Chapter Text
For some reason, Gorgug thinks of Fig.
His next thought is that it makes less than zero sense to think of Fig, here in the moment before hitting the button to dial Zelda. If he were listing people with a healthy relationship to…well, relationships, she would be last on that list. And yet there's something he can't shake with his finger hovering over the video call button, surrounded on all sides by gnomes that come up to mid-thigh.
He wants to talk to Zelda. Right? Because she'll be upset if he doesn't call, and even more upset if she finds out that he figured out how to make his crystal work and didn't call her right away.
He thinks of Fig again, weirdly. He thinks of telling her that. He thinks she would say something like, But do you actually want to talk to her? Or are you just afraid of what she'll say if you don't?
He doesn't like that thought. Certainly doesn't like the answer to that question.
“Well?” Crumpkin prompts. “Are you gonna call her?”
Gorgug furrows his brow. He likes Zelda. He likes a lot about her, and he thinks he must miss her — having a person like him, to understand his rage and know how little it defines him, to see every side of him. Zelda was the first other barbarian he knew, and that was— that's meaningful to him. If she were here, he would be happy about it. Some comfort from home sure wouldn't hurt.
Fig, relentless, flashes in his mind. We see you, you know. We see every side.
She’s more of the voice in his head than he realized. Holdovers of tour bus bunk bed conversations held at three in the morning; Fig got strangely philosophical past midnight, especially after a show. From the top bunk, she would volley topics into the space until one stuck, and they could go for hours just theorizing about whatever, until one or both of them fell asleep.
Gorgug doesn’t miss touring exactly, but he misses when his biggest concern was whether he could nail the drum part of ‘Burn Towns Get Money.’ And he misses those tour bus talks with Fig.
She's definitely the person who knows the most about his relationship with Zelda. He could use her insight right now. He wishes she were here in real life to talk him through this call before he makes it. He wishes she wasn't stuck in Hell.
“I'm calling,” Gorgug says, and hits the button before he can talk himself all the way out of it.
Bated breath from every tinkerer in the hall as the dial tone rings and rings. Every eye and ear is on his crystal.
It'll be so embarrassing if she doesn't pick up, Gorgug thinks.
Seven rings. Eight. And then:
“Gorgug?”
Zelda’s face fills the screen, a familiar flop of hair covering the whole left side of her face and her lovingly worn earbuds only visible in the opposite ear.
“Hey, Zelda! Hey,” Gorgug says, a gentle smile breaking over his face. See, he was overthinking it. It's Zelda. It's freaking Zelda. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, hey!” Zelda says, eyes wide. “Are you back in Elmville?”
There's a party going on in the background. A house milling with people and flashing lights illuminates behind Zelda. She's at a party and still answered his call. That's reassuring.
“No, I'm stuck outside the forest of the Nightmare King,” Gorgug says, “but I figured out how to make my crystal work.” He kind of shakes his crystal, proving nothing to anyone, and adds, “See, it's working now!”
“You—” Zelda frowns. She glances back at the house. “You made— like for the quest? Like you needed—”
“Not for the quest,” Gorgug says. He also frowns, and he's not sure why until his next words leave his mouth. “I— I did it because you asked me to. Remember? You wanted us to be able to talk while I was on the quest. And then I know I messed up with the generator, but—”
“ I wanted us to be able to talk?” Zelda says, sounding upset. God, how is she already upset? “Why don’t— why are you saying that like you didn’t want that? Should I have, like, should I not want to talk to my boyfriend while you’re, like—?”
“No!” Gorgug half-shouts. “I just, I wanted to talk to you but I messed up, so I’ve been working really hard, and I just finally made it work. And so, yeah, I thought you would be happy about that.”
“I’m happy to hear from you,” Zelda says, moving away from the partying house in the background. The ambient noise fades. Gorgug becomes extremely aware of his entourage of gnomes. “Just…never mind. It’s stupid.”
“No, tell me! Don’t— don’t just do that.”
Zelda sighs. “I wasn’t trying to make you— like, I thought…I wanted you to want to talk. Not just figure it out for me.”
“Of course I figured it out for you,” Gorgug says. “I mean, it's useful to be able to call people, but I definitely wouldn't have figured this out if you hadn't asked me to.”
“It's useful,” Zelda echoes.
“Because I missed you,” Gorgug adds, wincing at how skillfully he can stick his foot into his mouth. “And wanted to talk to you. It’s just been so crazy here, you have no idea. But I'm really glad you pushed me.”
“I pushed you?” Zelda sighs severely. She shakes her head and her hair flops with it. Disappointment and hurt are etched in the lines of her expression. “God, Gorgug, you just…”
“No, just, fuck, hang on,” Gorgug says. “Just wait one second, okay, I have all these, I'm in the middle of all these gnomes and I’m not, everything’s coming out wrong, just let me get out of—”
“It’s fine,” Zelda says. Her voice is icier and flatter than a tundra. “You said what you had to say. It’s really great your crystal works now. I’m so glad I gave you the push you needed. Bye, Gorgug.”
“Zelda!”
With a mournful bwip, the call ends.
Gorgug stares at his crystal. He thinks, that was infinitely more embarrassing than if she hadn’t picked up. It takes all he’s got not to fastball his crystal against the far wall.
The gaggle of nosy gnomes all shuffle their feet and suddenly find very important things to do. Only Crumpkin hovers as everyone disperses.
“That's your girlfriend?” He whistles. “Jumpin’ junipers, that's a sticky situation you're in.”
“She’s right,” Gorgug says, too gutted to fully decide that Crumpkin is not the guy to talk to about this. “I always say the wrong thing.”
Crumpkin pats his calf.
“Women,” he says unhelpfully. “Would you like some more springs?”
This is the reality check Gorgug needs.
“I'm okay. Thanks for the help anyway. I appreciate it. I think I'm gonna just…take a walk. Maybe try calling her again.”
“You do that, bud,” says Crumpkin. For a second, he reminds Gorgug of his parents, and the urge to call them is strong. But they would be so positive, and positivity right now would just aggravate Gorgug’s rotten mood, he's pretty sure.
There's another feeling simmering as he hunches over to squeeze out the door to the Tinkerer's Hall. Rage tingles in his fingertips and bubbles behind his sternum. It's not enough to take over, but Gorgug is perplexed by its presence at all. She was right, wasn't she? Pushed. A+ word choice, Thistlespring. No wonder you're in the doghouse.
He slams his fist into a tree as he passes, and a layer of bark cracks and sloughs off.
A part of him still wants to throw his crystal, so he puts it on silent instead. Fat lot of good it did him. The whole quest he's spent working towards this — asking around, getting help, learning how to build and tinker and becoming an artificer in his own right — and now that he's worked it out, Zelda's not even going to listen to him? Of course she pushed him. He would never have spent time on this without her. Doesn't she know about Sending? Doesn't she know that he's on a harrowing quest to save Spyre? Doesn't she know he has some other important stuff going on?
Another fist into another tree. This one splinters in a vertical line as he pounds it.
“Woah, dude,” says a voice, and Gorgug’s fist swings that way on instinct, too distracted to realize it's Ragh until after he's clocked him in the jaw. “Ow! What the hell, dude?”
“Sorry,” Gorgug says, horrified. “Sorry, you just startled me. I was distracted. Are you okay?”
“I'm good, bro. You barely got me.” Ragh nods at the splintered tree. “Are you okay?”
Gorgug's walk has led him back in the direction of Holly Hill. Thinking of fielding any interrogation from Zaphriel or, God forbid, Kristen, makes Gorgug want to punch the tree again. He tries to flatten the rage, but it only roars back in protest.
“I need to hit something,” Gorgug says seriously.
Ragh lights up. “You wanna spar?”
Gorgug does a double-take. “Something, not someone."
“I'm something.” Ragh pounds his chest with a fist. “Come at me, bro.”
“I'm not going to hit you. I don't want to hurt you.”
Ragh gets a little smirk. “That's assuming you can hit me.” He prods at Gorgug. “C'mon, pretend it's an Owlbears scrimmage. Scrimmage rules. No weapons, tap out in effect.”
Gorgug hesitates, then pockets his crystal. Out of sight, out of mind. Ragh is a barbarian too — one on one, Gorgug doubts he could do too much damage. If anything, they're pretty evenly matched.
“Okay then.” He throws his stuff to the grass in a heap. “Yeah, let's go.”
Ragh tosses his glaive down next to Gorgug's axe.
“HELL yeah,” he hollers, going into a rage with a chant of, “HOOT, GROWL!”
Gorgug sees red. The rage takes over, and he rushes Ragh, swinging and just narrowly missing as Ragh ducks out of the way. Like lightning, Ragh swings back, missing on a right hook but connecting on a backhand. Gorgug bashes his forehead into Ragh’s nose and a hard crack leaves them both a little dizzy.
“Damn, okay,” Ragh says, grinning. His tongue darts out to lick away blood as it trickles down from his nose, leaving a smear of dark red drying on his upper lip.
“Sorry,” Gorgug says.
Ragh grabs his hoodie and pulls him until they’re face to face.
“If you apologize to me again, I’ll kick your ass for real. Tap out rules. Until then, hit me all you want. You got it?”
Rage forces sharper, shallower breath through Gorgug’s lungs. Ragh is deadly serious. Ragh does not care that Gorgug just broke his nose. Ragh is two inches from Gorgug’s face, and that blood smear is eye-catching.
“Got it,” Gorgug says, feeling way too small for a raging barbarian.
“I don't believe you,” Ragh says fiercely, and shakes Gorgug by the shirtfront.
“I said I GOT IT!”
“OKAY,” Ragh shouts. “HOOT FUCKING GROWL, THISTLESPRING!”
They're between trees, just outside line of sight on the Hangvan. There's limited space to brawl, and Ragh already has Gorgug in hand. It’s not hard for him to throw Gorgug into a tree with a tremendous shove. Gorgug’s spine tingles from the blunt force.
He imagines Zelda pulling that move on him. She would stammer out an apology, probably. Like him, self-conscious about her strength. Afraid to hurt him.
Ragh is beaming, blood still dripping from his nose and onto his lips. Gorgug tucks away whatever thoughts he has about that.
With a growl, he throws himself at Ragh. Ragh laughs and tries to grapple him to the ground, clutching at Gorgug's shoulders with meaty, callused hands; Gorgug barely manages to keep his feet under him, and he pushes back with all his effort. Dirt and sweat smudge Gorgug’s hoodie where Ragh has him, a problem for another day. If Gorgug wants to stay standing, he’s going to have to fight back.
He grabs at Ragh’s neck. Ragh has him in a precarious position here. Maybe Gorgug can use that to his advantage.
“You think you can beat me?” Ragh is visibly loving this. He's making Gorgug realize how much Gorgug is kind of loving this, too. “You're fuckin’ toast, dude. Your ass is grass. I'm the fuckin’ Crab King, motherfucker.”
Gorgug twists under the guise of trying to escape the grapple. “You may be the Crab King, but I’m the fucking Lobster Prince!” Violent jerk to one side. Then a sharp jolt the other way. “And I'm planning a coup, motherfucker!” With something like a war cry, he finally builds up enough leverage to topple Ragh, shouting as he does: “Surrender!”
“NEVER!” Ragh returns, windmilling his arms as he starts to fall. He clutches Gorgug, but Gorgug keeps his advantage enough to grapple Ragh, so that all Ragh can really do is throw limbs around hoping to get lucky. An elbow catches Gorgug right in the ribs. He groans, already envisioning the bruise. “Stay down!”
“Fuckin’ make me!”
What started as a somewhat respectable fistfight immediately devolves into a no-holds-barred wrestling match. There's no telling who's winning. Maybe, nobody is winning. A violent tussle on a bed of torn-up grass and crunching leaves turns into sloppy attempts to hold each other down, until finally, worn out, Gorgug manages to pin both of Ragh’s arms above his head, who stops trying to escape and just pants, “Okay, fuck, tap out, tap out.”
Gorgug releases him. It takes him a second too long to remember to get out of this semi-compromising position, and another second to stop thinking about Ragh with his hands pinned over his head. He rolls over and flops onto his back, staring up at the gnarled branches of Arborly.
“The Crab King is dead,” he says. “Long live the Lobster King.”
Ragh is chuckling. He splays half his limbs over Gorgug’s. “That was for you. I could tell you were tired.”
“Just admit I won.”
“I had you on the fuckin’ ropes.”
“I could still kick your ass.”
“Dude, try it.”
Gorgug goes to move and is immediately seized by Ragh's overlapping limbs. “Okay don't. Don't try it. Truce, truce, you won. You beat me. You won.”
“Because I’m the what?”
“You’re the fuckin’ Lobster King.”
“What was that?”
“You’re the fuckin’ Lobster King, dude,” Ragh says vehemently, laughing. Their shoulders jostle. “I’m the Crab King, and you’re the god damn Lobster King forever and ever, and I’ll never forget it.”
Gorgug grins, into the air in Ragh’s general direction. He’s exhausted now, but also feels so much lighter, which is a victory in itself. “That was really fun.”
“Right?”
“I've never sparred like that.”
Ragh flips onto his side so fast Gorgug gets vertigo. “Wait, for real? Never?”
“I guess I would have been scared to hurt someone,” Gorgug says, meeting Ragh's big black eyes.
“Dude, your girlfriend is literally a barbarian.”
Right. Zelda. Gorgug is too tired to feel rage again, but residual discomfort sinks his stomach.
“We don't really…” Gorgug wrinkles his face. “She doesn't really like to rage? So we don't really do, like, barbarian stuff.”
“Huh,” Ragh says, furrowing his brow. “That sounds kinda sad, honestly. But if it works for you, then who am I to judge, right?”
“Maybe it doesn't,” Gorgug says to the canopy.
A beat of silence follows.
“Uh, look, I don't want to pry,” Ragh says in a low voice. He's propped on an elbow, looking down into Gorgug's face. Gorgug is deliberately not looking back at him. “Like, if you want me to just leave you alone, and then not talk about this, I'll do it. You know I'm here for you, man.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“But like, I'm also here for you if you wanna talk.” Ragh pauses. “I just, I know you went to the tinkerers to get your crystal working so you could call Zelda. So if there's anything you want to talk about, you got me.”
“You don't have to leave,” says Gorgug. He's debating talking about Zelda, but for the moment, at least, he's enjoying Ragh’s company. There's something calming about his presence, which, all things considered, is pretty ironic.
The quiet in this wooded enclave doesn't hurt either. Gorgug should call Zelda back, but he doesn't know what he'd even say. Any words he might have had for her are buried under a knot of frustration that he can't untangle. He should explain himself, he should apologize to her, he should be better at communicating with his girlfriend — but all he can think about is the way she cut him off, and how…angry he is. I’m so glad I gave you the push you needed. Bye, Gorgug.
Of course he didn't say the right thing. She barely gave him the chance.
After a moment, Ragh settles on his back, side by side. His varsity jacket rubs against Gorgug's dirty hoodie. Gorgug is sweating underneath it, but it's like armor at this point — he would be too vulnerable without it.
“Do you like being a barbarian?”
“Hell yeah, it's awesome. Using rage to get even stronger? It fuckin’ rules.” He nudges Gorgug. “Do you?”
Gorgug could've predicted that answer, but he doesn’t have an answer of his own prepared.
“I don't know,” he says truthfully. “Now that I can control it better, it’s…helpful in battle, and it's a good outlet, but I don't think—” He sighs. “It feels…complicated. My parents are the furthest thing from barbarians. They wouldn't know rage if it landed in their laps. I guess growing up I kinda felt like being a barbarian was letting them down.”
Ragh grunts. “That sounds rough, man.”
“But my parents are great,” Gorgug suddenly has to say. “They didn't do it on purpose, they just wanted me to be this happy-go-lucky kid, and I think when I wasn't exactly like that, it was probably hard for them, too. I mean, I was bigger than them by, like, age four. They did a really good job raising me. Even if they didn’t really get me all the time. They’ve always loved me and supported me.”
“But that doesn't mean they can't have hurt you. Even if they didn't mean to,” Ragh says. “Like, my mom didn't say anything about being gay, but she just always talked about my future partners like they'd be women. It never even crossed my mind that I could marry or date a guy. My mom's the best too, but I still grew up thinking I couldn't be gay ‘cause I had to marry a girl to make my mom happy. And yeah, like, that wasn’t really her fault, ‘cause it was mostly kids at school telling me that stuff, but I felt like I couldn’t talk to my mom about it. Just because she totally fucking ruled otherwise, and she knows now and totally supports me and stuff, doesn’t mean that wasn’t hard for me. You know?”
“That's…a surprisingly good comparison,” Gorgug allows. “I see your point.”
“Can I ask why you ask?” Ragh says in a laid-back tone of voice. It's obvious he's prepared to drop it at any moment. It's equally obvious Ragh has put two and two together and is just courteous enough not to say it's four out loud.
The crystal in Gorgug's pocket, and the live wire link to his girlfriend, feels like something from a distant time. Lying on the grass with Ragh, a sense of peace descends on Gorgug. It would be nice to get Fig’s take on the situation, but maybe Ragh will have some refreshing insight. Some new perspective to offer. After all, Ragh gets Gorgug in a way even Fig can't. In a very real way, he and Ragh are two sides of the same coin.
“I think I messed things up with Zelda,” Gorgug says. “And…I think I'm mad at her?” He takes a breath. Lets it out. “I think maybe I've been mad at her for longer than I realized.”
Ragh listens patiently while Gorgug does his best to relay the conversation he had with Zelda. He feels that itching irritation rise as he talks.
“Wait, she hung up on you? After she spent this whole quest hounding you about finding a way to talk to her?”
“That's what I'm saying!” Gorgug throws a hand in the air. “I don't get it. It's like she wants to be disappointed in me. And that feels bad. It feels really, really bad.”
“Hey, I'd be mad too,” Ragh says. “Like, it's okay to miss you and to say that, but you literally just put a satellite in your crystal or, fuckin’, I don't know what you did. But you basically did the impossible! All so you could talk to her!”
“But also,” Gorgug says diplomatically, “it's my fault that I forgot about the generator in the first place. I should have remembered that.”
“Okay, but dude, you made one mistake one time,” Ragh says. “You shouldn't have to keep paying for it over and over.”
Gorgug knits his brow. “I don't think this was about that. It's just, I don't know, I'm not the most eloquent guy. So, yeah, I just keep saying the wrong thing, and then fumbling things even worse. And before I could sort of gather my thoughts, she had just hung up on me.”
“And the fact that she couldn't let your actions speak for themselves,” Ragh says. “Like, you’re obviously an ‘actions over words’ kinda guy.”
Gorgug blinks in confusion. “I am?”
“Uh, hell yeah.” Above them, he can see Ragh's raised hands as one ticks off a list on the fingers of the other. “Controlled a literal satellite just to talk to your girlfriend. Learned the drums so you could support your friend’s music career. Bought a van off your parents to solve the traveling problem for the quest. Kissed me at prom to help me deal with my own shit. I could keep going. Like, the things you do speak way louder than the things you say, dude.” Ragh’s hands fall, and one of them crosses his whole body to clasp Gorgug's shoulder. “I'm surprised Zelda doesn't know that.”
Oh.
As Gorgug takes a moment to reel from how unthinkingly Ragh just fully reframed everything Gorgug has ever thought about himself, he thinks again of Zelda. If it's true that his actions speak louder, and if she does know that, then not doing something would also be pretty loud. Forgetting to get the generator, for example. But also, if Zelda knows that, then she knows he's not so good with words. And she must know that. Neither of them are good with words. That's their whole deal. She stammers, and he says stupid things, and they both apologize for nothing, and then they laugh it off. Her stuttering awkwardness is charming. When Gorgug stumbles over words, Zelda kisses his cheek and calls him cute.
She had always tried to understand him. This time, she didn't.
“Maybe she,” Gorgug starts. And stops. He doesn't know the end to that sentence. “I don't know. It feels like something changed.”
“Well, can I ask you a question?” Gorgug nods and hums in prompting. “With Zelda, do you guys not do barbarian stuff because of her or because of you?”
“Because…” Gorgug frowns, reaching for a simple answer and only finding a complex one. Because at one point, the answer was both.
They were equally awkward about it. Funny, because she called him hot when he raged, and he said the same thing about her, and it never seemed to stick enough for either of them to feel it all the way. Zelda got so insecure about how she acted when she was in a rage, so Gorgug didn't push it. He didn't mind dividing himself into a barbarian and a boyfriend, and rarely both at once.
But here on the heels of full-on raging with another barbarian, an equal match, Gorgug feels at home in his skin in a way he's never felt with Zelda. That realization flattens him like he's trapped under the wheels of the Hangvan.
It was fun to spar. It was fun to go all out and not worry about anyone getting hurt, or feeling uncomfortable, or thinking differently of him.
Zelda understood the disconnect he felt from his rage. That was Gorgug freshman year, primal rage battling gnomish positivity. But he doesn't feel that disconnect anymore. Sure, it's complicated, but Gorgug can reliably reach for the instinct that simmers low in him, and he can use it to protect his friends. He can also use it to have a fun wrestling match. It doesn't have to be separate from the part of him that supports and defends the people he cares about. In fact, he's not sure it could be separate now.
He wonders if Zelda would understand that. He knows, without question, that Ragh already does.
“I like being a barbarian,” Gorgug says, maybe for the first time in his life. “In freshman year, I guess we were both the reason, but I like it now.” He frowns. “I think she still doesn’t. But I don’t know for sure.”
Ragh hums. “You could always ask.”
“Yeah,” Gorgug says dimly, in no way intending to do that. “It’s just, I don’t know. With Zelda…she kept barbarian stuff really separate from relationship stuff, mostly. So I did too? But I don’t know if I want to be like that anymore. Split into all these different parts. I want to be a boyfriend and a barbarian at the same time. And an artificer. I like being a lot of things.”
Ragh hums softly, “Sounds like maybe the thing that changed is you.”
Gorgug tries to swallow that thought. It doesn’t go down smooth.
“Maybe we both did,” he says. “And…maybe we didn't change in the same direction, necessarily.”
“I'm sorry, dude,” Ragh says, earnestly sincere. “That sucks.”
“I should probably talk to her,” Gorgug says. A pit settles in his stomach. It's a calcified culmination of the last week and change, of every bad feeling since that text in Bastion City. Lifetimes have passed since that day. Gorgug can't say how or when he changed, or if it happened even before that, but he knows he can't go back. If Zelda is waiting around for the Gorgug that left Elmville to be the same Gorgug that returns, she's going to be waiting forever.
The thought crosses his mind that it's not just on her. He's been treating her like this static character in his life, a sure thing just sitting around waiting for him to get his act together. And that hasn't been fair to her either.
The truth in the middle of all this: something has changed, and it's not changing back. Pretending it can will only make it worse.
Ragh clambers to his feet. “I'll be at the van. Holler if you need anything.”
He holds out a hand. Gorgug accepts the help up.
“Thanks for the talk,” he says. “You're pretty good with words.”
Ragh's lips, tinged with dried blood, split into a bashful smile. “Aw, come on. I'm always down to talk to my number one guy. Hoot, growl.”
“Hoot, growl.”
“Next time,” Ragh adds, pointing, “Revenge of the Crab King. Watch your back. I’ll get my throne back if it kills me.”
“You can try.”
Ragh grins. He hefts his glaive, then, lingering for a moment, darts in to give Gorgug a kiss on the cheek.
“For luck?” He rubs his neck. “Sorry, was that way over the line?”
“No, no, it's all good. I liked it,” Gorgug says quickly. Too quickly. He blushes a little. “And, um, I could definitely use the luck.”
“Then good luck,” Ragh says, and he squeezes Gorgug's shoulder. “Spring break. I believe in you.”
Gorgug smiles as Ragh walks away. He waits until his hulking silhouette has disappeared past the trees to touch two fingers to his cheek.
“Hoot, growl,” he murmurs.
He pulls out his crystal to find a missed call and a text from Zelda from three minutes ago: I’m so sorry for hanging up on you, that was really uncalled for. But pls call me back. I feel like we should talk.
Summoning every ounce of fortitude he knows, he pulls up Zelda’s contact and once again hits call.