Work Text:
As he leaned back to peer through the window, Flayon was met with a rapidly moving shadow. His face broke into a smile as he tucked away his books, fondness pulling involuntarily at the corners of his lips until they ached with it. Hakka popped up around the corner, ornaments jingling as he bounded over.
“Back from the field already?”
It was nice like this, when he took off his shoes after a long day and they could just stand face to face. It was nice when he was taller too, sure, but there was something comforting about hearing his laugh dance through his ears with even less distance between them. Even when he’s not feeling himself, Hakka always makes him feel a little better, like his own personal happiness battery.
He hummed in affirmation. “Yeah, it was an easy one today.”
And just like that, Hakka settles down next to him, shifting his weight to see the music he hurriedly tried to hide away. There’s a weight to it, a hefty plunk as he stares at him, as if he’s ready to exorcise his doubts then and there. It makes him want to hide even more, to revel a little in his own private cacophony.
“You know, I love to hear you sing.”
And somehow Hakka always seems to know more than he should.
“I know, I’m working on it.”
Sometimes it’s easier to deflect instead of dwelling on things. It’s the traitorous part deep in his chest that boils, that whispers that every compliment isn’t real until he earns it. Until he’s worthy . Even if Hakka means it, he's not allowed to accept it until he's run himself so dry that the compliment pours in to fill his gaps. That he’s the leech soaking up energy from Hakka’s shining sun, the battery to a battery.
“I’m serious. I can tell how much your work is paying off. I heard you practising as I was coming in.”
“Yeah, okay.”
And he loves Hakka, knows he wouldn’t just lie to him, but sometimes his brain cuts through his words, a mantra of “good but nothing more,” “good because he’s too nice to say anything mean,” “good because there’s nothing else to say.”
There was the regular world. With the loneliness, the pain, the fear, the grey. And then there was the beautiful world. A beautiful world with happy, beautiful people doing fun, beautiful things. So much colour and light. Like Hakka.
It was a long time ago, thousands of years maybe, that he realised he was not a part of that beautiful world, that it was always hanging just out of reach.
He'd studied it.
Studied the way beautiful people acted. Studied what the requirements were for being a part of that world. And he changed himself, bit by bit, until the changes became his essence, more machine than man. Or maybe he changed with each death. If you’ve replaced all your constituent parts, are you still the same person you were before?
One day as he wandered around Xenokuni, as he meandered through Elysium, he wondered if he was happy. But it didn’t matter whether he was happy or not, did it? Because he was inching towards the gates of the beautiful world around him and that was all that mattered.
And when he reached it, when he found the ugliness lingering inside it nonetheless, it only made him feel worse.
Who cared about happiness, though, if it was the price to pay to be there. His skeleton burned in neon streaks, full to the brim with colour and light and energy that burned and drained and burned and drained and drained and drained. It was already a part of him, already learned, already engraved in the beat of his heart. And at the end of a rough day, or maybe even at random, maybe the colour would leech out of his bones until it trailed behind him, forcing him back to the regular world with every step. But he didn’t like being that person again. That loner wandering the world with no one to turn to. The pilot with no one to fly with. How lonely all the nights had felt then. How his loneliness created a home to his sadness first. How guilt had invited itself in soon after that until he made a home in that feeling too.
He always had to work to be better.
He’d talked about it before and Hakka, in all his honey sweetness, just laughed softly and told him that if past Flayon didn’t have any friends, then he’d just have to be the first of many for every single iteration of Flayon he'll ever meet. That he’d love every part of him and be there to watch him grow and change through all his greys and golds.
In cycles he burns cold, frost and fire clashing in insults, in words he could never dare mean, frantically drawing back just to come crashing in his orbit again even crazier, even sweeter, even more desperate, every scream masking a traitorous song underneath: would you still love me if I’m like this, would you, would you, would you, would you really-
And isn’t that unfair? For Hakka, who was stolen from a home he knew, to have to make one with someone who’s never had a home at all.
But there comes Hakka, armed with words and spears and smiles that burn like stars, slipping through his walls and telling him that this is the life he’s happily chosen every single time as if he can hear the truth laced in every lie.
But here comes Hakka, taking Flayon's hands in his own and pressing kisses all over them over and over and over and over until he can’t help but giggle. Flayon grins and leans his head on his shoulder and it feels like coming home.
“Hakka, stop it! You’re in the way.”
And maybe he was wrong, maybe the beautiful world was just one with Tempus in it with him.
“Are you up for a break? Maybe we can prove once and for all whose voice is louder.”
Hakka laughed as he tugged on Flayon’s hand, he smirked as he laughed, leading them out to his room. They were always laughing, weren’t they? Loving and laughing hand in hand. Propping each other up when the days got hard.
“Pretty sure I made you louder last time,” is all he says in return, colour flushing his cheeks as they run through the halls in tandem.
It’s a good thing the guild had good audio treatment.