Work Text:
Was it bad to miss something you never had?
Saparata didn’t think so. Or at least, he didn’t want to think so.
Thinking of Fuixon as something to have was already bad enough, now that he thought about it, but it didn’t really stop anyone from doing so these days. Not that people wanted to think of him in the first place.
Most people just tried to forget, if he was being honest. About him, about others, the war that took so many from them- and yet, when they needed to, when they were forced to remind themselves, everyone just tried to avoid calling him by anything.
Just that guy, or him. Like they thought that if they said Flux’s name, he’d somehow come back from the grave to haunt them. Not even Cynikka and others in that battle had gotten that kind of honor.
Maybe they did think that, though. Maybe that was why Saparata was the only one to say his name anymore. Maybe, if he just did it often enough-
But people noticed. People always notice things like that. Like the fact that they knew each other before the incident, or that Fluixon only listened to a request to come and fight when Saparata was the one to call him out.
Flux was no longer just that guy, no, now he was Saps’ guy. He didn’t know if that was somehow better or worse.
He wondered, sometimes, if Flux would be mad about that.
That all his plans, accomplishments, and achievements were only ever mentioned in tandem with the name of the one who had killed him.
He did his best to believe he wouldn’t mind. That Flux still, somehow, thought of him as a friend, just as he did himself, just as he said in the colosseum. After all, in that last fight-
He had options. He could have just not come, or even used netherite to have an advantage… but he didn’t.
The fight was fair.
It didn’t have to be. If anything he had been the one to cheat with lava.
Saparata wondered if it would have been better had Flux taken it. The chance to escape. A better armor, a better weapon. If Thomas jumped in to help him, even.
But he didn’t.
He knew Saparata was always better at one-on-ones than him. That’s why he always had his traps, was always prepared, had secret bases, had tunnels, had everything and anything he could have as an advantage.
And he used none.
So, was it bad to miss something you never had?
Was it bad that Saparata still missed him? Still remembered the exact color of his eyes when he rolled them, a smirk playing on his lips? The way his hair would always get tangled in the wind? His annoying little quirks and knacks when he tried to explain things Saparata never even heard of?
Was it bad to miss the connection everyone thought was fake since the beginning?
No, Cass had said, that one time he asked, in front of a rows of graves that were at least partially his fault, her eyes staring at the one at the very back, unassuming, small, all by itself, with only a single red rose adoring it.
No, said Schpood, not looking at him, but to the sky, as if he was wondering the same thing.
They both lost people dear to them, but, at least as far as Saps could see, they took it hundreds of times better than he did.
No, said everybody, but it was there, just underneath the surface. The judgement. They were judging him.
He didn’t have it in him to blame them. It was his fault, after all.
Whose else’s? Nobody else was there to share the blame anymore.
People still tried, just to make him feel less guilty, to convince themselves that he was innocent.
Flux was, of course, the main culprit most of the time, which didn’t help him in any shape or form. Cynikka was second, though, at least as far as she went, people liked to think of her as someone with the right motivation but lacking execution of them. Some blamed Lingiulini for betraying her, some Turntapp for helping her. CommonWealth was another such culprit, but there, most people just blamed their lack of morals on their internal strife.
And Saparata had nobody to blame but himself.
Things got better, supposedly, after a while, but it never felt that way to him.
He lived alone, back there, where it all started. The trap from the roof had been completely removed, of course, but that meant little to him, who could still see them, their corpses on the newly re-done floor.
Cass invited him to stay with her, before, but Saparata refused her. What would be the point?
At least, alone like that, nobody would judge him, nobody would stare as if it was his fault.
At least, nobody would call him crazy when he’d stare into the corner of the room, unable to look away until Fluixon’s image finally walked away, out of sight, but still there, somewhere. Around.
He’d be at his door once, then at the stairs, twirling his sword through his fingers, the blade stained red. At his seat, head held up with one hand, and looking at him with a cunning smile, covering up the sound of someone’s footsteps in the roof’s interior with amused laughter. In his bed, dead asleep, looking as peacefully as when Saparata struck him down, with blood on his lips and relief in his dark, unseeing eyes.
Maybe he went crazy from the silence. Maybe he went crazy when the regret first hit, the realization that, even with all the death around him, he could forgive it all if he just had more time with him. Maybe he was crazy from the start, from the moment he looked upon a child with so much ambition and a screwed moral compass and found out that love really was blind.
Again.
Was it bad to miss something you never had?
To miss the feel of their breath against the feathers over his eyes deep at night, when Flux thought he was asleep?
To miss the feel of his heartbeat echoing in his brain when he put his head on Flux’s shoulder, too exhausted to even walk?
To miss the warmth of the skin, the light behind the purple eyes?
To miss that bloodstained hand that cradled his cheek in his last moments?
No.
No, it was not wrong.
That didn’t mean it was healthy.
Maybe that was why, when he opened his eyes to that familiar scene, he had thought he had finally gone completely insane at first. Why he didn’t care that the grass felt too real, why he couldn’t have been bothered when Flux leaned over him, shaking him by the shoulder as he tried to wake him up.
“You should have told me you were tired,” he said. There was a smile on his lips and a flicker in his eyes, and Saparata knew instantly where he was, despite the haze that seemed to drop over the scene, “Would have saved us the time of trying to get you out of the mines.”
The day before Luminara’s immigration.
As soon as 3BelowZero heard of the possibility of the border dropping, he was preparing to leave, and the others would, understandably, follow.
“Sorry,” he said back, just like he remembered he did before, letting the warmth of Flux’s hand seep into his body, “Didn’t get much sleep yesterday.”
Flux rolled his eyes back, just like that, just like he remembered him doing, and Sap’s head spun with him, “We really need to finish that vacation house of yours before we leave, I swear you’ll work yourself to death without it.”
How nostalgic. How nice, “You could stay.”
The words left his mouth before he could think it through. Flux let out a huff, clearly not believing a word, “You’d have enough of me by the end of the week.”
Not true.
As if Saps could ever have enough of Flux’s presence.
“I could never have enough of you,” he answered, and Flux’s smile faltered for just a moment. Then, his warm, so warm, hand moved up towards Saparata’s forehead, placing his palm over it.
“Seriously? You could have told me you were sick,” he sighed, and Saps felt his smile widening at the familiar gesture. He rarely did that after their falling out, but it felt good to know he still remembered that expression with such precision, “You should have stayed in bed for the day-”
“Want to be with you for as long as possible,” Saparata answered without hesitation, making a grab for Flux’s hand on his forehead and bringing it to his cheek, the wings on his neck instantly curling around it as if they had a will of their own. When he looked back up, Flux’s face felt somehow more hazy, but that didn’t stop Saparata from seeing the way he was looking away from him, as if on purpose. He squeezed his hand, letting his fingers slip between his, “I don’t want you to leave again.”
He wouldn’t be able to take it again. Even as a ghost, as long as Flux continued to keep him company, he wouldn’t need anything else.
“I’m not leaving forever. I won’t even be that far,” Flux said, but his voice was already weaker, already echoing around Saps’ skull, as if the sleep was trying to claim him again, against his will, “You are always so clingy when you get sick, what gives?”
Of course he was. It was one of two times when Flux wouldn’t protest him being so clingy, after all.
The other being him being drunk.
“Just wanna keep you close,” was Sap’s honest answer as one of Flux’s fingers passed over the shell of his wing, as gentle as ever, “It’s a nice dream.”
And Flux sighed again. Huh. When did he even close his eyes?
“...Guess it is,” he answered, his voice a comfortable weight setting over his body as if he was on a cloud, “Go to sleep, Saps.”
Saps, as it was, had very little control over it, and yet, like that, with Flux’s hand in his hair, it felt almost nice when the dreamless sleep finally claimed him.
And, to his credit, when he woke up again, he was much more awake than before.
His head was pounding, so maybe that was the reason. Dreams usually didn’t make him feel like shit. But reality also, usually, didn’t have Fluixon, healthy, alive, walking around his own room like a man on a mission, packing his belongings while murmuring something under his breath.
His old room, that is.
That was around the time it started hitting him.
And it only went down from there.
A light shone into his eyes and he groaned and, instantly, Flux was there, head on his forehead, checking his temperature like a caring mother, while Saps grasped the blanket and pulled it up, over his wings, mouth, nose, stopping just barely under his lashes, looking up at Flux with eyes narrowed from pain.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” said Flux, trying and failing to sound nonchalant, “Thomas was starting to think you had passed away when we were carrying you to the house.”
Saps was starting to have a feeling that Thomas might have actually been right. Because in what other reality could he have Flux right in front of him when he still clearly remembered cutting into his neck and watching him bleed out until his last breath?
“What’s the time?” Saps groaned back, as if that information could somehow help him make sense of things.
“Some time before midnight. You have about twelve hours to get yourself together before we leave,” Flux said, pulling away, and Saps did his best to not reach out after him. Because, on the very unlikely chance this was real, Saps would not be doing that to either of them.
“...You could still stay,” he murmured, voice weak under the blanket, using the bedding as one last barrier between himself and the reality that was quickly becoming clearer and clearer against his will.
“Your fever is not high enough for you to keep saying that,” Flux said, voice light, and a smile upon his lips. Looking at Saparata hiding like a coward, with an amused flicker in his eyes, “Besides, can you imagine where 3Below would lead everyone without anyone to steer him in the right direction?”
Luminara without Flux? Without his influence?
Maybe the bridge would be built quicker than before. Maybe 3BelowZero wouldn’t have been disposed of so easily. Maybe there wouldn’t be six corpses around Saps’ meeting table, skulls split open in the way he’d remember forever.
Yeah, that was something Saparata could imagine very easily.
Or maybe he was completely wrong.
Fluixon, after all, never tried to hide his bright mind and ambitions. Even without him around, Sapatara doubted that anything that would happen afterwards wouldn’t be somehow connected back to him.
And yet, once again, even as he thought about the blood on his floor, about the blood on his hands and corpses at his feet, he knew he could forgive it.
He had already done it before, after all.
“The wrong side of the island, probably,” he said instead, and Flux’s gaze sharpened in the way that betrayed his urge to laugh.
“I doubt we’d even get to the right island,” he shook his head, lips twitching upwards at the thought, “It’s in everyone’s best interest that I go with them. Still-”
Flux looked over at him, a smile barely visible, “You could still come with us. It’s not like anyone would miss you here, and a vacation home by the sea doesn’t sound half bad.”
I’d miss you too, his eyes seemed to say, but that could also have been the fever making Saps hallucinate.
It most likely was. Flux was not that easy to read. Saps could never read him.
Not until it was too late.
“I like the jungle,” was Saparata’s only response, nails digging into the blanket, trying to convince himself that pulling it over his head was not a mature thing to do. Still, facing the world, this weird, unfamiliar world where Flux still looked at him like that, was not something he felt ready to do.
Not now.
Maybe never.
“I know you do,” Flux hummed, picking up a shirt in the corner of his dresser and packing it up with the rest of his clothing, “Go back to sleep, Saps. I’ll feel bad leaving you looking like that.”
Like what?
A mess?
It wouldn’t be a surprise.
It was always like that, when he was sick. His skin would turn red, his eyes would go puffy, and his wings would fluff out as if he were still just a little chick. He used to hate being sick when he was younger. Then Flux came along, and Saps learned to cherish those times instead.
How could he not, when Flux doted on him like that?
Would let him demand being spoiled, and Flux would accept with a huff. Would crave body heat, and Flux would let him sleep next to him. Would ask for painkillers and, instead, Flux would start preening his feathers, which would make Saps feel too out of it for pain to even be an issue.
Which just meant that Saps was completely in the right when he pulled the blanket to the side and started patting the spot next to him, looking expectantly at Flux.
Flux huffed, a smile more visible now, “I still need to pack my things.”
Saps continued patting the spot, pulling the blanket just low enough for his pouting face to be visible.
He’d try puppy dog eyes, but the chance of success was always lowered at times he was sick.
And finally, Flux sighed, taking off his usual coat as he sat onto the bed, waiting for Saps to scoot to the side so he could fit, which Saps did without a word, a smile stretching his dry lips until the skin felt like it would tear open. Flux just rolled his eyes, already reaching for the cup on his bedside table. He never really grew up from the habit of keeping one around him at night, just in case he felt thirsty.
“You can be so annoying, you know that?” he asked, but there was no heat nor blame behind those words as Saps downed the cup in one swing.
It wasn’t even cold, just lukewarm.
“You love me anyway,” he answered after he was done, already back to his spot in the bed. Flux just looked back, eyes soft, holding back a smile. Saps genuinely thought he was dreaming then.
“If you say so,” he replied, so very easily. A clear non-answer. It wasn’t a surprise. Flux’s family was never one to say things as they meant it, as far as Saps was concerned, from the one encounter he ever went through.
The fact that Flux’s grandfather even liked him was a way too surprising revelation for him to ever try to tie his head around. With how much he was staring, back then, Saps was almost certain that the Man was going to damn him to hell next time they met.
But Flux still laid down next to him, hand under his head, looking back as Saparata pulled the blanket over his body.
“You know that as soon as you fall asleep, I’m just going to go back to packing, right?” he asked, lied, as if it wasn’t blatantly obvious, and Saps huffed in playful annoyance.
“I guess I won’t fall asleep then,” his lips were twitching even as he answered, and Flux’s eyes were already rolling as he reached over to him, pulling the blanket higher, over Saps’ head.
“Whatever you say,” he said casually, but Saps could easily imagine the smile that was present on his face. So very easily.
Instead of responding, he reached out, one hand over Flux’s waist, the other under, until they connected behind his back, and then he pulled.
Flux’s half-aborted laughter rang out through the room as Saps’ head collided with his chest, and he cuddled up to his friend in the same way he used to do what felt like forever ago.
“Almost thought you grew out of it,” the voice above him sounded like it would break into chuckles at any moment, but Flux had more self-control than that.
“Never,” Saps’ reply was muffled, but it was clear that Flux had heard him just fine with the way he froze for a single moment, before his hands moved again, one settling around Saps’ shoulder, his palm flat against his spine, the other correcting itself under Flux’s head like a make-shift pillow, “You’re my personal heat source for life.”
“Better than nothing,” his friend answered, voice low, and Saparata slowly exhaled the air he didn’t know he was holding.
Maybe, when he woke up again, he’d be miserable, back at his house with nobody for company. Maybe, when he woke up again, Flux would be gone again, all that was left of him rotting under the ground at the edge of Saparata’s little island that nobody else dared to claim. Maybe all that would be left for him to keep would be the sword that was supposed to kill him, if only it was a bit quicker.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
But until then, until the dreams claimed him again, only to chew him up and spit him out, he would do his best to believe this, to enjoy it, maybe for the last time.
Flux’s warm body, Flux’s light breathing, his hand, his smell, his voice, his still beating heart, its rhythm echoing inside his skull like a reminder of something he was never supposed to think of as his, but did so anyway.