Archive of Our Own

When Flayon agrees to go on the expedition, he does not expect it to go well. There’s the danger, of course, one thing he’s intimately familiar with. There’s also Bettel, who makes a great friend and decent leader but shows less promise for survival should anything go wrong. 

It doesn’t really matter what he thinks though. Xenokuni is a must, both as a neighbouring land and a source of fresh blood and intel, so he has to go. Besides, isn’t that why he finally agreed to join the guild in the first place? They need him, and Flayon has always craved the thought of being necessary and needed. 

He still remembers Altare buckling on his knees in front of him, no longer wanting but needing.

It used to be the only emotion he could understand. Pain. Necessity. Sugar and salt burning holes through your tongue. Only the strongest sensations. Now, perhaps, there are some others that are worth considering, some softer things unlocked after learning there are other ways to be, but that desire still rings the strongest.

Flayon is not a deserter. He would never leave just because he thinks this mission is a stupid one. He can’t leave anyway since the point is that the mysterious robot is Xenokunian too, and as the sole pilot, he must try to learn about it firsthand. And that very robot is proof that this world needs him, so he cannot even fathom saying no.

The little red monster inside said it himself. There are dozens of potential soldiers, but only one with enough iron and grit to truly survive it.

There is a price too, of course, but everything has a price and he is the only one strong enough to pay it.

Once he’s finally on the expedition though, graced by views of languid streams and the delicate handcrafted type of tool that no one can spare the time to make in Elysium because they’re all so concerned with quantity over painstaking quality, he enjoys it for new reasons. It’s not so bad, actually, rolling around in the dirt to reveal hidden sights like this. Besides, they’re not like the ARMIS brutes who relish in going on expeditions just to hunt, so they’ve mostly avoided the beasts in favour of examining the traces they leave behind. Little twigs buzzing with energy, enormous claw marks in the grassy knolls, things like that.

He is a killer, but he doesn’t exactly enjoy the thought of killing. It consumes you too much, caught in the scarlet haze. They are all killers, but the thought that maybe they are the good kind of killer, the kind who want to save the world, is vaguely comforting.

Their studies take them wide and far, though mostly along the border and the woods, places where they don’t stick out too much. And Bettel is a good companion, actually. A great one. He shouldn't have doubted him.

When they hear rumours of people, not beasts but full-fledged people who are still cognizant enough to be recognised as such, that live hand in hand with whatever corruption has been running rampant, they have no choice but to follow the scent. 

Flayon likes that part too, likes laying low in towns and wearing new clothes that are so big and loose that he disappears inside of them. They hide all the ugly parts of him. 

They hide his uniform too.

The first is Shinri, a poised man who goes along with their quest for knowledge. It turns out that he, too, is tired of the nonstop war, so he’s willing to take the chance on a ramshackle group from another nation that want to tackle the problem from its roots. A wanderer by choice, he knows the land much better than either he or Bettel could hope to, so he becomes their guide to the next few survey points. 

Their next stop is a mix of rubble and overgrown moss, plants invading the remnants of stone and storied houses. It could be worse, honestly. Although the traces of corruption are stronger here, they show no signs of snuffing out the wildlife. They take turns surveying, taking watch, sleeping, then going through it all over again. 

One day, catching the rustle of maple from a spot to his right, Flayon tosses a knife in the branches. It’s not supposed to hit, just get close enough to draw whatever it is out.

“Show yourself,” he demands, looking back for the others. Bettel, with his whip, is still in the clearing. Shinri is close behind.

What emerges, leaping from the trees with a great big spear and his thrown knife in hand, is their second mark, exactly where he was rumoured to be. The fearsome son who left years before to train on his lonesome and master his art. He’s been living with corruption the longest, so he should have the best ideas about dealing with it. 

At this, Flayon stiffens, gesturing to the others to lower their weapons. He drops his own, the bombs and daggers falling from his hands like confetti.

“My name is Flayon,” he says, watching the other falter slightly and remove his mask. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

He does not know how to convince someone like that to go along with them, but this is a serviceable start. You’ve got to be polite at the very least. If all else fails, then they can just try knocking him out and taking him by force, he supposes.

“Banzoin Hakka.” His voice is gruff from a lack of use, but friendly. “You’re the explorers, yeah? Or scientists. Study-ers? I don’t know. The guys who are learning about corruption.”

“That’s us.” Flayon holds his hand out with a half smile, satisfied when Hakka hardly hesitates before shaking it. “I’m Flayon, and those two back there are Shinri and Bettel. I don’t want to be presumptuous, but we’re studying and, well...”

“You want me to join because of my arm?”

Hakka’s arm pulses a little, talons digging into the shaft of his spear. His fingers have a delicateness to them, something reminiscent of flower buds in mid April. Flayon finds he likes it though. Likes how simple and direct he is.

“Yeah, I guess so. So, what do you say?”

It is much easier to convince him than he was prepared for it to be, speeches of its great value to humanity and the perks of joining the guild thrown carelessly aside in favour of just talking things out. They are more similar than he expects and Hakka accepts him without question with the warmth of an old friend. He accepts him without needing anything from him, which is unfamiliar, but nice nonetheless.

So when he asks, intimating that he’d love to have Hakka along for their wild, crazy journey, uncertain exactly where it’ll take them, Hakka agrees in an instant with a smile that swallows the sun.

It is Bettel, catching up just in time to hear it, who suggests it with a laugh. “Can we just act like we kidnapped you? It’ll be easier, diplomatically, if you want to come back some day and they think it wasn't your choice to leave. Plus, I just think it’ll be fun and add a little bit of drama.”

Hakka, with a cackling laugh, readily agrees, asking Flayon to be the one to carry him out. 

Flayon does so happily. Even when Hakka asks for it in jest, fists pinging off his back like acorns in the fall, Flayon refuses to let him down, carrying him across the fields, carrying him across the border, carrying him all the way down the long path to a home that they will soon share.

-

With more people, the guild hall is naturally livelier. 

Instead of empty bedrooms and quiet kitchens, because their sleep schedules are invariably all over the place and sometimes do not truly align, there are warm voices filling the rooms. There is laughter and arguments and enough happiness that the walls often seem to threaten to burst on them. And if they did, he’s certain they would do nothing but grin and put all the bricks back one by one.

Hakka quickly becomes a close confidante. It is not that he doesn’t like the others. He likes them more than anyone else before, probably. It’s more like he respects them so greatly that the weight of that respect hangs heavily around his neck. It stifles his words. Hakka, who knows so little of who he used to be and expects no great things from the boy who doesn’t even understand why the R-TRUS only acts for him, is not only safer, but a different kind of close. 

They are so close that it makes him short circuit sometimes just thinking about it. It’s like discovering a secret twin in another body, but worse, because there are other more complicated feelings there too. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to love him as much if Hakka was secretly a copy of himself wrapped up in a friendlier, more vicious skin. He's not egocentric enough for that.

He expected Hakka to be sadder about leaving, but instead he is largely joyous, tugging Flayon into a myriad of adventures every single day. 

There are simple things too. Simple things that they both call adventures for no reason at all except to draw out a laugh.

“Let’s go!” 

Hakka practically pulls him out the door and down the winding path into the woods. There’s a little patch where they planted some stolen plants, maples and hydrangeas and other things that would remind him of a faraway home. It was incredibly illegal, of course, against all the mandates on controlled agriculture and careful importing, but who cares about a couple of measly laws if it’ll make Hakka feel a little more at home. People do sell them too, to be fair. It's not like they're about to cause an insect epidemic or anything like that.

Between two of the taller saplings, ruddy leaves barely poking out of tiny branches, there’s a big towel and a basket. It’s big enough that they can both stretch out on it if they squeeze side by side, eyes trained to the horizon. 

“This is beautiful,” Flayon professes, hopping down on the left side. Hakka prefers the right so they can pretend like they’re only together to study Hakka’s hand if someone comes by, so Flayon always opts for the left. “You did a great job.”

“It was mostly Shinri’s doing, but thanks. He owed me a favour for last week with the raiders.”

Sometimes he wonders if it scares Hakka a little, the ease with which he can rampage and destroy when he usually seems so apt to do anything but. 

“Give me back the thanks then so I can give it to him instead.”

Hakka sticks out his tongue for a second, settling squarely beside him. “Too late. It’s already mine. I licked it, so he won’t want it anymore.”

They do do other stuff too, training and poring over field logs and testing out theories based on what they’ve seen. It’s not all just joke after joke after joke under a backdrop of wispy dreams and tiny fruit sandwiches. 

Unsurprisingly, a good number of those sandwiches end up smushed in each other’s faces.

Flayon imagines Hakka plucking out his thanks like a fruit off a tree and laughs.

Being with Hakka unlocks things inside him, things he doesn’t really want to label or linger on. For a long time, he was nothing but a stranger to his softer emotions. Isn’t it enough to just have moments like this, to have little daily adventures where they laugh because they truly love the act of living? 

It was a rarity for him before this, before he let himself be more than a nervous, solitary soldier always in want of more.

-

Sometimes Flayon is not quite fearful, but not quite happy to work with Hakka. He has that addicted, hopelessly violent side to him that’s hard to escape. His resolve is stronger than his compulsions, so it does not often show, but there is something inside Hakka that is always clawing to come out.

It’s not hard to see if you really take the time to look.

Hakka is usually good at controlling it, having years of practice, but sometimes it slips out a little and Flayon can always tell because it’s so achingly obvious when he’s overtaken by something or someone else. His eyes tighten up and flash like frigid steel. His teeth draw blood first from his own lips and then, although they don’t get so far as to actually do it, they gnash like he wants to sink them deep into his combatant's flesh to drink up all of their vitality.

It usually happens when they’re already deep into the act of killing, a necessity of study sometimes when the corrupted begin to fight back. 

It’s not the bloodshed that’s the problem, but the aftermath. 

Flayon can do nothing but watch the corruption return and recede like a constant tide and he knows that there will come a day where it overtakes Hakka and he can no longer resurface. It takes longer and longer every time and Hakka is so hopelessly reckless, throwing himself into fights to protect Flayon’s back against beast and man alike when he could easily live with a few more scars and a lot less heartache.

“Watch out!” he snarls, turning his spear towards a never ending enemy. Somehow he has enough sense to not turn it against Flayon, but that’s been the only constant. Everything else is always utterly obliterated. 

He knows that that power is what makes Hakka strong enough to take on any threat, which is part of the reason why they’re so desperate to understand it.

He knows that Hakka is slowly killing himself by taking on this job though. Every instance accelerates his death a little more.

Every single time, without fail, it takes a little longer. Sometimes he can barely clench his hand once he’s back, fingers still refusing to listen to his head.

Though the guild tries not to, they inevitably kill the beasts that they study once they’ve squeezed out all the useful information from them. ARMIS is worse of course, thinking total extermination is the only way to curb the corruption from the planet, but they’re both killers in the end. 

They kill, but they only kill when it’s the only option. It’s different because they are on the side of good and have no other choice. That’s how the soft-hearted among them make peace about it. It’s noble, if only because otherwise those beasts would kill some innocent civilians who cannot fight back like we can. 

It’s not like they plan to or go into it knowing it will happen, but Hakka will inevitably be different. Flayon is confronted by that reality every single time as he sits with Hakka waiting for the haze and the bloodlust to recede into something more manageable, waiting for control over his hands to return to him like one may wait for an especially temperamental cat to finally step inside the door. 

If the day comes where someone wants to turn their blade against Hakka, then what should he do in return? 

-

He learns it’s dangerous on his own too. The reins are already slipping.

On one such occasion, with absolutely no danger to fight, with nothing lurking in the trees except for Flayon himself, he watched Hakka weave out the hall and run deeper and deeper into the forest, only stopping when he’s levelled an entirely new clearing. He stabs into the charred bits too, watching soot and ash fizzle to smaller bits of dust with a snarl. 

Hakka has no problems unleashing the gamut of his cruelty when he has no reason to hold back.

He wants to ask, but he’s afraid of the answer regardless of what it may be. 

Do you think they will spare you just because you were once our friend?

Hakka soon returns with a painted smile, the very picture of nonchalance like nothing had even happened, and Flayon acts like he believes him.

-

Bettel is not who he says he is, it turns out. His brother, his persona, they’re all real, but at the same time, he is not who he claimed to be. He is not and yet everyone still finds a way to love him as if nothing is different.

He does too, of course. Flayon is a part of that everyone and always was. You’d have to kill him before he stops loving Gavis Bettel or whatever his name may be. 

Flayon supposes they feel that way because Bettel has never lied about who he was in the way that counts. He is not like Flayon, who covets and craves love that he has little stake to claim. He did not lie about the important things, but Flayon lives inside his lies, so he certainly does not deserve the same acceptance. 

He doesn't even try to get it. No, his aching fingers remain resolutely shut and tied to his sides. 

There is this thing he used to do, a thing that’s seemingly built into his bones, where he finds someone kind and loving and moulds himself into the type of person they would find agreeable and desirable so that he can control them. It is not something he does any longer, having discovered how brilliant it feels to love and be loved in return for the person who he truly is inside, but that brilliance comes with a mighty cost, with a fear of the enormous pit that is true rejection.

It would be selfish to turn to Hakka at a time like this and demand that he love him more ferociously just because he wants to. Things are not that simple for people like them.

Hakka too, while not living a lie, graciously averts his eyes whenever he rampages a little too much. They are not quite the same, but much closer to each other than they could be with anyone else. They understand each other precisely because they can be so freely ugly around each other. 

There are just too many things like that. Too many lies that they live with. Theirs are lies you make a home inside, airing out the carpet in case anyone dares to step inside.

And maybe because he did love him once, just maybe, (is it crazy to hope so?) Hakka decides to indulge him much more than he really should, leaning in as if he’s about to try for something more without Flayon even needing to ask. He leans and enlargens and he’s warm like a particularly long and lovely candle.

But he doesn’t love him. Or he can’t love him. 

That's the point. 

So he only leans a very scant amount, just enough for Flayon to watch his teeth turn to pearls in front of his very eyes, before getting up and snuffing out all the flames in his path. 

Maybe it’s not his love that will run out, but his patience. It’s already burning a little low, frayed by circumstances they cannot control.

Time has no favours in store for either of them.

-

Flayon thinks, but does not know, that Hakka likes him too. Just as much, if not more, but the exact amount remains unknown. It’s a familiar mystery they share amongst themselves like smoke. 

Besides, that’s just not the kind of thing you ask someone who’s always on the brink of death.

What if those are the last words that ever come from his pale lips? 

He’s pretty sure that everyone has their own ideas of exactly what is going on between them. Even C-TRUS joins in the pile sometimes, harping on him for picking such a pathetic man to tie himself to. 

Unfortunately, he is stubborn and Hakka too is stubborn and together, they both make a terribly stubborn pair.

“Where did you ever get the idea that I love you?” Flayon asks, and it’s supposed to be a joke. He winces a little at the insecurity that’s somehow burrowed its way in there.

Instead of looking at him, Flayon is focusing on the feeling of his necklace in his hands, the way it sits on his neck, chain a little short. He usually keeps it beneath his suit, but recently he likes to bring it out just to fiddle with the charm. When Hakka first brought it over, proud as all hell to recover something like that, Flayon had complained that the clasp was too small for him to remove it with his battered hands.

Secretly he liked it though. He wondered if Hakka liked it too, the knowledge that part of him was permanently fused to Flayon's body.

It’ll probably remain on him until he dies.

“I dunno. Maybe ‘cause you say it all the time. I swear, you make me feel like I’m the sexiest motherfucker alive and we both know that I’m not.”

Sometimes Flayon practices saying things that are close enough to get the message across. Lyrics in a song that he begs them to sing together, timing horribly off as they scream out the words. Then he pastes a roaring laugh on top like poorly laid wallpaper. Shut up. I love you, he twists around a hopefully not mocking laugh, preemptively turning it into a joke so Hakka won't read into it and won’t ask any uncomfortable questions. If someone is going to turn it into a joke, then it may as well be him so he gets the last word.

Flayon does it all the time, talking about how much he loves how Hakka does mundane things like saying certain words or folding his clothes bottom to top because it's just innocent enough to be ignored. It's safe to say things like that because there's just enough ambiguity to insert a lie in there.

Don't you get it? Hurry up and understand me already.

“That’s because you are,” Flayon replied with a huff, delighting in the wide smile cracking over Hakka’s face. “Maybe second to me, but extremely sexy nonetheless. Don't you go forgetting it now.”

He doesn’t really explain himself, but Hakka has never asked, so he has never elaborated. He just waits, loathe as he may be to hold himself victim to time, because that’s all they can really do.

-

The corruption gets worse and worse. 

There’s this thing he’s heard about failing plants, that sometimes it’s not because of you. Sometimes it’s because there’s too much water or clay in the soil, and all you can do is uproot the whole thing and try to slice away the rotten bits. 

If it’s Hakka, then what part should he cut away? 

Because corruption goes hand in hand with emotion, because for Hakka it’s more like mania than anything else, sometimes he settles disturbingly on the fact that it should be himself because they tend to get so frightfully happy when they’re together. 

He ignores that instinct though.

Maybe with more time, with more experience, more studies, more understanding, more evidence, then they’ll find something else. There must be some other solution out there. 

That doesn’t mean he can’t tell what’s going on though. Flayon only admits this to himself in the darkest, most secretive corner of his heart. 

He can see the way that even they, too, are rotting because of it.

It just makes him desperate to try even harder.

-

There’s this thing Altare always says about him. When Flayon likes it, he'll eat fast, and when he doesn't, he'll eat at a glacial pace. He finishes everything, of course, because food is a luxury, but that's how you can tell. He has an unfortunate habit of saying shit like that, delighting in carving away his layers despite knowing his desires to stay a little mysterious and unknowable.

Hakka watches him with increasingly tired eyes as they sit around the table. Hakka simply had a smaller plate too, stomach unable to handle that much normal food. The cooking helps him pretend at least, pretend that everything is still like it once was. 

Hakka likes that part too, the cooking, so they both find it better to let him indulge in it if it makes him happy.

Flayon winces at the particularly loud clink of ceramic on stone. His mouth is slow, his words locked around savouring lips. 

The rice is packed so tight that sometimes the entire bowl rolls around as he tries to unearth some and place it in his hollow mouth.

It doesn't mean he isn't enjoying it. That's what he wants to tell him, eyes hooked on the way Hakka's canine teeth gnash against his bruised lip, his portion already squared away long ago. He wants to, but to speak is to empty his tongue is to stop is to take longer and stare longer at the empty space between them, and he does not want to do that.

To feed and be fed are among the greatest expressions of love, yet here he is making a shitshow of both. 

That's just what happens. He tries, or Hakka tries, or they both are in variable states of trying something, but the castle has to crumble somewhere since the foundation has slowly withered away under time’s arrows. 

In essence, it’s simply business as usual.

-

Flayon starts taking more missions away, desperate to find some sort of answer. 

It doesn't have to be a perfect answer. A mediocre one would be good enough. Something. There must be something out there if he just looks hard enough.

It’s addicting too, the feeling of constantly chasing after something and knowing that it’s probably out there if he just keeps going. A little more every single day, that’s all. It lets him concentrate on doing the one thing he’s an expert at. Surviving.

He finds that he does not really care for the word corrupted either. It makes Hakka sound more evil than anything else, evil and devoid of any agency. It’s not like he was once there and someday he will not be, replaced by some eldritch stranger.

It’s a bit archaic, but he prefers the sound of afflicted instead. It shows the reality stronger, the fact that those suffering from it are still the same deep down.

There is a small robotic part of him that reminds him there is one thing he could turn to, but he refuses to give the R-TRUS any more power when they barely understand that, too.

Not yet, at least.

-

Flayon lives for the normal days. Soon, he realises that he craves them more than anything.

It is not so much that the normal is easy to live with, though that is true as well. It’s more like they have lived many good days together. So many, in fact, that happy days spent together supplanted the definition for an ordinary day.

They stretch a lot compared to before. Flayon pretends like it’s because he’s always scrunched up in the R-TRUS’s tiny cockpit, but they both know the bulk of the mobility exercises are not for his benefit. They stretch and they share sips of water from the same cup in a secret, separated sort of kiss.

Today a hand pulls Flayon’s wrist from behind, pulling him into a rhythmless dance. It’s fun in its own right, glueing themselves together and letting the imaginary orchestra play for the audience of two.

“At least let me turn on some music,” Flayon protests, twirling out to start some. 

“Fine. But I get to lead first.”

At first it’s more of a clumsy, joking sort of dance than anything truly coordinated, Hakka’s weight pulling him in circles around the cluttered floor. The song switches to something with a stronger beat though, bass twanging through the speakers. That’s enough to anchor them both, pulling each other a little closer into something more intimate.

Hakka’s eyes flash silver as they get closer, his face leaning down toward Flayon’s neck. His breath is lightning hot against his skin, his teeth so close.

From his phone, the songs keep playing, and it’s easy to tell that Hakka wants to keep going. He doesn’t though. Instead, he turns away and points at their mats and says that it’s high time they cleaned things up. Altare will use the space for his research session soon, he insists, so they have to pick everything up right away.

He’s afraid, Flayon realises afterwards, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t be upset about it.

It becomes a bit of a competition between them. Probably the saddest competition to ever exist.

I can suppress my desires more than you. Just watch.

-

Hakka is a ghost. 

Well, no, technically he’s not, with one foot in the exorcism business rather than the ghostliness business, but he feels like a ghost and that's what counts. Flayon does too, living through more than he deserves. 

It’s something they’ve fought about. It’s Hakka carrying nonsense about Flayon always dying and coming back and how he’s scared it won’t work some day, jabs about how he’s always being reckless, but Flayon’s certain that if he had truly died at some point, then he would have remembered it. 

Why is he so stubborn anyway? He is the one who lives on a timer, not Flayon. He is the one always rushing into battle to defend him when Flayon can handle himself just fine. Hakka should be the careful one, not him. They both know the risks.

And when he does live, Hakka, so obsessed with death, only lives enough to leave behind traces, things like a worn indent in his favoured chair or the chipped cup on the table in Flayon’s room, and that’s all Flayon is ever confronted by lately. Never himself. Never anything half as real. 

At some point you begin to wonder. When will we just become ghosts to each other? 

He's pretty sure that all the friendly ghosts are trapped in children’s books for a reason. Hakka’s certainly never dealt with any, if his stories are to be believed.

They only exist in your dreams and this life is anything but.

Flayon is used to it though. The feeling of your flesh getting ripped into pieces. He feels it every day for work, even, as the only person able to endure it all. If he can do it for the R-TRUS, the he can certainly manage it for Hakka.

That's why this is no big deal for him. 

He just needs to burn the bridge before he has to be the one watching Hakka do it instead. Because at least, at the very least, if it’s his choice to do it, then he won’t be caught unaware. 

It will hurt less.

Someday, someone will offer shelter for people like him. Shelter for the afflicted and traitors, people like just Hakka seems like he inevitably will be. People who cannot turn to guild Tempus. People who meet love with lies, painfully aware of both.

It cannot be him though. For all his effort, it can never be him.

Not even he can create a lie so large it will save them from death.

-

Flayon is not surprised when the inevitable finally happens.

He has always been silently preparing himself for it, stealing away these moments that he can call upon some day. Things like the way Hakka looks in the morning, rubbing sleep from his chiffon eyes, or the way he entertains any errant thought that manages to slip out from Flayon’s tight grasp.

Hakka was probably not surprised either, he realises. 

The night before, he slipped into Flayon’s room with nothing but a little nub of a candle to light the path. 

“Are you sleeping yet?” came Hakka’s soft, barely there voice. 

He wasn't. That's another thing he began to do as he watched him decay, keeping himself awake at night so he can be conscious for as many hours with Hakka as possible, even if they aren't together for most of them.

“No,” Flayon answered, lifting up the covers and patting the empty part on the right side. “You wanna come in?”

Hakka burrowed inside without protest, taking a second to gently stroke his wrist first.

It’s something they only do on special nights, intentionally sleeping together like this. Today is not his birthday or Hakka’s or a holiday or the beginning of their well-deserved vacation of the year, so he knows deep down that it must mean something. 

There must be some big reason for all of it.

Neither of them are uselessly sentimental people, after all. Just garden-variety sentimental.

Flayon does not protest though, and sleep comes surprisingly easy when he finally has Hakka squarely in his sight. He is warm and real and they are together and that is what truly matters, isn’t it? He has stayed up too many hours to fight it off now.

In his dreams, he sees birds flying south for the winter as the wind apologises for bringing the winter chill in so soon. 

Then, of course, in the morning he gets his answer. 

Hakka is laid above him in a featherlight embrace, but he is not truly there. Not anymore. 

Summer is slow to leave in Elysium, the flowers still clinging to their withering petals long past spring's conclusion months before. Hakka is slow to leave too, the memory of him lingering like sap and syrup on his lips.

The spear came out clean through the other side of his head. That's how strong he was when he turned.

Flayon is unscathed. Physically unscathed, anyway, and he refuses to change his sheets for several days afterwards. He barely can stand to open the door that day, only doing so when Axel finally threatens to break it down should he wait any longer.

He did not really want to.

What if Hakka’s ghost disappeared once he finally let it go?

-

His pain makes him weak, so when a voice calls, Flayon finally decides to listen.

His life is no longer just about being needed by others. Now it is also about needing to do things of his own. These whispers of salvation and restitution are a lot harder to ignore when death stares so barefaced back to him and refuses to leave, even present when he shuts his eyes at night.

Hakka is gone. That is the nice way to say it, anyway. Hakka is gone and death is at his door, having barged in without leaving its shoes by the entryway. 

Hakka is gone and Flayon needs to be able to do something about it because it’s infinitely worse than he imagined it ever would be, losing Hakka to something that wasn’t inevitable and dangerous like a battle that leaves them all nursing wide gashes and tender bruises. 

He has always known that C-TRUS wants more from him than whatever soul it can slurp up from the plug in his tail. He knows that it understands corruption on some level and Flayon has never been afraid of it like the others. He understands it well, actually. Can even love it on some level. Corruption is like the freest form of emotion, emotion that can spill and spill until it floods the entire world. In that way, he can easily fathom loving it.

He was a bit jealous too, though he supposed it made sense. For every person who tamps down all traces of emotion, there must be another who cannot help but erupt with it nonstop.

The thing is, he loved Hakka while also vaguely loving the idea of corruption, but then it killed Hakka. Which it, he does not like to linger on. Better to free him of both, honestly. 

C-TRUS has always known what he wants at any waking moment. It’s probably a side effect from letting it freely into his mind and soul every time they need to fly. They’re like neighbours inside the same house. It keeps a vague eye on all of Flayon’s precious and secret things, most of which have to do with Hakka. 

It also has some weird kind of eternal, unimaginable power, which must be the result of tinkering with forbidden things like syphoning souls. Flayon is not at all surprised when it offers him an easy solution: the chance to go back in time to change things and better them. 

It’s not the first time he's been offered some kind of crazy bargain, but probably the first time he’s ever entertained agreeing to it. You see, he finally has something he desperately wants that trumps his desire to be loved and needed and not make waves.

“Will I remember any of this?” Flayon asks. “If I succeed, that is.”

C-TRUS does something which may be a sigh, but it's hard to tell.

“It’s hard to say. Probably not. The memories of that boy, certainly, will have to go because you can't have lived them once things have changed.”

“I see. And the price?”

“You shall be my holder for life. That is all I require.”

It feels a bit unfair, a bit too weighted in his desperate favour, but perhaps he must be preserved as the only specimen that's ever been compatible with the R-TRUS’s wily desires. He doesn’t exactly have the luxury of choice.

“I’ll do it,” Flayon agrees, shutting himself away in the cockpit. 

He’s going to be fine. 

He’s going to be happy, even, setting everything a little straighter.

He cannot save them all, but the least he can do is make the world a softer place for the person he loves. Hakka will be a little freer this way.

Technically he’s supposed to tell the others (it was usually Hakka, his mind traitorously supplies) before leaving in case something happens while he’s piloting, but if all goes well, then they won’t realise he’s been gone in the first place, so it doesn't matter.

He thought about how to do it, considered going back just a few days before they were supposed to meet. Maybe if the warning was fresh, then Hakka would have the suspicion and sense to heed it. 

Ultimately he chooses against that though, since rather than relying on Hakka's judgement, it's better to try to get him out of the area to begin with. A few days isn’t enough time to ensure that he will never meet the rest of them. They travel too fast and cover far too much ground between the three of them. He’s intimately familiar with it, having lived and grown with them for such long, glorious, and beautiful years. They won’t give up that easily.

Flayon expected time travel to feel colder somehow, or weirder. Instead, there’s a weird, almost reconstructive warmth dissolving into his skin as he hops out the R-TRUS about an hour out from Hakka’s hideout. He wonders if the other Flayon out there, the one who should still be doing some wandering of his own, feels a phantom chill as they both inhabit parts of the same world. 

He takes the rest of the journey on foot, eager for a little space to think. He knows the route by heart still, having camped and canvassed and cracked into each of the hidden treasures along the way. Hakka’s only been here for a year or so, so he’s relatively used to the solitude but not so hardened by it that he’ll be unreasonable to argue with. 

He eventually settles on approaching with honesty, a luxury he could not afford before today.

“Wow,” Flayon breathes out, making his voice louder and lighter on purpose. “Who knew the sun could look like that.”

Hakka spins around with the grace of a young swan, which is to say that he’s only slightly lacking, but that’s only so clear because his reputation precedes him.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Flayon and I’m an old friend. A new one, I guess.” He brings out one of Hakka’s old black gloves as proof. “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m from the future. There are going to be these guys who will want to recruit you in a few years saying they’re studying corruption and I will be one of them. You have to move so they can never find you.”

In the past, long before he met them, Hakka used to cover both his hands with gloves. He remembers hearing stories about it. The elders thought that was the best way for him to train without the constant reminder of the corruption living beneath his skin. This one still wears them it seems, taking a second to stare at the mirrored embroidery running down the sides.

"Why should I trust you?" he asks, eyes wary. There's a dagger in the holster on his waist, hidden by the folds of his clothes. He's probably wondering if he can grab it in time

He won't, but it's cute that he wants to try.

"Because I love you, Hakka," Flayon admits, turning out his empty palms like a prayer. His words are a little heavier than he expected, but he just coughs to clear his throat before continuing. If they will truly never meet again, then it's safe to say at least this much. “I’ll drop my weapons and leave as soon as you ask, so please hear me out.”

It may be his only chance to ever say those words to his face.

Should he succeed, they will never even meet, so their only time together is right here and now.

Flayon turns out his jacket’s pockets and out spill little pointed stars and knives and even a screwdriver or two, though he’s never been much of a mechanic. He leans down a bit as he does it, turning them inside out for Hakka’s eyes to see. He leans in and breathes in the feeling of being so close to him.

This Hakka is harder and harsher than his, kicking them more than an arm’s length away while he keeps his spear trained neatly at his throat. He is still kind though. Much too kind to speed up his death for a cause that never seems to end. So yeah, Flayon does think it’s worth protecting him from it all, even if it means sacrificing all of his memories of their time together.

Hakka sighs before laying down his weapon too. An honourable man never attacks someone who is unarmed.

“So, you’re my friend then? We were… close?” the younger Hakka asks, voice a little sceptical.

“Yeah.”

“Then why do you want me to run away from you?”

The air hangs a little limp between them. Flayon offers him a smile, but he’s not sure if it’s particularly reassuring.

“You die too soon after joining us.” Flayon presses on, committed to his show of truth. “It’s not an easy task. We don’t– I don’t know if we’d have ever found a cure anyway, so you don’t need to feel guilty about running away.”

“So you love me enough to set me free.” Hakka surmises, cutting through him so easily.

“I guess I do,” Flayon says, drawing out a rough map in the dirt. “This is the route we’ll cover. If you can get far out from it, then we’ll never catch up. It’s for the best if you just desert us.”

It’s a simple enough plan. Warn him. Rescue him. Spend one last minute staring into his sonorous eyes. Pull away while you still can.

“If I don’t join, then do you think we’ll still meet one day?”

Flayon thinks faintly of flying birds and love and the lies they applied like bandages. He takes his sweet time remembering it all and shakes his head eventually. No, it’s not safe for them to ever meet again. They’re too hopelessly drawn together, so even one second is much too long if they’re ever supposed to feasibly exist apart.

“I’ll think about it,” Hakka promises.

There’s a sheen to his eyes that means he’s being truthful. Hakka was never the type to turn well-meaning people away like that.

Flayon is a little numb though. He knows this is the end of something. Hakka is kind, of course he is, so he doesn’t complain when Flayon pulls him in a tight farewell hug while he still has enough awareness to be sad about it all. 

“You were right about at least one thing,” Hakka whispers to the space between them. “The sun really is beautiful today.”

It is. He is. Hakka is deeply beautiful, even like this. 

He’s a good kid too, helping Flayon pick up all his scattered weapons before pocketing one of the spare knives. He is there and then he is not, form long lost to the trees.

Flayon takes the long way back to the R-TRUS, looping around ponds and wasting time tossing pebbles into the shallow depths. He waits for it with each step. Soon, Hakka will make up his mind and he will forget all the songs and smiles and secrets they’ve shared. He will forget the way Hakka liked to carve messages into his fruit. He will not smile as he thinks about the snake they chased inside the jungle. He will not dream about the way his heart sprinted even faster when he chose to fall asleep beside him on the couch, aware they could both play it off like an accident in the morning.

Flayon waits and he waits and it hits him like a comet when night finally falls around him. 

Flayon still remembers every stolen moment they’ve ever shared.

Hakka is bright and quick on his feet. He would have made a decision and stuck to it for good by now, and the fact that he hasn’t forgotten means that Hakka isn’t going to leave. 

He’s not going to leave, which means he’s still going to tie himself to Flayon, which means he’s still going to die a lonesome death. 

It suddenly makes a lot of sense that way, though. That thought, too, burns infernally. Maybe Hakka joined them so easily like he knew exactly who they were. He didn’t question Flayon because he knew who Flayon was from years before they were supposed to meet. He had already acquainted him with his fate from the beginning.

Then worse, the inferno collapses directly on his skull. 

Maybe Hakka knew the whole time just how much he really loved him and chose to die for it anyway.

Part of him wants to run out, to go find where his ghost has vanished to over the course of the night because if he hasn't left then he's certainly somewhere, but the larger part of Flayon is so terribly and devastatingly exhausted that he cannot bring himself to move a muscle for a very long time.

Then, when he finally regains a modicum of control, he screams and he screams and no one ever answers.

-

C-TRUS is unrelenting as always, rubbing salt directly into his stinging heart. 

As soon as he can pull himself together enough to slot himself inside, C-TRUS immediately taunts him for it. He could not stay outside any longer though, could not stare at a moon that looks like Hakka or be engulfed by a sun that practically is him. 

He thinks that it even takes joy in his suffering as if his entire lifetime of it has yet to be enough.

Flayon is too empty to move. He feels like someone has turned his heart out for scrap metal, leaving him with all the useless trash. 

The sadness reminds him of his failure, which only serves to deepen it.

Perhaps even pseudo-gods have their limits though, and C-TRUS soon fills his head with new things. Ideas on new ways he can still make things right. All he has to do is go to the time before the expedition and convince that version of himself to defect from the guild. It cannot be before then, because it still requires Flayon’s body as a conduit.

“I thought you said you only had enough strength for one trip through time,” Flayon argues, slumping against the centre console. 

It did say that. The whole reason he agreed was because he naively assumed that it would work, that once would be enough.

“I could do it for a price,” C-TRUS promises with its siren song, waving pictures of all of them smiling in front of his eyes. 

It makes sense in a way. If he cannot control Hakka, then he simply needs to attack the other half of the problem: himself. 

The price is a heavy one, but not impossible to manage. 

C-TRUS wants his heart, but it’ll wait to collect it until after it’s granted all of Flayon’s wishes. It’ll even let him go back as many times as he needs until he’s fully satisfied.

And Flayon, chained so deeply to the bottom of the ocean with the weight of a hundred suns, has no need for his heart. If this plan succeeds, he will not even have the guild to turn to, so he certainly won’t need something as frivolous as a heart. 

He agrees and he’s once again filled with warmth. 

Elysium as it was years ago dissolves into sight.

Finding himself is easier than any mission, actually, because he has changed very little in the past decade. There’s a lake in the forest he liked to frequent because the sound of nature devoid of anything else reminded him of simpler times. It’s quiet too, practically uncharted from any map, because no one bothers venturing so deep into the corrupted parts of the woods. 

He recognises himself immediately. He’s sure it goes both ways. No one has ever found this spot aside from himself and he is better and stronger than this version of Flayon because he knows so much more. He also has the added benefit of deeply understanding exactly what makes him tick, made better by the fact that no one will be able to interfere. 

He will not fail this time.

“Don’t even bother,” Flayon says, fishing out a knife from his stash. “Just listen to me, okay?”

The first step is to play on his paranoia and spread the seeds of doubt. 

“Don’t you remember the little self-proclaimed hero? Altare. He begged you, didn’t he. Told you just how much he needs you and you snapped it up like a greedy little bird. He just wants to use you to prop himself up, you know. They won’t let him continue his silly little experiments unless he can show some real strength. They just gave you that robot, didn’t they? They don’t know a thing about it, but he doesn’t care since he’s not the one who will die inside it.”

The other version of himself shrinks a little in his spot beside the trees.

The next is to drive the wedge between them. At this point, this Flayon knows little of his softer feelings. When pressed into a corner, he will act like a mouse and try desperately to escape. He will claw into the walls if it’s the only way out the maze.

“Haven’t you always felt different from the others,” he murmurs, spinning the knife in his hands. “You love corruption because you think you could easily be a part of it. They don’t get that, do they? But I do. I’m you, but I’m better since I know what they’re going to do.”

“I don’t believe you,” his younger self claims, but the stilted way it passes through his lips says all he needs to know. “I don’t trust you.”

“They betrayed us!” Flayon shouts. He does not need to pretend to sound upset. He hasn’t stopped being upset since the minute he agreed to this ridiculous bargain. “Do you see this scar? That’s what happens when ‘I need you’ becomes ‘I’m done with you.’”

It’s not. It’s a scar from when he and Hakka got a little too excited practising flips and combination attacks that could somehow use both of their skills. Hakka imagined something where he tosses Flayon into the air while he tosses his bombs, slashing with his spear once Flayon is airborne. 

They missed and he ended up with a nasty gash down his chest from landing on a tree.

“Look. I didn’t come here because I love wasting my time. The future is real shitty, but if you leave while you still can, then Tempus will eventually burn itself out. They won’t try to take you down with them and you can save your skin for someone who actually does need you instead of just lying about it. It’s not desertion if they weren’t loyal to you either. They will desert us first.”

He has always preferred the safest, easiest way through. He knows that too. This Flayon is not one who holds personal loyalty in such high regard. If he dangles the thought that all he has to do is leave and time will take care of the rest then maybe, just maybe, it will get him to take the bait.

The last step is to show no weakness. You cannot seem like you care too much because care, too, is more than a little suspect. People do not just care about him. It is not something he felt fit him appropriately for the longest time, emotions messy and overgrown like a mass of weeds.

“It’s fine if you don’t believe me,” Flayon spits out. “They’re going to start talking about sending you to Xenokuni soon. Maybe you’ve already heard the rumours. Ask yourself exactly what they really care about, because it certainly isn’t us.”

That should be enough. 

Flayon knows himself more than anyone else and filled with thoughts like that and the choice to do something about it, he will pick the choice to leave. 

The effort is monumentous, the celebration short-lived. In truth, he barely felt well enough to make the trek out here, still so bogged down by his devastation. He had even cried along the way which is something he promised long ago that he would never do again. So strong were his feelings that he broke one of his oldest rules.

That was a marvel on its own, the way that weaselly emotionless boy could become someone who would give it all up for love like this.

He knows that he has succeeded, which should be enough to celebrate. 

There’s no way he would have failed.

The longer he walks though, the more he cannot quite tell what he has succeeded at. It’s not like he’s deeply afflicted one moment and indifferent the next. No, it’s probably because younger Flayon takes the time to think it over before committing to it. He was always like that, so cautious but so resolute once he settled on something.

At first he is happy, because the mere act of forgetting means that he has succeeded, but then he gets sad all over again, desperate to cling onto all those precious memories that vanish like water rushing through his fingers.

Flayon loses his memories in a slow trickle at first, but the first loss blows an enormous hole in the hull until it’s all quickly escaping him. There are no mornings, no dreamy afternoons or nights flush with barely stifled laughter. There is no joy of discovering tiny truths about each other. There is no second flush of warmth that comes from wearing someone else’s sweater, something given freely just because you happened to shiver once.

Instead, there are fields of poison ivy. There is the acrid scent of grapefruit peels mixed into muddy water.

He has never known the taste of laughter stolen from someone’s loving embrace.

He is not sad, either. There is nothing to be sad about. It’s not like any of those people truly cared about him.

That is what Flayon realises as he makes his way back.

Altare must be desperate because he has no one else to turn on. That is why Tempus is such a sad little group, and it would do him no good to be a part of it.

There’s a sound in the distance that sounds vaguely like a rocket taking off and disappearing into the mist. It reminds him of the R-TRUS in a way, which it should be, because he remembers leaving on this very same night. 

He was always better off alone than with a band of traitors, anyway. Tempus never did him any good.

His arms and legs are sore. He’s missing one of his knives. There are even, god forbid, remnants of tears and sadness on him, but there’s nothing in this life worth being sad about, so he quickly scrubs those away. 

There’s a bittersweet taste in his mouth, but all he knows is that he was successful at whatever it was, because it certainly doesn’t feel like he’s failed. He convinced himself to leave those worthless deserters behind, so it all worked out.

Why else would he have gone to all this effort?

He would probably know if he failed.

“Are you done?” C-TRUS asks and he must be because he does not even know why he came. 

It hums a little as Flayon settles into the cockpit, bringing them back to wherever they started, and then suddenly, with little warning, he feels even lighter. It must be collecting its deserved price after gracefully saving himself from living a horrible future with horrible people like that.

He doesn’t really feel anything at all, just the vague sense that something was leaving him. A lot of somethings leave him, in fact, until there is nothing of Flayon except the traces of life he left behind. 

It is finally his turn to become a ghost.

-

Machina loathes him a little. Hates even hearing his name, in fact.

Flayon was weak and stupid and much too sentimental, if these tomes are to be believed. There are too many desperate notes and plans about how to save someone from affliction littering the R-TRUS’s otherwise tidy cockpit.

He obviously isn’t Flayon because he shares none of these memories. He’s never loved any purple-haired afflicted men and he’s certainly never been hopelessly gone for anyone like that.

No, he would certainly never devote himself to a mere mortal with such immeasurable fervour.

He supposes though, at the very least, there was once some part of him that could have lived like that. The handwriting is certainly his own, those scraggly looping letters familiar beneath his fingertips. The least he can do, then, is honour the memory of someone afflicted by the curse that is love. To create a place that shelters the afflicted so there is somewhere to turn when Flayon’s derelict beloved is overtaken by it. Then, at least, he does not have to die, even if he too remembers none of the life they supposedly shared.

And thus, just like that, the Church of Rune soon found a place of its own in the smouldering remains of Elysium with Father Machina at its core. He would devote himself to protecting this world and the things that do not yet know just how much they need protecting.

Sometimes the boy, the one that Flayon was so moonstruck for, appears with an inset frown as he accuses him of such terrible crimes. Murder, for one. Impersonation. Indoctrination.

It is only because he pities Flayon so deeply that he never acts out against him. He’s not heartless, but he doesn’t appreciate the attempts to kill him in return. At first he thought they’d be something like brothers, people both connected to the previous iteration of Machina X Flayon, but he was swiftly proven wrong. It’s a shame that loverboy will never know what went into this, but maybe that’s what Flayon wanted. 

There will always be shelter for him should he one day need to take it and that’s what counts. He owes it to his body’s previous owner to do that much.

One day the world will become just as afflicted as he is, and he will be the one to make it happen.

One day Hakka will be forced to take his hand, the affliction has practically guaranteed it, and he hopes that it burns on reentry. He hopes the ghost inside him loathes every second of it to make up for all of the trouble it's caused.

It is inevitable, so he does not need to worry. Soon nothing shall remain of Flayon and Hakka but the remnants of who they once were, souls fed to the church for the sake of the world.