Chapter Text
It’s Adaine’s fault.
That’s what Fabian keeps saying, of course. Fabian is a sourpuss about it, but he keeps blaming Adaine, because “You’re the one who made her, after all,” forgetting that K2 didn’t vanish because of Adaine’s interference but instead because of Cassandra and Ankarna.
Anyway. Riz knows everyone’s getting sick of it, but that’s his best friend, so he plays along a little.
“Have you considered,” Adaine snips one afternoon, cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, “being actually helpful and not just criticizing our past endeavors?”
“I have considered it,” Fabian says. He’s leaning against the doorframe, inspecting his cuticles. Riz looks up from his perch on the desk, grinning a toothy grin at Fabian until he looks up and returns a patient smile. “But it’s easier like this, given that I didn’t have anything to do with her creation in the first place. And I’m not the one who lost her.”
“Wasn’t she pregnant?” Gorgug asks. He’s bent over something at the desk next to Riz, something mechanical and shiny that he’s been fiddling with for a few days. “And wasn’t that your fault?”
“You know what? Maybe it was,” Fabian says flippantly. He rolls his one visible eye. The movement shifts the eyepatch a bit, and he watches Fabian fumble to put it back in place—it’s as much nervous habit as it is necessity now. “But I stand by what I said. I don’t see why I have to help track down K2. Is it not enough for me to stand here and be stunning?”
“Would help if you actually were,” Fig grins. She’s on Adaine’s bed with Kristen, helping sort components into little piles; Riz is mostly sure Adaine didn’t need them sorted, but he also knows Kristen and Fig have fidgety hands and she probably just needed them feeling useful but out of the way while she works. He has to admire it, if he’s being honest. Adaine is quick, sharp wits and brilliant ideas, and Riz has always admired that about her.
(He’s also vaguely unsettled most of the time at the idea that she can manipulate all of them the way she does. She doesn’t do it to Riz often, but he’s caught it a few times—especially the last two years or so of college, when she leaned into asking Riz to sabotage other students by making it feel as though it was his idea, until halfway through he realized what was occurring. By then, it was always too late, but they made the grade and to graduation even with Kristen’s abysmal scores, so.
Perhaps it was worth it, in the end. Their party didn’t collapse, after all.)
“Be nice to Fabian,” Kristen says. Her voice is still wrecked from the past week she’s spent working with Adaine trying to divine where K2 might have gone. The problem is that she’s on a different realm, something Cassandra intentionally failed to mention for the first hundred and fifty hours of their search.
(Riz swore he’d never enact violence against a god or goddess again after the events with Buddy Dawn, but he’d come pretty damn close with that.)
Most of them are a solid twenty-two now, having just recently graduated college—Fabian is the standout at twenty-four, but he’s doing as well as the rest of them, enjoying their youth. Besides, Riz reasons, Fabian is going to live for ages. Two years doesn’t make that much difference in the grand scheme of things.
Adaine has stripped herself of her Jacket of Useful Things, sitting on the floor in a tank top while she prepares the pages for her verbal components. She’s made up some spell to try to track K2 down in whatever realm she’s ended up in. Riz has tried to understand it, but the magic is beyond him. Everyone else seems to have some understanding, at least, so he’ll trust them on that. It’s something he can use—it’s just not his strong suit, and it never has been. He prefers the physical options. Like guns. Or teeth.
“This is me being nice,” Adaine replies, glancing over her shoulder at Kristen. “You should tell him to be nicer to me.”
“Okay. Fabian, be nice—”
“You should tell Adaine to be better at magic.”
“Okay, Adaine, you should—”
“You should tell him to shut up.”
“Okay, Fabian, you should—”
“Guys,” Riz says, amused. His tail flicks nearby to Gorgug’s arm, making sure not to touch his project again—he’s made that mistake too many times. “Come on. Don’t do this to each other. Or Kristen.”
Fabian sighs dramatically. “Very well, The Ball, but only because you asked so nicely.”
Adaine gives Fabian a glance with narrowed eyes, then returns to her magic. For a moment, Riz considers being worried—then he sees her smiling down at the floor and relaxes. Everyone’s okay. Of course everyone is okay.
They’ve been working on finding K2 for the past three years. Gorgug had asked idly during their sophomore year in college; at senior year, they’re closer than they ever have been, but Riz knows no endeavor like this comes without a price. For a while, he’d been trying to figure out what it could be. Adaine’s magic seems fine; Kristen doesn’t seem any less chaotic or more high-elven; there were no physical or mental hurdles, he doesn’t think, so by all accounts it should all have been okay. It’s just…well, Riz is good at seeing details, but sometimes it takes him a while to see the bigger picture.
And the bigger picture is that this is the only thing holding them together.
Riz swallows hard and stares down at his claws, fiddling with one of the ones about to shed—no, he knows he isn’t supposed to, but he does it anyway, and he sees Gorgug’s pointed, multi-pierced ear flick in his direction at the small noise. He nudges Riz without looking up, used to taking care of Riz the way he has ever since they met, worried about his well being and health.
“Gonna fuck up your nail beds again,” Gorgug mumbles.
Riz shrinks down, stuffing his hands in his lap again as his tail flicks irritably.
This is what he’s noticed. Kristen and Gorgug’s friendship is still going strong, but it’s about the only one. Fabian is much more standoffish, spending quite a lot of his time at the gym or the dance studio in preparation for auditions, and he’s always so stressed it’s like he’s forgotten how to be a good friend anymore. Fig’s temper has also spiked, though it’s probably just a side effect from only really spending significant amounts of time between the Bottomless Pit and Leviathan. Then, there’s Fig, Adaine, and Fabian, and the way all of their newer elven instincts are clashing—none of them can be the sole provider without knocking the other two off their thrones, so it’s a tense little dance. Not to mention the way that interacts with how Gorgug wants to take care of them all, and Kristen has only picked Gorgug’s side because they smoke together and they died together, but it’s clear none of this really makes sense to Kristen at all. It’s like she doesn’t see the webs behind the scenes; maybe she doesn’t.
Gods, Riz envies her for that.
And then there’s him. With everyone else sufficiently busy or snippy, he’s taken to expanding his detective agency and taking on more and more cases just so he has plausible excuses when he’s fed up of listening to the way Adaine dresses Gorgug down for having the TV volume too loud or the way Kristen rolls her eyes at every anecdote Fabian tries to tell.
But that’s the other thing. Riz sees the crack, crack, cracks in the foundation. He sees the potential problems, the fights, the echoes of what their future might be—and he knows Adaine sees them too, because sometimes she steps in and stops a fight before it devolves, or she begs one of them to be kind, or she apologizes before she’s even done anything wrong.
She just doesn’t do it all the time.
So. The tides are turning, and Riz is sitting in the eye of the hurricane, watching everything start to erode around him, and he can’t do much, and he thinks that maybe, their party and their friendships are the cost for finding K2.
(He won’t give Adaine a reason why he’s stopped helping her as much.
Crack.
He won’t give Kristen an explanation for why he goes quiet when she’s brought up.
Crack.
He won’t tell Fabian why K2 anecdotes don’t make him laugh anymore, and he won’t encourage Gorgug to make jokes about her, and he won’t agree loudly with Fig that she probably needs to be sequestered in the Bottomless Pit when they find her, because doing any of that would mean admitting they will find her, and with every passing day Riz so desperately, desperately wishes they won’t.
Crack. Crack. Crack.)
“We should be ready for this weekend,” Adaine says eventually, sitting up and cracking her neck in one direction, then the other. “As long as everyone has every kind of plane shifting spell available, I can track her down, and then someone else can get us there.”
Riz’s tail thumps again, louder than he means for it to, and every one of them looks up at him—all nine eyes of his friends, in varying levels of concern.
“Riz?” Kristen asks. “What is it?”
Riz curls even tighter around his knees, his tail wrapping around one of his ankles. “Should…I don’t know. You know what, never mind—”
“Riz, I’m not going to keep doing this with you,” Adaine says shortly. “If you have a problem, just say it.”
Riz sighs. “…I don’t know that all of us should go. What if something happens, and we need someone to bring everyone else back? I just—I think we need to split into teams or something.”
Fig scoffs, but Kristen’s face falls into worry. “That’s…not a half bad idea,” she says, turning to Fig; Fig scoffs even louder this time. “No, seriously. We don’t know what we might run into or where we’re going. It would be smart to have a base of operations.”
“Okay, so, who’s going?” Fabian asks, readjusting against the doorframe as he appraises Riz with one critical eye. “You, I presume?”
Riz makes a small face. “…I don’t know. I—I mean, if we have to sneak around, sure, but what if you need—” He gestures wildly, his hand bumping into Gorgug’s shoulder, so he starts there. “—someone who’s really nice? And with Gorgug and our Kristen—honey and flies, right? So probably him. Unless she’s gone evil, in which case—”
“—I have an axe,” Gorgug finishes for him, spinning in his chair. “Okay, yeah. What if we go somewhere she’s pretending to be the real Kristen?”
“We can’t have two of them, in that case,” Riz agrees, relieved. “So maybe Kristen stays back, and—”
“This is insane,” Fabian grumbles, looking away.
“Yeah,” Fig says. It’s the first time they’ve agreed on something in weeks; both of them look at each other, then away, uncomfortable. “We all go, or we don’t go at all.”
Adaine, however, is frowning. “…I might be with Riz,” she admits slowly. “I mean—I don’t know. Having someone work from two ends would be a lot nicer. I’d feel better about it, anyway. Yes, you know what, I’m with Riz. Kristen is our next most powerful caster. She should stay. And in that case, Riz, you might need to stay too. Send us with the information we need, but you stay behind and sort of…survey everything?”
“Yeah,” Riz nods. “Yeah, yeah, I can—”
He doesn’t notice Fig getting up until she’s grabbing her bass and throwing it over her shoulder. Adaine’s face sours as she looks up.
“What’s your deal?”
“Kristen’s the most powerful caster,” Fig repeats. Her tail is starting to flick irritably, taking on that slow-coal-burning-red color it tends to when she’s really upset. Usually, it’s black, unless she’s so mad it bursts into flames, or red when she’s simply crying. “So what the fuck am I here for? Or Fabian, for that matter?”
“Why don’t we wait and see where she is,” Riz protests, unfurling entirely and hopping down from the desk. He’s a lot shorter than all of his friends, and Fig—especially with her platform combat boots—towers over him. “We don’t need to make decisions like this right now—”
“I’ve made a decision,” Fig says loudly, stomping past him towards the door. “I’m going on tour after this, and none of you can stop me, and none of you are invited. We find K2, and then I’m done adventuring with you assholes for a while.”
(Crack.)
“No,” Riz whispers, his tail going stiff and straight up behind him. “No, Fig, hold on, you don’t—”
“No, no,” Fabian says flippantly. “I’m with her. What are we except pretty faces, hm? You four can clearly handle it.”
“If Fig even knows what her real face looks like anymore,” Gorgug says under his breath, turning in the chair back to the desk again. “Besides, didn’t we agree you weren’t the pretty boy, Fabian?”
Fabian makes an offended noise, and the whole thing is starting to make Riz feel dizzy with fright.
“Guys, hold on—”
“You guys are being rash,” Gorgug says, sounding almost bored. For a moment, Riz is taken aback—he sounds a little like Mary Ann, a name he hasn’t thought about in years. They’d dated in high school. Riz never realized how many of her mannerisms Gorgug had picked up until now. “Just stay.”
“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you,” Fabian spits. “Mr. I’m-Too-Cool-To-Care-About-Anything, what do you know? Everyone loves you.”
“Sure,” Gorgug shrugs. “I’m not wildly emotional and someone who makes stupid decisions. And—” He holds up his finger to interrupt Fabian, who had begun to reply. “—I don’t just follow the crowd. I care about stuff, I just don’t let it consume me, unlike some people.”
Fig’s tail bursts into flames behind her. Adaine snorts on the floor, but when Riz turns to look, Kristen looks as horrified as he does. He fumbles in his pocket, but he doesn’t have any copper wire to spare, so he can’t ask her anything—the same thought seems to cross her mind, and then a grim determination crosses her face.
Gods help them all when Kristen gets angry. It doesn’t happen often, and it doesn’t happen enough, in Riz’s opinion, but he scrambles back onto the desk as she pushes off the bed and into the center of the room.
“Guys,” she says loudly. All of them quiet and turn to her. “I don’t—I’m not letting us fall apart. I’m not doing it. I don’t care. Here’s what we can do—me and Riz will stay back, and the four of you go wherever the hell she is and bring her home or kill her, if you’re so inclined, and then we’re all going to sit down with Jawbone and have a nice, long conversation about what the fuck any of our problems are with each other. Got it?”
The fire on Fig’s tail slows to a simmer, then poofs out, though it’s still a bright red. It curls up into her hand so she can hold onto it. It’s not something she does often, but Riz has seen her hold her tail after fights with her mom or after a particularly nasty review about her music. It doesn’t make him feel great that she’s wringing it between her hands now, twisting her tail around her fingers until the lanceolate tip is all that remains untangled. It’s probably a really, really bad sign, in fact.
But she nods slowly, and Fabian looks away, though he seems shamed into agreement as well.
“Great,” Kristen says, pushing her hair back from her forehead. “Fucking—brilliant. Okay. I’m going to my room, just—I’ll see you guys Saturday.” She heads to the door, making a point to duck around Fig instead of push her.
“Three in the afternoon,” Adaine calls after her, gathering her materials without looking up. “Sharp, Kristen! Not three fifteen!”
“I know!”
(Crack.)
Riz’s own tail is still stiff, and he watches as if through molasses as Fig runs in the direction of the door to Leviathan and Fabian storms off downstairs to his motorbike that’s never liked Riz anyway, so he really should have seen it coming that his best friend would eventually come to hate him too. Gorgug halfheartedly helps Adaine clean up, then he gathers his own things and starts towards the door, only pausing when he realizes Riz isn’t behind him.
“Riz, you want a ride home?”
“Oh,” he says, blinking. Adaine spares him a single glance, but she doesn’t seem inclined for him to stay or leave, so he just grabs his briefcase. “I’d, uh, appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks.”
They leave Mordred in mostly silence. Riz does not look behind him in the rearview mirror.
He doesn’t.
(Crack.)