So which of mycharacters most needs a good heart-to-heart? Zazz!
Who is superunlikely to give him said heart-to-heart? River!
I wanted to dosomething funny with this prompt but then I realised my rogue, who isa combo of all the worst drow and worst rogue tropes, has not beenwritten angstyyyy very often. Plus, only one idea for this promptactually inspired me at all. So. Here goes!
(Zazz is 100% in character. River, whobelongs to a friend, is therefore probably not.)
River sat down onthe step beside him. Zazz frowned at his knees. Maybe if he ignoredthe genasi long enough, River would go away and pretend he hadn’theard anything.
“Zazz, do I looklike I care?”
Apparently, that wasn’t working.
“I don’t know,”Zazz murmured, “because I’m not looking at you.”
“Fair point.”
River shuffledslightly, dangling his hands over his knees. Zazz stretched out hisleft leg and started counting lines on his boot. He’d counted themmany times before, of course, but there could be multiple resultsdepending on what you did and did not count as a line. Webs werefunny things like that.
“If I wasn’tsupposed to hear you say those things, then who was?” River asked.
“Dunno.”
“You didn’t sayanything bad.”
He sniffed.“Practising, I guess.”
“For what?”
“For…what tosay, like, in general. And stuff. Please just-”
He’d intended ontelling River to go away, until he realised he didn’t really wantthat, either. Zazz didn’t want River to be there, buthe also didn’t want him to not be there. How did that makeany sense? It would have been a lot easier if Rio was the one whooverheard him saying stupid stuff. Rio would have laughed but thenRiver could comfort him or something, and everything would be fine!
River adjusted hisweight again. He tapped the spider on Zazz’s left boot.
The drow frowned.“You made me lose count.”
“Please look atme.”
He set his jaw. “Uh,how about no?”
“Why are youscared?”
“I’m notscared.”
“Do you think Icare? Maybe I was slow on the uptake, but that’s not your fault.You’re…um, friendly enough, and you appreciate me, which isn’ta bad thing.”
“Mmm,” Zazzdragged a hand through his hair, catching it in an unexpected knot.“Yuck.”
“Sorry?”
“Ah, not youRiver.”
“Alright,” thegenasi settled back against the step. “I just don’t understand.You’re always complimenting me anyway. Why is this so different?”
Zazz’s breathhitched. “Because it’s…more.”
“And?”
“-and I’m notvery useful.”
River paused at thatone.
“Well you probablyshouldn’t be an adventurer, but I’m sure there are other thingsyou’re good at. You know a lot about magic.”
“Mmmm.”
“Do you think Iorganise my personal life based on how good someone is at killingthings?”
Zazz wasn’tentirely sure how to respond to that one. Didn’t that just, well,make sense? Why would you get invested in a wannabe adventurer whowas a liability more often than not, only to inevitably watch themdie in some totally stupid fashion? Especially when you didn’t havethe seven hundred or so years of mistake-making granted to elves. Ifyou got invested in someone, and they died; whether friend ormore-than-friend, you had to grieve, and waste time being miserable,and River probably had…what, eighty years? Maybe one hundred atbest? What could possibly be at all appealing in useless-ness?
Hang on.
“Yourpersonal life?” Zazz managed.
“You’re shaking.Are you cold?”
“No, no I’mfine. I’m allergic to, uh, something. What did you say?”
“My personal life?I did agree that we could go on a date. Especially since you saidyou’d pay. I don’t want to get your hopes up, because that mightbe it, but I haven’t changed my mind.”
Zazz’s gazefinally flickered to River’s face. He looked so sincere. He alwayslooked sincere, but the fact that he was still sincere right now,after this whole stupid fiasco, was unexpectedly comforting. The drowreturned his attention to his own knees. River put a hand on hisshoulder and Zazz didn’t flinch away.
“I thought youwouldn’t want to be my friend any more,” he knew full well howridiculous that sounded.
