a few down means I’m gonna have to put some disinfectant on this before you take a long rest- but let’s get the eyepatch off first.”
“You could at least buy me dinner before dressing me down like that, The Ball.”
Riz flushes dark teal, pinning his ears back against his curly hair.
“Shut up,” he mutters, “just- this is gonna suck, okay?”
“Stunning bedside manner, I’ll leave a five-star review.”
Riz huffs again, and Fabian does him the great courtesy of shutting up. Riz wets the washcloth under the tap again, and Fabian takes a deep breath.
It’s a surprisingly delicate process. Not that Fabian had been expecting Riz to just rip it off, of course, but- the washcloth is dabbed gingerly all around the eyepatch, and while Riz does warn him ahead of time, Fabian still has to fight not to jump when the tip of a sharp, dexterous claw hooks under the edge of it and begins to delicately separate leather from skin. Riz looks as sure and steady as he did threatening Biz, as he did plummeting from the roof of the gym, sword-first towards Kalvaxus’ skull, and his focus pulls Fabian in just the same way.
That works out, because Fabian doesn’t actually realize the eyepatch is gone until he feels the breath from Riz’s relieved exhale brush against newly uncovered skin.
Fabian suddenly feels very small, very exposed and vulnerable, and he remembers the reason he didn’t take the eyepatch off to let anyone look in the first place.
“Huh,” he mumbles, frowning.
“What?” Riz asks, tossing the eyepatch in the sink.
“It, uh.” Fabian swallows. “It makes me immune to fear, but… then- then why would I have-”
“Had a panic attack?”
“In as many words,” Fabian snips, giving Riz a look. Riz shrugs apologetically.
“It’s not- I mean, you know it’s not something to be ashamed of, it’s a mental-”
“Can we not go down this rabbit-hole right now?” asks Fabian tiredly, because- listen, he already admitted he needs The Ball’s help to get himself cleaned up; that’s more than enough vulnerability for the night, and Fabian does not intend to extend it with a discussion about anxiety disorders.
Riz, thankfully, just shrugs and grabs the antiseptic and some cotton balls. “I don’t know,” he admits, “maybe just the adrenaline? Okay, um- this’ll sting.”
“I killed like twenty people today, The Ball, I think I can take a little- ow-”
Fabian rears back, clapping a hand over his eye socket, which- okay, yeah, that hurts more.
“Sorry!” says Riz, “sorry- I did tell you-”
“Yes, yes,” Fabian huffs, embarrassed, “yes, you did, thank you- just… sorry. Proceed.”
He steps back up to the sink, and steels himself. It’s only a little wound cleaning. He’s Fabian Aramais Seacaster, and it’s only pain.
It’s only pain.
He keeps telling himself that, and is thankful that Riz works quickly.
…
It’s around four in the morning, and Fabian’s finally asleep.
There’s a bloody eyepatch in the sink, a depleted first aid kit under it, and a shit-ton of soaked cotton balls in the bathroom trash, but Fabian's asleep. The white bandages that wrap carefully around his head and over his eye socket (the eye is well and truly gone. Riz had been wondering.) seem to meld with the white of the duvet in the near-dark of the apartment.
Riz doesn’t know if Fabian actually noticed him settling down a couple feet away; he’d seemed (understandably) dazed as he stumbled to his spot on the floor with a mumble of “Goodnight, Riz,” that had been- it had kind of made Riz feel sick to his stomach, but, like. In a good way.
It doesn’t matter if he noticed or not, though; Riz is still wide awake, and will be when the sun comes up. He’ll be up well before the others, making coffee and writing up the details on the end of the Kalvaxus case, and Fabian will have a clean eyepatch next to his pillow when he wakes up.
Maybe Riz can ask if he wants to have a sleepover tomorrow night that’s just the two of them. Seeing as Fabian's house got blown up.