fluvious

“Ah, yes, my point. I remember now: despite all that fumbling two years ago, you’re cool now, The Ball, and people like you. Mazey likes you. So you have to help me get her to fall in love with me.” Fabian continues to drum his fingers aimlessly on the picnic table set up in the courtyard outside Krom’s Diner. Between them, there’s a half-empty strawberry rhubarb milkshake with two striped curly straws sticking out of the tall glass and a half-eaten basket of fries. Fabian snatches a fry and shoves it in his mouth to busy himself, a weak effort to dispel the nervous energy that he’s feeling.

“Man, come on. You know I don’t know anything about love.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, The Ball. Of course you do. You’ve seen movies, haven’t you? Read books? Just help me make a plan on how to woo her, alright? It’ll be easy. Who wouldn’t fall for me after all?”

-

Anger boils in The Ball's stomach, an unwelcome, unfamiliar feeling. He has learned so many new things from his time as a man, not a knight, but he’s not fond of each and every one. Anger is one such discomfort. “I’m sorry.” All he can do is cut himself off before his words get dangerously pointed.

“No, tell me. What has you so worked up?”

“What has me so worked up? You, sire.” The Ball shivers as soon as the words are out of his mouth, a stain on his skin, a tattoo of his past. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Wait, sorry, that wasn’t a demand, that was just… it was…”

The Ball shakes his head more firmly. Every part of this conversation is shredding apart like ribbons dragged through his sharp nails.

-

Just wanted to share another snippet from a sequel piece to "the service of a devoted knight," I hope you enjoy! I'll be able to post the full fic in about a week or so. - If he weren’t muttering intently, reminding himself of his goal, The Ball would have lost consciousness many winding streets ago. “Only in death does duty end. This would be a pitiful grave. Only in death does duty end. This would be—” He falls into ragged coughs, blood spattering from his lips and onto the dirty deck of Leviathan’s darkest alley.

He doesn’t dare brave the main streets. In this state, he would be an easy target for any pirate with poor intentions. It’s not that he carries much of value on him but there is a pressed flower between the pages of a small notebook in his pocket that he would be devastated to lose. He plucked it from the tall grass that encroached upon the beach where Fabian once took him on a picnic and has kept it on his person ever since. He’s still not sure why he picked it from its stem that day but he’d hate to lose it.

There’s also the handful of gold pieces in his belt pouch but those are far less valuable to him.

“Only in death does duty end,” The Ball chokes out. “This would be a pitiful grave.” He leans on his sword, limping slowly down uneven planks and praying for a glimpse of the Bronzed Blade on the docks. This morning, he was desperate to create as much distance between himself and the ship but now, on the brink of death, he just wants to see it one last time.

More specifically, there’s someone on board he’d like to see one last time.

The Ball’s vision turns to a hazy gray and his ears begin to ring. He’s only felt this close to death before once, but he was the very person who inflicted that wound on himself. It feels different this time. The hole in his gut is a violation, caused by a fellow crew member with bitter determination and a hateful look in his eyes. Neddy surely thought the job was done when he fled the scene of the crime but The Ball had other plans.

Fabian grins brightly. “Secrets. I told you one of mine, you tell me one of yours.”

“Oh, uh, you know me. I’m an open book. No secrets here, not one.” Riz feels the heat of the liquor climb his throat. He itches at his collar. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Oh, you’re not disappointing me,” Fabian says easily. “You’re just lying to me.”

-

stolen kisses, pretty lies by fluvious

“The only reason you would kiss me would obviously be if you were trying to pretend we were something we weren’t—like maybe you lied to someone and you need them to believe that we’re dating—so I should’ve played along; that’s my bad, dude. I was just… I mean, shocked is putting it lightly.” Riz laughs lightly.

“I didn’t lie to someone by saying we were dating,” Fabian says carefully. “Because that wouldn’t be a lie.”

Riz’s cheeks turn dark with blood. “Wh—what?”

Fabian studies the strange way that Riz seems instantly flustered. He doesn’t understand it but he does find it charming at the very least and distractingly attractive at most. “Am I not allowed to tell people who my boyfriend is?”

-

Fabian nods, bracing himself for the truth. “I told myself I’d still do what I could to free you, even though things have been so busy, but I haven’t been doing a very good job of it because… well… because some part of me—” He sighs. “Some part of me wanted to keep you around.”

The Ball’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

Fabian slaps the table with both hands and pushes himself to his feet. “Well! I certainly need another drink after that. Go on, finish yours so that I can get you another tankard, as well.”

A sudden thought invades Fabian’s mind. Since when did he start to care so much about what his knight is thinking and feeling? How and why did he become so consumed with his well-being? He can’t think of a time in these past three weeks where he wasn’t considering The Ball’s role in his life. He always finds himself preoccupied with contemplating how to help him regain some sense of personhood. When did he become so obsessed with this knight of his?

“You wish to be free of me?”

Fabian sighs, finding that the answer to that question is much more complicated than it might seem. “I… It’s not that I don’t like you, The Ball. And you’ve certainly added something interesting to my days these last two weeks. Some mystery and intrigue and all that. But… but I worry about you. I don’t want to get rid of you, not exactly. I just want you to be in better circumstances than you are now. Does that make sense?”

The Ball’s eyes lock onto Fabian’s, looking as desperate as he’s ever seen him. “I like my circumstances,” he begs.

Fabian's eyes jolt back to the goblin knight’s. “I don’t— What do you— Why don’t you have a name?” He feels himself getting tied up in the strangeness of the circumstances once more. “How can someone not have a name?”

“I’m not someone. I’m your knight.” He shrugs. “What would I need a name for?”

“You’re not someone? You’re not a person?” Fabian’s mouth returns to its fly-catching position, wide and gaping. “What does that mean?”

“I’m just yours.” The knight shrugs again. Fabian ignores the way that his words clench around his heart with an uncomfortable, unwelcome pressure. “I just serve.”

-

A continuation of my best laid plans, your sleight of hand, a fic about Riz and Fabian, post-canon, falling for each other and developing a QPR. In this sequel, Baron shows up and tries his absolute best to ruin things. (Don't worry, they get a happy ending despite all the angst along the way hehe)

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.”

-