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It's been about a year and a half since the Bad Kids graduated from Aguefort and went their separate ways. They're still an adventuring party, technically, but Kristen needed some time to establish her church in Elmville, and Gorgug was offered a cool artificing internship in Bastion City, so everyone decided that they'd take a gap year or two before applying to adventuring colleges.
And that's how Fig ends up moving into a small studio apartment in Bastion City, working part-time as a barista to make ends meet while playing gigs as a freelance bassist in the evenings. It's been maybe three months of this, and Fig has met a lot of really cool musicians, has gone to a lot of really cool parties, but she misses her friends. There’s certainly something to be said about being surrounded by people and still feeling completely isolated. Maybe she’ll write a song about it— something heavy and fast, with screaming lyrics about being unlovable, miserable, and misunderstood. She won’t do that. But breaking up with Ayda six weeks ago really did not help with the isolation.
So when Gorgug hears from Adaine (who hears it from Kristen) (who hears it from Fig) that Fig is feeling lonely, he does what he can to help in their absence. Which is to say, he starts looking for days that he doesn’t have to work late. On these days, he makes his way to whatever bar Fig is playing at and orders a (usually non-alcoholic) drink. He tries to sit where she can see him, revels in the way her face lights up when she finds him, and selfishly savors every look she shoots his way. He starts looking forward to it, even. Like any good friend would.
After her set, Fig usually joins him for a drink (sometimes two or three), and when it starts to get late, Gorgug usually offers to drive her home (or walk with her to the subway), and sometimes Fig says yes, and on those days Gorgug feels something like pride swell in his chest. The times that she doesn’t, he makes sure to put on a smile when he has to tell her that it’s time for him to head home. He usually has work in the morning, after all.
All of this makes Fig feel selfish. She knows Kristen must have said something to the others, and knows Gorgug is showing up because he’s worried about her. She’s always happy to see him, though. It reminds her of when she used to play for him in high school, figuring out a new song at the Thistlespring Tree (or in the middle of the hallway in between classes). Fig vividly remembers sitting next to Gorgug at lunch, scribbling lyrics in a tattered spiral notebook on a red cafeteria table, while he seemed to physically (emotionally) shield her from all the noise and chaos surrounding them. Somehow, Gorgug has always been able to tell exactly what Fig needs to feel supported, and always finds a way to show up for her when she needs him. And Fig feels like she doesn’t deserve it.
When she’s feeling especially selfish, Fig lets Gorgug take her home. She lets herself imagine kissing him goodbye at the train station, or in front of her apartment complex. Sometimes, she lets herself imagine asking him to come in with her, and then immediately shuts down that fantasy and kicks herself for not keeping a tidier apartment. Then kicks herself again for fantasizing about her friend in that way, without his consent, when there isn’t a single universe in which he could want her like that.
Fig is drowning in her own artistic melancholy, like any good songwriter, and Gorgug is only being a good friend. Fig knows she can't let herself pull Gorgug under the water just to keep herself afloat—it wouldn't be fair to anyone if they both drown in her mess—but Gorgug makes Fig feel loved when she feels unlovable, and Fig is selfish. Still, there isn’t a single universe in which he could want her the way that she craves, so Fig lets herself imagine it, but cannot let herself accept his tenderness too willingly.
This all becomes a habit. So much so that Gorgug starts texting Fig on nights that he knows that he won’t be able to make it to her shows, and Fig pretends it doesn’t make her want to stay home. Gorgug pretends that he doesn’t mind going home without getting to see her.
On one such night that Gorgug isn’t in the crowd, Fig goes home immediately after her set, puts on a sad playlist, and drinks far too much wine alone in her room. The next morning when her alarm goes off, she slides out of her bed and onto the floor, melting into her carpet, and curses that she forgot to charge her crystal. Fig’s head hurts like a handaxe lodged in her skull, and she considers calling in sick to work (before she remembers that her rent is due next week). Fig drags herself into her work clothes and out the door, and finds herself hungover in a coffee shop, making lattes for strangers.
This morning, like many previous mornings, Gorgug finds himself out on a coffee run for his coworkers, on his way to make the artificing workshop a little less miserable. He doesn’t think too much about why he’s been given directions to a different coffee shop than usual. If he’s honest, he doesn’t think too much about anything these days, too distracted by all the things that he isn’t thinking about. (All the things that he’s only thinking about.) (Thoughts that are all messy braids and warm skin and kind eyes.)
When Gorgug walks into the shop to pick up his team’s online coffee order, he doesn’t make eye contact with the staff right away. He doesn’t look up until he’s pulled up the online order on his crystal and found the counter where he’s meant to pick up the drinks. When he finally does, he sees Fig Faeth, who he has very decidedly not been thinking about (at least not more than he’s supposed to be thinking about), and he’s completely caught off-guard.
“Oh, um… Hey,” he says, eloquently. Fig looks like she slept in her makeup, and Gorgug is struck by the overwhelming desire to have been there to wipe it off for her before bed.
Fig blinks. “Hey.” Navigating this disruption to her workflow feels like wading through molasses. Gorgug looks honest and open and beautiful, as he usually does, and Fig’s head still hurts, and all of it is making it monumentally more difficult to think.
“I didn’t know you worked here,” Gorgug says normally, thinking normal thoughts.
“Now you do,” she says.
He nods, “Now I do.”
Fig’s apron has a little enamel pin of a rat with Farrah Fawcett whiskers. It’s very cute. She’s very cute. Gorgug opens his mouth to say something (something normal, not about how cute she is) (but not something stupid, like how he wishes he could’ve made her breakfast this morning), but Fig is already busy pouring another drink, so he smiles goodbye and thinks about nothing at all as he grabs the coffees. Back in the workshop, Gorgug spends the rest of his day thinking about smudged makeup and cute pins and an apron that probably smells like coffee.
. . . So this, too, becomes a habit. So much so that Gorgug feels guilty for taking advantage of Fig’s loneliness to spend so much time with her. Soon, Gorgug is spending most hours of most days looking forward to getting to see Fig again, and he does his best to be normal about it, but he still feels guilty. Fig needs him to be a good friend for her, after she broke up with her girlfriend and moved to a new city. Liking her like that would violate the trust she has in him as a friend, and Fig doesn’t deserve to be forced to deal with Gorgug’s feelings on top of everything else she has going on. He can’t do that to her.
But Fig is just so wonderful. She feels her feelings so intensely; she isn’t afraid to be loud or angry or take up space, and Gorgug can’t help but be in awe of her. Fig radiates energy like a star, brightening every room she enters, and he has no choice but to be pulled into her orbit. Gorgug can’t help but want to love and take care of her.
It becomes a ritual for them. Every night that Gorgug can’t make it to a performance, he finds her at work the next day, orders himself a hot chocolate, and asks how the gig went. Fig, in turn, drinks in Gorgug’s attention, and it does little to quench the loneliness inside of her. She is selfish, and wants more of Gorgug than she deserves.
Over time, Fig finds herself drinking just a little too much after each show, leaning just a little too far into Gorgug’s space. Gorgug, of course, lets her, and acts like he doesn’t notice when Fig touches his arm one too many times. Or when their knees bump into each other for the sixth time in a row. Or when Fig is clearly acting drunker than she is (or getting drunker than she should) as an excuse to lean into him while they walk. He even finds himself looking forward to it. (Like any good friend would.)
Spring comes around, and jasmine flowers start to bloom, filling the streets with a sweet fragrance that tastes like warm evenings and starry skies and the beginning of summer. Gorgug’s internship begins to near its end, and he keeps visiting Fig. Together, they keep going home to separate buildings and spending their hours heavy with hope and heavier with the fear of ruining something pure. On a Friday or a Saturday or on some night that Gorgug either didn’t have work in the morning or didn’t care, when Fig is feeling incredibly selfish and incredibly tired, they fall out of this pattern…
As soon as the group she’s playing for finishes their set, Fig packs up her bass and rushes to Gorgug. She pulls him onto his feet and drags him to dance, and Gorgug follows her, a little clumsy but mostly keeping up. (He'd follow her off the edge of existence if she asked). They jump and sway and dance together to the too-loud music that the next band plays, until they’re both sweaty and out of breath, and glancing at each other like the antidote for longing lies in the way that flesh reacts with music.
This is when Fig grabs Gorgug by the arm and leads him to sit at the bar. When the bartender comes by, Gorgug interrupts Fig to order drinks for both of them, familiar with her usual choices, and grins at her.
Fig protests, “What if I wanted to try something new?”
“Did you?” He has to raise his voice to be heard over the music.
“No.”
Gorgug laughs, so Fig laughs, too, and they keep making each other laugh until they get their drinks.
“You don’t have to pay for me, you know,” Fig tells Gorgug after she orders a second drink.
“What?” He shouts.
“I said, you don’t have to pay! ”
Fig sees rather than hears Gorgug say “Oh.” Then she sees him shrug and hears him shout “I want to.”
“Why?”
Gorgug leans closer and puts his hand to his ear to signal that she needs to speak louder.
“WHY? ”
He just smiles and shrugs his shoulders again. Fig feels butterflies flutter in her stomach and studies him from behind her glass. She feels guilty for letting him pay, since she knows he's doing it out of pity (she won't entertain the possibility that he's not), but Gorgug, loose-limbed and smiling, leaves no room for argument. Hair tousled from dancing, dark eyes reflecting the light of the bar around them, he is gorgeous. He leans on the bar, and Fig does her best not to stare at how his forearms rest on the waxed wooden surface, or how long his legs are, or the way the dim lighting illuminates the freckles across his nose and cheekbones.
She fixates on the exact size and shape of his fingers, and how they curl around his glass to hold it in the air. She examines the calluses and creases in his skin, and notes all the little scars and blemishes from injuries that didn’t heal perfectly. She could study his hands for hours. The music in the room has slowed down for a moment, and Fig imagines how Gorgug’s hand would feel pressed to her waist in a slow dance. Or how they would feel lifting her up and spinning her in the air, or carrying her (in a white dress) over the threshold of their (imaginary) home.
She chugs the rest of her drink and orders another, because she would really rather not be thinking about any of that right now, and more alcohol might let her ignore it (or do something about it).
Ever since he got too drunk at one of Fabian’s parties and got in a fight that broke some furniture, Gorgug has been very careful not to drink too much. He knows that he’s big , and thoroughly familiar with rage, and he knows that that’s intimidating to others. He’s afraid of getting wasted and losing his temper, or his inhibitions, and breaking something that he can’t fix with a mending spell, that’s all. So he drinks only enough liquor to force himself to relax, and focuses on Fig (because he could never be mad at Fig).
Gorgug is just drunk enough to soften the edges of his thoughts, and to make pretending not to notice the way Fig keeps touching him a little more difficult. She’s just a little farther into his space than she needs to be (their knees are touching), and Gorgug reminds himself, repeatedly, that he needs to be normal for Fig’s sake. She needs someone she can lean on right now, and forcing her to deal with his feelings while she’s in a vulnerable state would make him a horrible friend. So if he cares about Fig (which he does) (a lot), Gorgug cannot, under any circumstances, let her know that he’s thought about her (is thinking about her) in a non-platonic way. The alcohol makes it easier to breathe next to her but harder to pretend not to notice the way she brushes against him. Their knees are touching, and Fig keeps finding reasons to touch his arms or his shoulder or his chest. Gorgug catches himself staring at her more than once, and cannot stop thinking about where their knees are touching.
Alcohol always makes Fig louder and more touchy and more talkative than when she’s sober. Everything that Gorgug admires about her is enhanced, for better or for worse, like she’s still Fig , but more intensely. At some point, Fig grabs Gorgug’s hand and moves it closer to her face to examine his fingernails, and Gorgug distantly thinks that it must be for better and for worse that she’s like this. Fig is saying something about nail polish, and the shape of his nail beds—something that Gorgug really does not notice because he is too busy staring at his hand in hers. A minute later, he hears Fig stop talking, and realizes too late that she’s asked him a question and he’s still staring at their hands. He looks up to see that she’s caught him.
Fig catches his eyes lingering for too long and Gorgug sees it interrupt her entire train of thought. There is a beat of silence, and he prepares to apologize and pull his hand back and blame the alcohol, but Fig isn’t letting go of him. Gorgug looks at her like a deer caught in the headlights: frozen, scared, confused, and waiting for that inevitable world-stopping, bone-breaking, life-ending crash that’s sure to happen any second. Then he sees something change (or break) behind her eyes.
“Have you seen my apartment?” she asks.
“I don’t think so.” Gorgug is caught off-guard, and something like anticipation, or fear, fills his lungs.
Fig downs the rest of her drink. “Do you want to? Tonight?”
“Sure.” The word is out of his mouth before he knows what he’s saying. Gorgug knows she might not be asking what he wants her to be asking, and that he’ll feel like an idiot, but Fig is honest and pretty and holding his hand, and he could never say no to her.
So Gorgug pays their tab (pretends not to wince a little at the total) and Fig grabs her bass, and they make their way out of the building. Gorgug doesn’t quite know what’s happening, and his heart hasn’t stopped racing for a second, but Fig hasn’t let go of his hand, so he lets his feet guide them to the subway station and tries not to panic.
As they walk along the familiar route, he lets Fig sway and fall into him as much as she wants. Her bass guitar is slung over her shoulder, and keeps prodding him in the arm (until he takes it and carries it for her). The sun has set but the air is still warm, and the smell of jasmine flowers wafts through the streets as they make their way towards the potential ending of their friendship.
Stepping into the train with her is where Gorgug officially leaves the comfort of the routine they’ve built over the last few weeks. Fig does not seem to notice or acknowledge this difference. As soon as they sit down, she fully slouches into his side, happy and giggly and drunk. Gorgug lets out a breath, and with it a little bit of the tension he’s been carrying. Wherever this goes, Fig at least doesn’t seem to hate him for liking her. He knows she’s drunk, but he really (really) hopes she means it, the way she looks at her fingers laced in his and then looks at him and smiles like everything is right in the world.
He follows her into her apartment building, then into her studio apartment, and lets her pull him to her too-small bed, which she collapses into. She then rolls over as far as she can to make room for Gorgug, and pats the too-small space next to her. Fig’s room is messy, as to be expected. There are band posters and scribbled music lyrics all over the walls, a pile of laundry in the corner of the room, and an empty wine bottle (or two) on the floor.
Gorgug doesn’t know if he’s ever been this nervous in his entire life, and he’s done a lot of nerve-wracking things. He sets down her bass, takes a deep breath, and sits down next to her. He lets her pull him down so that he’s lying next to her, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, both staring at the ceiling, Gorgug half falling off the bed. They lie like this for a while, mostly in silence, and Gorgug never stops feeling his heart thump in his chest.
Time passes slowly, and when he thinks Fig has fallen asleep, Gorgug sits up, intending to turn off the lights and move to her sofa. Fig grabs the back of his shirt to stop him. He turns to face her.
“Have you ever thought about… us?” She asks in a small voice.
Gorgug’s heart pounds. “What do you mean?”
Fig makes a sort of large, sweeping gesture in the air, which Gorgug interprets to mean “all of it”. She starts to say something, then stops, then starts again. “You know.”
“I don’t, actually.” His tone of voice falls just short of a casual, light-hearted remark. He doesn’t want to presume.
Fig pauses, in a silence that feels either troubled or pained. “Nevermind then.”
Gorgug stares at her. She doesn’t look at him. There’s another moment of silence. He thinks about how much he’s admired her ever since he met her, how his brain short circuits every time she rests her head on his shoulder. How he didn’t realize how big of a hole she left in his life until she was back in it.
“I’m sorry for dragging you—” Fig starts.
“I have thought about it,” Gorgug interrupts, “kind of a lot, honestly”.
Fig stares, wide-eyed. “About us?”
“Mhm.”
“You and I?”
“Yeah.”
“Doing what?”
Gorgug shrugs. He intentionally does not look at Fig. Really, he does everything in his power not to think about being alone in Fig’s bedroom, with Fig, who is staring at him like he’s about to change her life.
“I dunno.” He figures that he’s not getting out of this any time soon, and lets himself fall back onto the bed. “Just being together I guess. I like spending time with you.”
Gorgug feels Fig staring at him like he isn’t real, and takes a terrifying leap. “I like you. And I like feeling close to you.” He keeps it ambiguous enough to still play it off, just in case this isn’t what Fig meant at all, just in case he's making a horrible—
Fig is kissing him. Fig is kissing him. Fig is kissing him . Gorgug quickly moves a hand to cup her face and kisses back.
They break apart breathless, and Fig is laughing. She falls back into her mattress. Gorgug does not know what's happening and cannot think.
“We’re so stupid,” Fig says, smiling.
Fig is smiling, so Gorgug smiles. “What?”
Fig just shakes her head, still smiling. Gorgug does not know what’s happening, but he does know that Fig had at least three drinks. “We should sleep,” he says.
Fig just hums, eyes closed.
Gorgug sits up again, intending on following through with his original plan of sleeping on the sofa. The movement startles Fig.
“What’re you doing?”
“Moving to your sofa. There’s not enough space for both of us here.” He gestures to his precarious position on the edge of the bed, and doesn’t mention any of the other reasons why sharing a bed is maybe a bad idea.
“Yes there is!” Fig protests by flattening herself against the wall and pulling Gorgug to lie more solidly on her bed. When he’s settled into the middle of her mattress, she flops over to lie half on top of him, curling into his side.
Gorgug is not unfamiliar with physical contact, but Fig’s skin is remarkably hot against his side, and very distracting. “I still think it would be more comfortable if I just moved…”
“I don’t want you to.”
“...Okay.”
So Gorgug ends up in Fig’s too-small bed, feet falling off the end, with Fig curled up half on top of him, both still wearing their day clothes. Gorgug does not get to wash the makeup off Fig’s face because she promptly falls asleep on top of him, and eventually he is able to settle down enough to fall asleep beside her.
The next morning, Gorgug somehow slips out from underneath Fig without waking her. There isn’t a lot in the fridge, but Gorgug finds some eggs and bread, and Fig wakes up to her dishes washed and a breakfast of eggs-on-toast ready for her in the kitchen. (Fig swoons and tells him he didn’t have to.)
They eat in the kind of comfortable silence that can only be achieved through years of mutual understanding, and in the kind of awkward quiet that follows momentous change. When Fig stands to do something, chair scraping against the kitchen tile, Gorgug breaks the silence.
“Oh! Uh… Just by the way, I had some free time at work and I… Well I made this for you.” Gorgug slips his hand into his pocket and pulls out a little piece of metal. He holds it out for her, in the middle of his open palm.
Fig takes it from him, noting where her fingers brush the skin of his palm, and holds it in the light to study it. It’s a little pewter sunflower pin. It has mostly-symmetrical petals around the textured center of the flower, which shows the sunflower’s distinct ring of open disc florets around a center of closed inner florets. Fig puts together that he must have designed the mold himself in order to achieve this level of detail in the cast metal.
“Gorgug this is incredible.”
“I just saw the rat pin on your apron and I thought I’d try my hand at making a pin, and my parents always remind me to tell people I appreciate them, and they like making tin flowers to give away, and you’ve just always been such a good friend to me, and I know you really like sunflowers, so I—”
Fig tackles him in a hug, and Gorgug catches her, like he always will.
(Like any good boyfriend would.)