Work Text:
It’s a Tuesday afternoon in August and Aelwyn is in Riz Gukgak’s office.
Surprisingly, It’s a place she’s in frequently. Mordred Manor can be a bit much. A house with so many people living in it not to mention friends always coming and going. The house is crowded, loud in a way the Abernant house never was. It's overwhelming and she often finds herself trying and failing to find a quiet place and then snapping at others when they cross her path.
It had actually been Adaine who had pushed a key into her hand, one of the many small actions she’s been doing in an attempt to reach out, to fix this relationship that was never that great to begin with.
“If you need a break,” she had said, “it’s warded and quiet. Also most of us don’t really like going there after everything, so the only one there is Riz.” Aelwyn pushed back the biting retort that she didn’t need a place to hide or to be babied and instead took the key.
Despite her pride, she uses it often. Adaine was right, it is quiet and no one ever bothers her there. She sits in the old rolling chair Riz never uses and reads a book or scrolls on her crystal. It’s more quiet than the manor, with the only sounds being the rustling of papers and Riz mumbling to himself. It also comes with the bonus of no one ever trying to get her to talk about her feelings or giving her looks of pity. Riz never speaks to her and she never speaks to him. It’s an unspoken agreement and a comfortable one that Aelwyn has no desire to break except…
It's a Tuesday afternoon in August and Aelwyn is feeling a bit off. Like something’s rising inside of her that she can’t calm. Not anxiety, that’s Adaine’s thing, just a sort of restlessness, an itch under her skin. The partying used to help, liquor and dragon spice, a quick fuck or a quick fight, whatever helped get rid of that energy that would build up until she was so sure she was going to explode. Those avenues are closed now, left behind for the sake of ‘healing’, and she’s left trying to find something else. What she really wants is a fight, something biting something that hurts and well, Riz is right there.
“I’m curious,” she says, breaking the silence for the first time. “Why do you let me hang around? It’s certainly not because you enjoy my presence.” She uses her best unaffected tone, the one she's perfected after years. The one that's so convincing that sometimes she can even fool herself.
Normally Riz keeps to his inner office but whatever case he is working on is either big enough or convoluted enough for his work to spill out into the front room. He is facing away from her, pinning up pieces of evidence to one of many bulletin boards as she asks her question.
It’s not a question Aelwyn would ask under most circumstances. She doesn’t care about what others think these days; the only opinion that matters is Adaine’s. Still, it’s one of those days and she needs something cutting. Something mean. Maybe it’s self-destructive desire, but she needs someone to look at her with the disgust she deserves, to call her a bad person.
Riz is the perfect person. Adaine is a nonstarter and Kristen and Gorgug can’t deliver the biting words she needs. Fig probably could but she sometimes looks at Aelwyn like she understands and that’s too much right now. Fabian under all his bluster is still healing, still a little scarred, and just not right for this. Riz is perfect. Aelwyn knows a surprising amount about him, she pretends to not care about Adaine’s friends but she still listens to Adaine and, because of that, she learns.
Riz is a combination of awkward and dorky but also heroic and incredibly brave. He believes in justice and doing the right thing always but has shot people point blank without hesitation to keep the people he loves safe. He’s brilliant and capable and drives Adaine crazy when forgets to eat while working hard on a case. He cares about his friends and family and went toe to toe with Kalina in order to save them. Nothing at all like Aelwyn who was never a good person, never a hero. She asks him because he’s blunt and a terrible liar (another thing that sets the two of them apart) and she can trust that whatever cruel truth he says is said honestly.
He doesn’t respond to her right away and it needles her. There is a moment of silence where she starts to pull at the fraying seams of her chair. She wants a bit of a fight and being ignored makes the ugly parts of her rise. If he won’t give her what she wants she will do what she does best.
“I mean it’s not like you lack friends. You may be a weird little freak of a goblin who dresses like a child trying on his grandfather's clothing but, shockingly, people still seem to like you. Or at least find you amusing enough to keep around.” It's cruel and it’s mean and it comes easily. She’s good at this, always has been.
He turns to her and makes eye contact. His unflinching large yellow eyes take her in and her gut desire is to hide but she stays still and lets those eyes see her as she is, head held higher than she feels and a carefully crafted bored expression.
“You’re not a good person,” is the first thing he says and it cuts just the way she wants it to. “You’ve done shitty things and hurt people. You put girls in crystals to help raise Kalvaxus to power. You worked for Kalina. And you were awful to Adaine for years.” Aelwyn can tell he’s trying to keep his tone even but he doesn’t quite manage, his tone is slightly angry as he lists her crimes, and it’s damning. He’s right of course. She’s done all of those things. She’s been cruel and heartless and ruined lives without hesitation.
“But also,” she watches as he takes his hat off and runs his fingers through his hair looking down at the ground. “I mean you’re just a kid right?” He kicks at the floor. There are long gouges in the wood, claw marks that she doesn’t know the story of but doubts that it is a pleasant one.
“Like yeah you did incredibly awful things and even if Adaine forgives you a lot of other people won’t and that makes sense,” he continues, placing his hat back on his head. “And people won’t trust you and they don’t have to.”
And now they are in a dangerous territory because even though he’s telling her how she’s disliked by many it’s still a little too kind, a little too gentle and the words echo some of the things Adaine’s new guardian says. She needs to stop this before that small softness turns to pity.
“And what about the great detective Riz Gukgak. Do you trust me?” She can’t help but ask and even though she tries to sound bored and unaffected, a traitorous bit of emotion sinks into her words. He looks up at her again for a moment and she doesn’t flinch.
“No.”
This time she does flinch. It shouldn’t hurt but it does. It hurts the way a fistfight hurts when you’re too drunk to stand up straight. For a while, the pain you feel is muted and makes you feel immortal and unstoppable but there’s always a point as you start to sober up when the pain finally hits. Aelwyen always hated that part.
“Hmm… not very smart then are you? Letting a person you don’t trust into your office filled with lots of important information and evidence.”
“I trust Adaine. I care about her, she's my” and Riz pauses just long enough for Aelwyn to notice. “Friend. She’s my friend and I trust her judgement.”
Aelwyn is by no means stupid. She knows that Riz paused because he was going to say something else. Something that would have been the right kind of hurtful but a little too cruel for Riz Gukgak. She knows that he was going to say that Adaine was like his sister. And she also knows that it’s true. That Riz, in only two years, has been a better sibling to Adaine than Aelwyn has in sixteen.
“Also,” he continues, luckily cutting off her thoughts. “I know you’re very strong and abjuration is your specialty but I’m pretty sure I could kick your ass.” The tone was probably intended to be joking but it falls flat and she’s reminded of the fact that this fifteen-year-old goblin has killed a dragon, gone to hell, and survived the Nightmare Forest. His eyes are a little harsher than they should be for someone his age and she remembers that Riz Gukgak has died.
It’s an odd thing to think about that for a period of time, however short, Aelwyn was alive and Riz was not. It doesn’t seem fair.
“Why are you asking this stuff? What do you think you’re going to get from this?” Riz asks and Aelwyn immediately knows that she's miscalculated. She forgot in all of this that Riz is a detective and at this point, she feels more like a mystery than a person so, of course, he would figure her out even when she can’t. She wants to say something, anything to distract, to change the subject but she can’t speak. All she can do is listen as Riz unravels the truth she doesn’t even fully know in the same calm tone she’s heard him use to describe his cases to Adaine.
“You think that whatever I say is going to make you feel bad. You want it to. You’re trying to get hurt because you think you deserve it and you’re using me as the tool to get that.” He’s not looking at her anymore, choosing to instead look back at his work. His back turning should be an insult but instead, she's grateful for not having to see his face. “Aelwyn, I let you hang around the office because you want to be in the office.”
It shouldn’t be shocking information but it is. It shouldn't be a revelation to realize that she likes being in Riz’s office. Likes the combination of quiet and not alone. Likes the safety provided by Riz’s paranoia. That the reason she comes back over and over is that she wants to.
She thinks about Adaine. About the action of reaching out and how for Aelwyn the hardest part of it always seemed to be accepting the hand stretched before her.
“Well if I’m going to be here I’d prefer not to be bored, tell me about your little case,” she says because it’s still not easy to drop the mask but it’s okay because she’s sure that Riz can see past it anyway.
He turns to look at her over his shoulder and smiles. It’s crooked and hesitant, but it’s a start.