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Kristen isn’t sure if she just missed Gorgug turning into a fucking stoner or if this is a one-time thing, but she’s gotta be honest, hotboxing the back of the Hangvan in some abandoned parking lot isn’t a bad way to spend a Tuesday afternoon.
Gorgug chokes on the smoke, waving the Bloodfast joint away from his face. It ends up in Kristen’s face and she blinks against it, trying to duck out of the way.
“Shit,” Gorgug says simply.
“Shit,” Kristen agrees. She holds out her hand.
When Gorgug passes the joint over, it almost burns her fingers. She doesn’t think she minds. She doesn’t think Gorgug notices either. He’s brushing ashes off his hoodie, trying to avoid tugging his headphone cord too roughly. A breath in, and Kristen watches Gorgug’s tusks shine in the shitty light coming from the ceiling of the van. A breath out, and Kristen wonders who she would be in another universe.
Gorgug Thistlespring is beautiful, she thinks. She remembers once that her dad had seen a half-orc at a restaurant in town after a particularly harrowing church service. They’d preached about loving everyone, even though people who weren’t followers of Helio were scary and wrong. At lunch after, two tables over, there had been a nice half-orc family, quiet and polite, having to keep themselves controlled so they didn’t draw attention to themselves. Her dad saw them. Her dad had a lot to say.
Mac Applebees had gone on a rant to his family about how non-devout non-humans were ruining the town. Kristen was six, and she remembers the whole thing in perfect clarity. Her brothers were too young to really process what was going on—but Kristen? She ate that shit up. It was before she’d realized that her parents had flaws; it was long before she’d started questioning why people gave her family dirty looks in public, especially when her dad went on rants like this. He’d all but delivered his own sermon in the middle of this Fallinel-themed restaurant, causing most of the other patrons to stare at them and sneer and cringe when little Kristen had started clapping.
There had been a little half-orc girl, about her age, sitting at that table. Kristen had never forgotten the look of sadness she’d given Kristen as her perfectly normal half-orc family left in shame. She hadn’t understood why until freshman year when she met Gorgug.
Gorgug’s head dips forward for a moment like he’s praying. Kristen takes another drag, holding it in for far too long. When Gorgug looks up, she lets it go.
"Damn," she says quietly.
"Damn," he agrees, blinking. It looks like he’s having trouble keeping his eyes open.
"We need music," she decides. She offers the joint back; he doesn’t take it until after he’s gotten Zaphriel to start playing some weird indie playlist. The bass is up so high it shakes the seats but Kristen can barely hear the note it’s trying to play. "Is this just fucking white noise or something?"
Gorgug shrugs, finishing the joint himself. His eyes are already starting to lose focus. "I dunno. The Van likes it."
"The Van shouldn’t have an opinion on whale noises," Kristen says, reaching forward to fuck with the dials. "Put on a fucking podcast."
"I can’t focus on a podcast."
"Exactly."
"So what’s the difference?"
When she sits back down she’s almost in his lap. She doesn’t move. He doesn’t seem to mind it either, his arm coming to rest along the back of her seat so it’s nearly around her. Kristen doesn’t get hugged enough, she thinks. She leans into the touch, her head on his shoulder. He’s not that much taller than her. It’s a good height.
Thank you, she thinks. "You have a shitty taste in music," she says. "I’d rather listen to people talking shit."
Gorgug hums, his chin plopping on top of her head. He’s wearing cologne, she thinks. "Okay, Kris."
Kristen doesn’t like that nickname. From anyone else, it would cause a visceral reaction, probably accompanied by a spontaneous vasectomy. But right now she relaxes into his touch and doesn’t think about it too hard.
Gorgug Thistlespring is a gentle giant. He’s solid. He’s a rock in a tornado that just won’t get picked up. Kristen likes being able to depend on him; she likes even more that he doesn’t lose control. He’s a far cry from the kid she met on her first day who got into a fight with Fabian and still tried to give him a tin flower.
She twists in her seat a little, narrowing her eyes at him. He blinks at her a few times. "What?"
"Take your hoodie off. I wanna see your tattoo."
He doesn’t question it, tugging the hoodie off—and taking off his headphones, which is exceptionally rare lately—to reveal a muscle tank and his one tattoo on his arm.
Gorgug is beautiful. She curls further into his side, around his arm, tracing the marks over and over. His skin is warm and smooth and soft and she gets lost in the feeling for a while, staring at the inky tin flower. His breath is even; his arm flexes under her touch every once in a while, giving her a new sensation to trace.
Gorgug is made to be loved. He was raised by gentle hands and patient hearts. Even now, he brings that to everyone he ever makes contact with. And it’s only because he refuses to get out of the boiling pot that he won’t abandon Kristen, she thinks.
Gorgug is too good for her, she thinks. Gorgug is too good for anyone, and yet he doesn’t see it.
She thinks she would have fallen in love with him in another life. If she hadn’t been a lesbian, if he hadn’t been too good for her, if she hadn’t abandoned Helio, and if he hadn’t had a heart of rage, they could have been in love. If Kristen’s rebellious spirit stopped at abandoning the god that chose her, maybe Gorgug could have fixed her. If Kristen was worthy and deserving of love, she thinks that Gorgug would be a very nice man to be in love with.
But it’s like falling in love with your neighbor that’s practically your brother. Even if she wants that connection, if she was willing to give it all up to be 'normal', it could never be. What good is a child’s drawing to preserved and treasured art in a museum? What good is a cup of instant mac and cheese to freshly made pasta and sauce made with love? What good is a bicycle with one wheel to a van with so many memories in its walls that it’s nearly bursting at the seams?
Gorgug Thistlespring is Kristen’s 'what if'. He’s everything she thinks she’s supposed to want, but he’d never be unkind enough to let her forsake herself enough. He’s a great friend to her. He’s everything her parents wanted her to hate. She loves him, in whatever way that means, the same way she loves Jawbone or Adaine or Riz.
His hand flexes in her touch again, the arm around her shoulders pulling her in for something akin to a hug. "I needed this," he says into the quiet of the car. Wasn’t there a podcast? It must have stopped a while ago. Kristen runs a nail down the stem of the flower. "It’s kinda nice to just…relax."
You’re going to make someone very happy one day, she thinks. "I like your cologne," she says.
The first day they met, they died together. She remembers it as if through a haze. Gorgug never deserved death. She wonders if he thinks the same about her.
"I like your hair," he responds. He gently pulls one of her strands of hair from her ponytail. She wishes he would be rougher with her, but he won’t. She wishes she could love him, but she can’t.
I love you, she lies. "I wanna shave it," she says.
"That would be fun. I have scissors."
"I can’t shave with scissors."
"You can. It’s just a little dangerous." He pulls another strand.
"Shrimp jump dangerous?"
"Nothing like that."
"Then I don’t fucking want it."
His laugh reverberates in his chest. She feels it resonate in her own.
Kristen only has one tattoo. She has Tracker’s name on her neck in a small script that she covers with makeup more religiously than she prays to her goddess; Gorgug, meanwhile, has his flower and some Celestial script up and down his arm, and she thinks that she puts what people want to see on her own skin but Gorgug puts who he really is on his. She wishes she were brave like Gorgug; she wishes she were loved like Gorgug; she wishes, so desperately, that she could love Gorgug more than just as a brother.
He’d never let her. She looks up at him. His eyes are still slightly unfocused. He smiles at her. Kristen feels the void in her chest rot a little more.
"We’ve kissed," she announces. He blinks.
"We have."
"Can I kiss you again?" She blinks back at him, taking his face in her hands. "I just…I don’t know, man, you mean a lot to me."
She sees his eyebrow twitch like he’s trying to raise it, but it doesn’t work. Gorgug shifts just enough to tilt his head at her.
"You mean a lot to me too. We don’t have to kiss if that’s—"
"I just need to try something," she says desperately.
"Okay," he allows, and that’s all she needs.
"Never mind," she says softly, running a thumb along his cheekbone. "I just needed to know you’d let me."
"Are you fucking…are you trying to play mind games with me right now?" he asks. He’s not mad. He’s never mad at her. Kristen doesn’t deserve to be his friend.
"No," she says. "Maybe. I wish I wasn’t a lesbian."
"Then you wouldn’t be our Kristen."
"Would you still be my friend if I was straight?"
"If you were straight," Gorgug says, curling further against the seat. "If you were straight," he begins again, and then again. "If you were straight, would you have given everything up the way you did? Saved Cassandra? Who would you really be? I like this Kristen." He pokes her shoulder, blinking slowly again as he gathers his thoughts. "This Kristen is my friend. I’d probably be friends with a straight Kristen, but I don’t know if she’d be friends with me."
"My parents hate you," she announces. I love you, she thinks.
"Your parents hate everyone. That doesn’t make me special."
"I’m glad you found your dad."
Gorgug blinks again. "…you’re connecting threads I’m not, I think?"
"I love you," Kristen says, squishing his face so his lips are pursed. "I wish I could love you in any other way. But you’re the best brother I ever had, you know that? I’d put on real underwear for you. Do you want some salsa?"
"The Bloodfast has to be wearing off," Gorgug decides, sitting up. "Welcome back to reality, Kristen Applebees."
"We should put you in a thong."
"I’d rather you be straight," Gorgug replies, reaching for the door. Kristen feels a warmth in her chest and she leans forward, latching onto him for a hug. He returns it as long as she’s holding on; when she lets go, so does he, and they smile at each other for a while.
"Wanna smoke some more and go get some pretzels from the mall?"
"Or some cottage cheese," Kristen hums, hopping into the front seat over the console. "Stuffed inside a pretzel."
"A la mode," Gorgug agrees, grinning at her as he starts to roll another joint.
I love you, she thinks. "Beam me up, Gorgie," she says.