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It had been a miscalculation. Simple as that.
That’s how these things always happen. Simple miscalculations. When one error leads to another. When one mistyped letter or missing semicolon stops the entire program from running. When one block sends the whole Jenga tower tumbling down.
Flayon is safe in the R-TRUS.
So long as he stays in the R-TRUS.
Which he hadn’t.
He doesn’t remember why he had gotten out. He’ll have the silly footage saved somewhere to replay later. That’s what he’d built that function for, so that nothing in his memory could ever truly be lost forever.
They’d stay in the R-TRUS, indefinitely locked inside the mech; sometimes the closest thing Flayon believes he has to a human soul.
Granted, he probably has an actual soul.
It even has a color, in whatever shade or hue that personality quizzes have decided for him online.
Just like the vastness of the internet’s deep sea has also decided what kind of animal he is, what kind of rock he is, what kind of flower he is, what kind of uke/seme he is, and what various popular visual novel hotties would do to him if they were stuck in a room together for 24 hours — not that any of it really matters.
It’s good fun, that’s all, and it’s saved in the framework of the R-TRUS too. The closest thing Flayon has to a human soul. His downfalls, his triumphs, and even the list of anime characters that would save him from a burning building.
They’re all written into the code, archived in the database of Machina X Flayon.
The fact that he got hurt will become data, too, for a future Flayon to remember not to make the same miscalculation — mistake — twice.
Everything hurts and he only has himself to blame.
Not how he had planned for his evening to go, if he’s honest, but the sun is now on the cusp of setting, and he’s all alone in the ruins of a well-fought fight.
Which, y’know, great! What the heck!
Just where he wants to be before dinnertime!
(Tone: sarcastic.)
Geez. What a Machipain in the ass. His tummy is not going to be happy since he skimped out on lunch to play video games, and now he’s skimping out on night chow in favor of lying on the cold, hard ground.
At least the corruption beasts won’t be bothering him any time soon. He had blasted just about everything in this abandoned village to smoke, and would have gotten away with it too, except for the fact that he had gotten cocky in the midst of battle.
Knocked off his feet and swung into the air the moment he stepped out of the R-TRUS and into the open, only returning to solid ground with a sickening blow to his too-human body.
“Ugh…” he cups his injured side, and his nose wrinkles when his glove comes back wet. “Ew. Okay. Bad hit.”
He’s more concerned about the fact that he’s just rendered this pair of gloves unusable, caked as they are with blood, equal in fresh and equal in dried.
“Gotta replace those. Fuck.”
He’s died so many times like this.
One too many strokes of confidence, one too many miscalculations. Doesn’t make him feel any better when it happens, but at least some part of him embraces the feeling of déjà vu because you can only die so many times before it starts feeling like coming home.
Only death isn’t his home base anymore, and he has people who are worried about him, who might just burn the forest down to keep him safe. To keep him warm. To keep him alive.
He has Guild TEMPUS, those violent well-meaning morons that love him, and that he loves more than he’s loved anything in over 18,000 lives; which is a really really big number, for those not well-informed.
“Walk it off, Flay, walk it off,” he mumbles to himself, though he's really not in any condition to be walking.
“You just need to make it back to Magni, and he can— you know, magic hands.”
His head is spinning.
“Or Vesper. He's awesome. He’ll fix you right up.”
He mentally runs through the contents of his pockets and sighs.
“You really couldn’t pack one more potion?”
Miscalculation, miscalculation, no need to beat himself up over it. Everybody makes mistakes. Genius or not, he’s gotta stay humble.
“Okay. This is fine.” He presses on the wound again, grimacing when he feels out a rip on his bodysuit. “Gotta replace that, too. That's fine. Look on the bright side! New uniform! You’ll come out of this looking like a brand new Machina X Flayon!”
“Maybe you can ask for more bows,” Flayon muses, thinking of what he can do to make the most of this situation. “The more bows, the cuter, right? We can fit bows in the outfit budget. Bows and ribbons.” He nods. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
His tail flicks sadly along the ground.
“Right.” Flayon mumbles. “I should call for help.”
He doesn’t even know where to begin.
In his heart, he knows that his fellow guildmates would come running if he just said the word — but Flayon is a self-aware stubborn brat and doesn’t like asking for help unless he absolutely, positively, 1000% needs it.
“Or,” he reasons to himself. “I could wait for someone to notice I’ve been gone for a while and come find me instead. Tug on their heartstrings a little bit. Make them miss me. Good plan.”
It’s not a good plan.
It doesn’t take 18,432 lives to tell a guy that he should have learned to ask for help by now, but hey, 18,432 lives and still no cure for depression. Explain that, scientists! Even a self-made genius can only be so smart.
Flayon doesn’t know how long he lies there.
He loses track after a while, lying in a daze as he tries and fails to remove his jacket and at least have something to staunch his wound. That’s the problem with fashion — it’s never made for people who get injured on the battlefield.
All these straps and buttons and shit. His only solace is that he’s not a Final Fantasy character, all jacked up with crazy belts and bits. Even if Final Fantasy characters probably get away with it because they're so freaking hot. Flayon looks respectfully, of course.
The hum of conversation, familiar voices, snaps him out of his reverie. The deep, rumbling tone and chattery, bubbly response makes his ears perk.
He’d recognize them anywhere.
“Hakka? Shinri? Over here! It’s Flayon!” He calls weakly, belatedly remembering that if he wants something, he needs to speak up. Thanks, therapist in his head. Sorry about everything else. “A little stitch-up, please?” He twists in place, and everything hurts again. “I, uh, can’t get myself out.”
Unfortunately, they don’t hear him.
He sighs, but doesn’t blame them for it.
He can’t talk over Hakka when he’s not in tiptop condition — that loud-ass chuuni bird is a sweetheart but he never learned volume control, it seems — and Flayon doesn’t want Shinri to have to see him like this again, anyway.
The ex-ronin blames himself for too many things.
Missing the brief hole in Flayon’s defense is another burden he doesn’t want on Shinri’s shoulders, but then he wonders if Shinri would regret it more knowing Flay had called out for them and they hadn’t heard.
These things are so difficult to figure out on his own. But his voice can’t get much louder. Not right now.
Hakka’s can, though, apparently, because in a burst of abrupt shrillness, he yells, “Shinri, Shinri, look over there!”
“Watch out!” Shinri warns. “It’s gonna blow—!”
Something goes BAM really suddenly and horribly, and Flayon sees shrapnel like a rain of bullets overhead. The ground shifts beneath him, quaking from impact, and he feels the jaws of death graze him like an old friend saying hello.
The frame above him collapses and he doesn’t even have the energy to shout, just sucks in a breath and winces, squeezing his eyes shut.
God, but he’s died so many times like this.
He has no reason to be scared.
Dust and debris fleck him. Miraculously, he doesn’t get smooshed like a bad end in The Witch’s House MV, which is a great game, by the way, if you like being reminded of the futility of mortality and also fucked up little horror stories. Death is sometimes as quick and easy as that, like a thread being cut, and sometimes it’s drawn out and agonizingly slow.
But Flayon, somehow maxing out on his luck today, has not died yet. Fast or slow. He's just sort of hanging in there, swaying in the balance.
He opens his eyes.
The creaking structure looms above him like the maw of a deep sea creature, insidious and sinister.
“Oh, big boy,” he tells it. “You missed. Idiot. And now you've lost your chance. Go cry about it.”
He’s not afraid of what he can see.
It’s what he can’t, that trickles into his mind.
He thinks the wait might kill him first.
The anticipation of falling into the dark, with nobody to save him. No witnesses to this murder. No culprits, either. What a shame. He'd have preferred to have caused some drama, if he had to be the one to die.
Cold creeps in. The chill of being left for the ghosts. Hakka and Shinri's voices dip out, into ambient noise, as they scurry onwards with their hunt, and Flayon tries to keep it together.
If this is how this life ends, so be it. He's accepted it.
(He hasn't.)
It would not be the first time, but he always hopes for different endings, because there’s no point in save-scumming only to end up in the same bad ending over and over.
He’s an RPGMaker enthusiast, after all, and after all those hours spent pouring over pixels until his eyeballs felt like they were going square-shaped themselves, he would know best.
Keep talking, he tells himself. Keep yourself awake, Flay.
His blinking is heavy now, eyelids unsticking with effort. Every time he opens his eyes, he’s looking up at the huge teeth again.
Agh, but seriously, what a huge shame and doubly huge pain! He likes this life, too, and everyone in it.
He’s transcended beyond disappointment, beyond the cold front of sadness and now he’s just angry again.
He didn’t get this far to lose it all, dammit.
“C’mon, geez, you’ve taken worse hits than this. You’ll be fine,” his breathing is getting shallow. “You don’t die, you’re fine. You can take this up with god in another life.” He coughs and the taste of copper fills his mouth.
Shit. That’s no good.
“Bettel? Magni? Vesper?” He tries, voice wet and small and desperate to be heard. He doesn’t expect his pleas to travel far, but in the wake of the explosion, the ruins of the village are eerily quiet. “Axel? Altare? Anyone?”
“Should I be offended that you didn’t call on me first?” Someone calls softly through the silence, a sound echoing from a crevice in the wreckage, mere steps away. “Where are you, Flay, my sweet darling boy?”
“Altare,” Flayon gasps, recognizing the dulcet tones of his leader’s voice immediately. His wounds sting as he angles towards it. “Over here, Altare, here here here,” he beckons, throat hoarse and raw. He trembles. He wants to cry. “Under. Under the thing.”
“This thing?” Altare asks, moving something nearby. “I don’t see you, little guy. Which thing?”
“The metal. Like, um,” he flicks through his brain for a comparison to make. “Looks a bit like a– like a shark. A big and metal one that goes chomp chomp.”
“Chomp chomp. Gotcha,” Altare says, and there’s a creak as pieces of rubble are moved to the side. He works fast – that’s their leader, always there when it counts – and the orange sunset sky unfolds for Flay again like a puzzle’s pieces filling in bit by bit.
The final puzzle slots in place as the guild leader heaves the metal frame that’s pinning Flayon to the ground, his bright green eyes like the fresh breath of spring after a long winter snow.
Everything that had been cold now feels like it’s thawing under his warm smile.
“Hey.” Altare’s voice is gentle. “Look who I found.”
“It’s me,” Flayon replies, a call and response. “Your favorite guild member.”
“My favorite guild member.” Altare repeats with a smile and the ghost of a wink, fleeting as a drop of summer rain. “Don’t tell anyone else I said that.”
“I won’t.” Flayon feels his tears welling up, the heat stinging the back of his eyes and making him wince. He has never been more relieved to see Altare’s beautiful face. “It’s our— our little secret.”
“Our little secret indeed,” Altare chuckles, though his expression is tense as he takes in the sight of Flayon crumpled on the ground, surrounded by hunks of debris. He’s quick to kneel by the pilot, helping him into a sitting position. Teasingly, he remarks, “And what about me, huh, Flay? I’m not your favorite? You think so little of me that I’m the last person you’d call for help?”
“It’s not like that,” Flay protests weakly, a pout pulling light on his lips. “I just— I didn’t wanna—” — bother you — “—I didn’t know if you were, um, occupied.”
“Too occupied to stop my pilot from being squashed by a building?” Altare raises a brow. Flay blames the nausea for the way he repeats my pilot over and over in his head. “Don’t be stupid. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
Flayon wishes he had the energy to quip back, but he doesn’t. Just stares at him helplessly, vision blurring with the sheen of his tears. The world swims away from him, but he can feel Altare’s palms, firm and calloused, against his shivering body.
And here he had thought nobody would have come to save him. That he would die like he always had: in the dark and all alone.
“Don’t worry, Flay,” Altare’s hand is solid on his back as he assesses the injury with a frown. The black fabric of Flayon’s bodysuit obscures most of the blood, but Altare presses a gentle hand to it, lightly feeling his torso for the damage, and grimaces when it comes back crimson. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Altare.”
“I’m not.” He replies. “Arms up. I’m going to carry you back to Dez. He should still be nearby.”
“You’re gonna get all my blood on you.”
“And it’s gonna make me look like some kind of sexy battle-torn hero, so hurry up. I’m ready for my makeover.”
“You’re so stupid.” Flay says, voice shaky.
“Arms up, baby boy,” Altare whispers.
Flayon manages a strained smile and relents, but not without pretending to swoon a little, just because he can. “Oh, my sweet prince.”
“Call me that again.” Altare positions the pilot in his arms, and Flay clutches his hoodie, conscious of the way the white stains red. It’s going to be a bitch to get out in the wash. Altare doesn’t seem to care.
“My sweet prince.” Flay repeats.
“Awesome.” Altare says, sounding gleeful. “I’m not gonna let you forget that.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Flayon coughs, and feels a wave of dizziness swim through his mind. “Anything for you.”
“Keep talking, Flay. I need you to stay awake.”
“You just want me to keep telling you I’d do anything for you.”
Altare laughs, but for once he doesn’t feed the words straight into his ego. Flayon almost prefers it if he would. Instead, Altare says, “No. I just want to hear your voice. Tell me what happened?”
“I made a mistake,” Flayon replies shakily. Uncharacteristically quiet and pained. “A few mistakes. Got— left the R-TRUS for a second. Shouldn’t have.”
“I R-Trust you made the decision you thought was right,” Altare tells him with surety.
“I hate you.” Flayon huffs, but he can’t keep the smile from tugging at his lips. “What the fuck? Puns? Really? While I’m bleeding in your arms?”
“You love me,” is the easy, carefree response, and Flayon knows that Altare is right.
“Hurts,” he breathes, eyes fluttering closed. “Altare. It hurts.”
“Shh, no, no, don't close your eyes,” Altare jostles him and the pilot groans, blinking blearily up at him. Leader smiles apologetically. “Just stay awake and it’ll be over before you know it.”
Flayon whimpers against his chest, “I’m trying.”
“That’s my boy,” Altare soothes gently. “You’re doing great. Just keep breathing. In and out.”
Flayon’s mind is hazy but he can feel the stagger of Altare’s steps. The uneven ground, the wreckage — it can’t be easy to carry someone over it. He doesn’t miss the way Altare sucks in a breath as he steps on a shard of shrapnel.
“Aw, frick,” Altare says. “I hope someone cleans this up.”
“Altare,” Flayon mumbles. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Like I said, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
“Thanks for caring.” It means more than words can say.
“Of course. Always. Anything for my baby boy.” Altare nestles his face in Flayon’s hair for a moment, dropping a kiss to his crown.
What a sweet way to go, Flayon thinks, before everything goes dark.
He dreams of death like it’s something he’s always known.
His memories may find their resting place in the framework of the R-TRUS, but he has flashes of old lives that surface in the back of his mind. They belong to him alone; his regrets.
The R-TRUS does not have his emotional capacity to feel, and for someone that’s overstayed his welcome time and time again, Flayon sometimes laments the fact that he still feels too much.
He could die here, like he always has.
Too tired to go on, too much blood spilled on the ground — no longer poetic. Just another tragedy in the long-standing life-death cycle of Machina X Flayon, where he’s gotten used to leaving it all behind to start anew.
Never get attached, he used to say, because what you don’t love, you can’t lose.
But he does get attached.
And he does love. And he does lose.
The lives prior tell him not to go back. One day, this won’t mean anything. He’s always been destined to be in the safest place for him — alone.
It’s just that even wannabe immortals get sick and tired of being alone. So what if he loves and loses? At least he’s not too ashamed to try.
“Altare,” he says softly, coming into coherence enough to recall the last memory in his grasp. “I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry you found me and carried me back and I didn’t make it. Or I did make it, but now I’m stuck here and I don’t know how to get out. I hope you’re not mad at me.” The darkness does not respond. “I really tried. Believe me. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.”
After all, in this life, he loves the guild. Doesn’t know if that love, that grows bigger than his heart, can even exist in this cavern of a recycled body.
He would understand if he had to let it go.
He’s let go of so many things. He knows grief like the back of his hand. He’s the only dead body he’s never been able to mourn.
“But I still wouldn’t trade this life,” he murmurs. “For anything.”
There’s nobody listening. It’s a message he’s sending out to the observers of this universe, the ones that decided he would be Machina X Flayon, genius ace pilot with tens of thousands of lives.
A plea to a god that has never chosen to save him.
“Please.” He whispers, thumbing at the wound he doesn't have. It aches on his body, like the phantom of a cut that is no longer there. “I don’t wanna die.”
He sees a glimmer of red and blue, amidst the darkness. He steps towards it.
They scatter like shattered glass, glowing like a firework on pause — a scatter of lights in the dim nothingness.
Your time isn’t up yet. They say.
I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. They say, in the same voice, but kinder.
Flayon wonders what this means. He knows no necromancer, no otherworldly being, no magician or mage or alchemist, for that matter, who has ever been able to cure him of the fate he’s stuck in, and that’s okay. There are secrets in this world he still hasn’t discovered.
He does not need to learn how to live with forever.
He only needs to learn how to live.
“You better not,” he sasses back with ease. He's not afraid, after all, of things he can see. “I left my new game on a cliffhanger, you know. If I don’t find out what’s going to happen, I’m going to punch someone. Probably Hakka. Or Axel, if he spoils me because he’s played ahead.”
Why not both? The lights dance as if they’re laughing. You’ve got two fists.
“Good plan.” Flayon replies, nodding in agreement. “When I get outta here, Hakka and Axel are gonna get it.”
The lights drift closer, crystal shards of corrupted data making themselves known to Flayon. Like fireflies of fire and ice, they flicker, and Flayon — who has battled corruption for millennia — is not so much afraid as he is curious.
Only two kinds of corruption can invade a subconscious. Ones with an invitation, like Hakka’s raven, and demons, of course, that bend to no rules except those made in hell.
Flayon has a failsafe for both of these cases. Perks of living thousands of lives. When it comes to data, nothing can touch him. If only he could have said the same for his too-human body.
“How’d you get here, anyway?” He asks the shimmer of lights. “This is my subconscious. I don’t let anyone in here unless I trust them 100%. I don’t remember opening the door for you.”
Flayon, my dear sweet boy, the corruption shards laugh, warm and familiar in a way he can’t quite put a name to. Or maybe he can, but he doesn’t want to believe it. I’m here because you called for me.
“Altare,” he whispers.
Come home, Altare replies. Sleeping on your bed is starting to hurt my back.
When Flayon wakes up, he’s in his room and there’s a pool of blue curled up at the foot of his bed.
It’s a strange color, because Flayon’s belongings usually consist of the same palette as Monokuma from Danganronpa; red, black and white.
Blue isn’t his style, and he’d like to blame the mortal enemy of any technological genius — the infamous blue screen of death — for being a formative traumatic experience in his repeated childhood memory to explain that case, but really, it’s because he feels like he’s always been too explosive for blue.
He’s always been red.
Too bold, too brash, too much to endure. It’s easier to be written off as an explosive hothead than to be himself and get hurt for it.
First impressions matter, even the ones that are fabricated. It’s easier if he gets his foot in as a bright, fun weirdo, and let the emotional baggage and stress from being alive 18,432 lifetimes come out when it’s already too late and he’s wormed his way into people’s hearts and they already love him too much to let him go.
Easier to drench himself in red, to use the subliminal message of color — yes, it’s calculated, of course it is, Machina X Flayon has to stay in control or he’ll destroy things like he destroys everything, he’s been around long enough to know to keep himself on a tight leash before anyone else gets hurt — to say look at me! I’m just another one of those idiot heroes! Don’t try and dig any deeper, there’s nothing for you to find!
The pool of blue slowly comes into focus in Flayon’s vision, like an old photograph being scraped from dust, and forms a person.
All the cogs turning in Flayon’s head slow down, for a beat, as he takes in the sight of his beloved guild leader rolled up like a shrimp — or a snail, Flayon scoffs internally — on the end of his bed.
But then again, he thinks, what’s wrong with being an idiot hero?
Had he not followed Altare in the first place because he saw a man that was brave enough and stupid enough to take a stand in this burning world?
Because in all the lives he had lived, he had never seen a hero like Regis Altare; deceptively plain, and more driven by the thought of making cozy memories than slaying all the horrors? The kind of guy that was never in a hurry, like he had all the time in the universe, no matter what kind of dangers loomed behind.
As someone that does have all the time in the universe — because he does not die when he is killed, and when he does die, he actually doesn’t, because he’s just gonna pop out again someplace, somewhere, alive as ever — Flayon still doesn’t understand it.
“Altare…?” He croaks, voice rusty from misuse. It’s the least cute he’s felt in a while, but he figures, with the bandage wrapped around his torso, that it’s still cute in a bit of a damaged way.
He takes a deep breath. Once, twice, maybe three times. Does some lip trills as a vocal warmup, hoping to banish the gross-sounding dryness in his throat.
“So that’s what you meant by back hurting in my bed,” he mutters, shaking his head at the blue thing he calls a guild leader snoozing over there. “Do you wanna get up or not, sleepyhead? Earth to Altare?”
The shrimp-snail of a man at the foot of his bed does not react.
“Hey. Wakey wakey,” Flayon nudges his leader with his foot. “Hibernation’s over, Altare-bear. Wake up, okay?”
Altare stirs slowly, whining at the kick against his side. He’s so unfairly handsome, even with the crease on his cheek from sleep, even with the hint of drool by his mouth, lifting his messy head of hair as he blinks his way into consciousness.
Anyone else might’ve looked like they’d been crushed by the R-TRUS, waking up like that. Altare just looks mussed up in a cute webtoon heartthrob kind of way. So unfair.
“Flay,” he says, sounding a little breathless. “You’re awake.”
“I’m definitely not not awake.” The pilot tries to sit up and realizes belatedly that his teddy bear has been tucked in beside him and it rolls over, falling to the floor. “Oh no,” he mutters. “Teddy.”
“Noooo,” Altare wails, much more dramatically, scrambling over to pick it back up, tucking it back into the blanket beside him and patting the stuffed animal frantically. “You feeling alright, Flayon? Nothing’s broken?”
“Hey, excuse me! Hello! Flayon’s over here!” Flayon jokes weakly, crossing his arms over his chest. Movements don't hurt as much as they should, which means he must have been out for quite some time and the potions he'd likely been force fed had taken their effect. The most he feels is a dull ache in his abdomen, and an uncalled for echo of the ache rising into his chest, rubbing against his rib cage, begging to be set free. He swallows it down. “I can’t believe you mistook me for a teddy bear.”
Altare laughs softly, playing along. “My bad. You’re just as cute as one, though. Can you blame me?”
He feels himself flush, and sinks a little in his bed.
“Such a charmer,” he sighs, before his expression softens. “I am pretty cute. You’re right.”
“I’m always right.” Altare grins. “How are you feeling, cutie pie? Sugar cube? Honey bunches?”
“Cutie—” he sputters, then pouts when he sees Altare’s grin widen. “Oh, you’re just making fun of me! If you're just going to tease me, get out! I'm going back to the dream world, where I'll finally get some peace around here.”
“Okay, bye-bye, then,” Altare yawns, stretching out like a cat, unbothered by the way Flayon glares at him. “I was gonna give you a hug but I guess you don’t want one. I’ll go take the rest of my nap in my own beautiful little bed and you can be in the dream world, cold and hugless, without me. I see how it is. Goodbye, hug, you have been lost but never forgotten.”
“No!” Flayon changes his tune immediately, straightening right up at the offer of a hug. He's in no position to be chasing Altare, but his leader also hasn't moved, despite his dramatic crooning farewell. “No, gimme! You can't do that! Gimme, gimme!”
“I won't give any hugs to someone who doesn't want me here,” Altare pretends to sob. “It's fine. I get it. I waited all this time for you to wake up and you don't even want to see me. I get it.”
“No, no, no, I do! I do want you here! Don’t leave, don’t leave!” He pats at the blankets frantically and Altare just pretends to sob harder. “Altare, no! It's okay! Come here! I want a hug! Hug me!”
“Alright, alright, I hear ya.” Altare gives in, wailing dissolving into a languid smile as he crawls up to the pilot's side and gives him a hug, warm and solid and real. Flayon melts instantly into his embrace. Like he was gonna say no to a hug. “You’re lucky I packed extra.”
“You’ve fallen for my trap card,” Flayon mumbles, burrowing his face into his hood. “Now you’re stuck here with me forever.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad, actually.”
“Mrrggh,” Flayon groans, embarrassed that his words are backfiring on him.
“Mrrggh yourself,” Altare replies, sounding amused. His chin rests on Flayon's head, as his tender voice tumbles, soft as candy floss and just as sweet. “Now you’re stuck with me forever.”
“Okay.” Flayon says.
“Okay?”
“I mean, I guess I don’t have a choice.” Flayon’s fingers clutch into the fabric of his sweater. “It was you, wasn’t it? Who brought me home. Not just in the literal way. I don’t know how you did it, or what this means, because that’s never happened to me before. But.” He closes his eyes. “You were there. Somehow. And you pulled me out of the dark.”
“Welcome home,” Altare says, instead of explaining anything. Flayon doesn’t push the matter. He’s too comfortable here, the heat of Altare’s body keeping him warm. In any case, they’ve got time. The answers will come, one way or another.
“I’m home.” Flayon replies, a call and response. Then, because he can’t stop running his mouth because all the pent-up energy just comes tumbling out at once whenever he's least likely to be able to put a lid on it, he says, “You’re lacking in the house wife-husband-spouse department, by the way. What kind of welcome home was that? You didn’t even ask the important three questions.”
“What three questions?”
“You know the ones.” He chirps, and peeks one eye back open to matter-of-factly list out, “Would you like dinner? A bath? Or me?”
“I’ll have you.” Altare says without hesitation.
“Huh? What do you mean you’ll— oh!” Flayon sputters, reddening in alarm, realizing what he was agreeing to. What the heck! This asshole set him up! “No, no, no, that’s not what I— I was just giving an example, I wasn’t actually asking— Altare, listen to me!” He laughs as Altare blows a raspberry against his shoulder. “Hey! I’m a patient here! Treat me with respect!”
“Ha ha ha,” Altare chuckles, over-the-top and comically, cartoonishly villainous, “It's too late! You're all mine!”
Flayon can feel the heave of his chest as he speaks, the firmness of his torso taut beneath his sweater. His heart hammers, flutters like he's about to take off, whirring like his control panels overheating. The proximity is nice, but he won't admit that just yet.
“I'm never hugging you again!” Flayon announces petulantly, but doesn't make any move to push him away. “You're evil!”
“What?! No, I'm not!” Altare's eyes go wide and he clutches onto Flayon tighter, though his touch is so light, so careful, over his wound. “I want hugs, Flay!” He whines. “I'm not evil, I'm just a little guy. You love this. You love me. I'm in your mind.”
“Man, have you always been this clingy?” Flayon's expression scrunches, but he's never been able to refuse Altare anything, in the end. “Okay, fine! Sure! You get to keep this hug, so you better savor it, alright? It's special, just for you, leader.”
Altare draws back, smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “That's my boy.”
Flayon feels himself relax. Opens his embrace again, wordlessly slipping them around his middle, pulling Altare closer into his arms. He flexes his fingers in his hood, content with the way Altare fits against him, though a part of him thinks that he will always want him closer. Altare snuggles up to him, getting comfortable and Flayon, overcome with it, presses a kiss to the crown of his head. He wants to bury himself in this feeling forever.
He feels safe. He feels warm. He feels alive.
“It was me. I brought you back.” Altare whispers into his ear, confession quiet and tentative and missing pieces that might be important, breath tickling against his skin. “But keep this our little secret. Okay?”
“Our little secret.” Flayon repeats, giddy with the thought that he had been trusted with something vital, even though he still didn't quite know what it all meant.
He's got time to figure this out.
For now, he’s just glad to be home.