Arthur, watching from the sidelines with Elsie and Yseult on either side of him, felt an entirely different kind of foreboding settle in as Briar and Finn made their way toward the ring, the particular dread of two people who had clearly been plotting something for the better part of a week and had simply been waiting for an excuse to enact it.
SUT: Colton. Jota.
Briar rolled his shoulders. Finn bounced twice on his toes, practice sword held with rather more enthusiasm than technique.
FNN: You ready for this, Briar?
BRR: I've been ready since Tuesday.
FNN: What happened Tuesday?
BRR: I decided I was ready.
They took their positions across from each other, and Instructor Sutton, glancing between them with the particular weary patience of a man who had already assessed both students' combat aptitude and was expecting, at best, a moderately competent exchange.
SUT: Begin.
The duel that followed was, charitably, enthusiastic. Neither of them possessed anything close to Elsie or Yseult's polish, and the exchange devolved quickly into a series of overcommitted swings and hasty recoveries, both of them grinning the entire time with an energy that suggested the actual outcome mattered considerably less than whatever conversation was apparently happening between strikes.
BRR: So. Arthur.
FNN: Right! Arthur.
BRR: We've been talking.
ART: That's never good.
FNN: It's very good, actually. We've been talking, and we've decided. We want you.
Briar swung, Finn parried, both of them still talking through the exchange with total unconcern for the actual duel.
ART: You want me for what?
BRR: We just want you. That's the whole of it, really. We've discussed it at length and we're both in complete agreement.
ART: That's not an answer.
FNN: It's the most honest answer we've got. We watched you all week and we said to each other, Briar, we said, we need him. Whatever he's got, we need it, and we need it soon.
ART: Whatever I've got.
BRR: You know. The thing. The way you are.
ART: I don't know what that means.
FNN: It means we want in, Arthur. We want what you've got, and we want it badly, and we're not ashamed to say so in front of everyone.
Arthur, watching the two of them continue swinging at each other with escalating enthusiasm while somehow maintaining an entirely separate, increasingly alarming conversation, felt the particular slow dawning confusion of someone who suspected he was missing something important, or possibly several somethings, all at once.
ART: In on what, specifically.
BRR: You. All of you. The full experience.
FNN: We've been watching you go home with two different girls looking at you like that, practically every single day, and we thought, why not us? Why should they get to have that and not us?
ART: Have what, exactly.
BRR: Whatever it is you're giving them! We don't even need to know the details. We just want the same treatment.
FNN: We want you to notice us the way you've somehow got them noticing you.
Their voices had risen with genuine, unselfconscious excitement now, both talking over each other, both leaning forward across the exchange with an earnestness that had nothing performative left in it, and Arthur felt something cold and deeply confused settle into his stomach at the phrase notice us.
ART: You want me to notice you.
BRR: Desperately, yes.
FNN: We've been very patient about it, honestly. We could have said something sooner.
ART: Said something about what.
BRR: About wanting in. About wanting you to make us feel the way you're apparently making everyone else feel.
FNN: We just want to know the secret. So we can have what you've got too. For ourselves.
The two of them, still swinging practice swords with escalating enthusiasm, both talking rapidly and earnestly and entirely without irony, seemed, for one suspended and deeply confusing moment, to be describing a desire that had absolutely nothing to do with romantic advice and everything to do with wanting, very specifically, Arthur himself. Arthur went very still.
ART: Wait.
He held up a hand, the universal gesture of someone requesting an urgent pause, and both Briar and Finn, mid-swing, faltered just enough to glance toward him with matching expressions of confusion at the interruption.
ART: Hold on. Wait a second.
BRR: What?
ART: Just. Wait. Let me think for a moment.
FNN: Think about what? We're kind of in the middle of something here.
ART: I know. That's rather the problem.
He stood there, sword lowered, running back through the entire conversation in his head, we want you, we want in on you, we want you to notice us the way you're making them notice you, and the longer he sat with it, turning each phrase over individually, the less any other explanation seemed to present itself.
BRR: Arthur, you're doing the staring thing. It's unsettling.
ART: I'm processing.
FNN: Processing what?
ART: What exactly you're asking me for.
BRR: We told you. We want in.
ART: Right. Yes. That's what I thought you said.
He took a slow breath, the particular bracing inhale of someone about to say a thing out loud that he very much did not want to be saying out loud, in a training yard, in front of witnesses.
ART: Are you two asking me on a date?
The silence that followed was total. Briar's sword arm dropped entirely. Finn's mouth fell open. Around the ring, several nearby students, close enough to have overheard the tail end of the exchange, turned with sudden and undisguised interest.
BRR: WHAT?
FNN: NO. NO, ARTHUR, WE'RE ASKING HOW YOU GET GIRLS TO LIKE YOU. WE MEANT GIRLS. AS IN, FOR US. WITH GIRLS.
BRR: WHY WOULD YOU THINK-
FNN: WE MEANT THE OPPOSITE OF THAT, ARTHUR, THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE-
Arthur, several beats behind and still catching up to his own catastrophic misunderstanding, felt the mortification climbing his neck redouble entirely.
ART: You said you wanted what I've got!
BRR: WE MEANT THE ATTENTION, NOT- NOT YOU, SPECIFICALLY, NOTHING PERSONAL, YOU'RE JUST NOT-
FNN: HE'S NOT WHAT WE'RE INTO, ARTHUR, IT'S NOTHING AGAINST YOU-
BRR: THIS IS SO EMBARRASSING-
FNN: I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING DURING A GRADED EXERCISE-
Both of them, thoroughly derailed, mortified, and no longer paying the slightest attention to their own combat positioning, swung at exactly the same moment in a final, uncoordinated flourish of frustrated gesturing rather than any deliberate strike, and their practice blades, aimed at nothing in particular and everything in general, crossed paths precisely where neither of their heads should have been but somehow, catastrophically, were. The flat of Finn's blade caught Briar squarely across the temple. The flat of Briar's blade caught Finn squarely across the temple. Both boys stood for exactly one suspended, glassy-eyed second, and then collapsed forward in perfect, simultaneous unison, faceplanting into the packed dirt of the training yard with twin, muffled thuds that echoed across the suddenly, entirely silent combat ground. Instructor Sutton looked down at the two unconscious boys, then back at the assembled cohort, his expression carrying the particular flat weariness of a man who had genuinely seen everything at this point and was no longer capable of being surprised by any of it.
SUT: ...Match called. Someone get them to the infirmary.
Beside Arthur, Elsie had both hands pressed over her mouth, her shoulders shaking with barely contained laughter, and Yseult had simply given up any pretense of restraint entirely, laughing loud enough that several other students had turned to look.
ART: I don't understand what just happened.
ELS: I don't think they do either.
YSE: Oh, this is the best thing that's happened all week, and I include my own duel in that assessment.
Two students jogged forward to help carry Briar and Finn toward the infirmary, both boys still faintly, dazedly conscious, and as they were lifted, Finn managed one last, groggy, entirely earnest protest.
FNN: ...still want to know the secret, though.