Chapter Text
Nod-Krai was one of the largest cities in the world, located in the far Northern hemisphere, on the banks of a large icy river that container ships constantly frequent for exports.
Rarely anyone came to see the city, if not for business. In its industrial area, skyscrapers over skyscrapers reached up into an evergrey sky, lit by myriads of lamps by people at work. From above, like in a snowglobe, it looked like a world that never stopped to be snowed upon—except for when it did and all available water would freeze over.
The harsh weather made its people, the poor bundled in thick grey layers and boots and hats covering their faces and the rich in expensive furs as they all stalked through the cold. Why would anyone even bother with said pain in the ass weather?
Mineral oils and jewels, all buried under the frozen ground. The perfect breeding ground for both miners and criminals.
Varka watched his breath condense in the air, eyeing his flask. It was just after four in the afternoon, around the time when the sun was setting in winter. Other people would say it was too early to drink, but Varka had stopped listening to others a while ago.
And technically, he was unemployed. He could drink his days away with no one stopping him. Once upon a time, just two years ago, he had led Nod Krai’s police force, the Knights of Favonius, as its captain, and he technically still was. Except he was put on sick leave until further notice and a woman named Jean was actually doing his job now.
“Deviant.” The doctor said the word like a verdict. “Your behavior during our last operations have not been aligning with the values of justice enforcement.
Varka slammed his hands on the table. “Listen… Please, someone’s gotta listen to me.” He had spent countless sleepless nights analyzing the criminals’ methods, and tracing their paths. He had been so close, and civilians were in the way… if he was held back now, he would never be able to rid the city of those rogues.
All he wanted was to be more than just a figure head hero, but to do actual good.
Yet all he was met with was a look of pity from the doctor—and that was how he was put on indefinite sick leave until he’d passed a psychological re-entry examination.
That was two years ago.
He wouldn’t pass it, and he knew it. Ironic, how he was the one who ended up detained, while those criminals were still out there—it drove him up the wall endlessly back then. Until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He first tried to drink himself under the table for a week, but that was such a hassle, and the thought of crime still crept up his mind like the city were a cube of sugar and the criminals were ants all over it.
After two months, he hatched a plan to go alone. If no one wanted to go with him, who cared? He’d do the lone wolf act, if he needed to. Sure, he was once what one would have called a superhero, emphasizing on past tense. Until Varka went and destroyed it all with his own two hands, as they said. Or until Varka went all out to keep the city safe, as Varka himself would say.
What would they say now, after he became a mutant by his own machinations to prevent himself from relying on the police’s gear and his team anymore? A vigilante?
He didn’t care for labels, nor for the shackles of the media polished version of ‘justice’ the citizens fawned over. In Varka’s eyes, justice, as the wise man once said, was the most beautiful and only woman worth pursuing. Varka took a swig from his flask in her honor, letting the liquor burn down his throat before he bottled the flask again and rubbed his gloved fingers over his stubble.
As long as it got the job done.
Today, he was having a great day, really. The northern part of the city was under his control, no shady shipments he wasn't aware of were coming in, no supervillains trying to ruin his day, and certainly no pretentious “superheroes” swooping in and challenging him for the sake of the lie they called righteousness.
Then he saw something—no, someone fitting this category down to the T, and narrowed his eyes.
There, in a dark, misty alley under a streetlamp, was a man with white hair and dark bandages all over his face and body, dragging something that looked like an oversized black dog kennel on wheels after him. It was clear he wanted to be seen, like he was taunting Varka specifically over the fact that he could commit crimes out there in the open street and not be caught by him.
Rerir—leader of the Wild Hunt, the villains running the largest black market in the underbelly of this city.
Of course, that aggravating bastard Rerir had to ruin his little bubble of tranquility when he turned into his general direction and waved. He usually never came out without a valid reason, making Varka frown with the rare seriousness that only came with serious trouble. It was like a whiff of polluted air from dirty dealings on a cold winter night.
There were various tales where Rerir, the Rächer of Solnari, came from. Some say he was inhuman and much older than he let on, fallen from grace and bore grudges like his life depended on it. Others said the name ‘Rerir’ was passed down a line of criminals to spread terror of an undying persona, hence why he wore his bandages over his face.
A man not to be underestimated, either way.
When people called Rerir a supervillain, he’d hold his bandaged hands up and say he was only a humble handler, an undertaker of sorts, grotesque grin breaking all bubbles of pretense.
"Varka."
With a sigh, Varka walked down the fire escape stairs of his vantage point. “Rerir. To what do I owe the displeasure?” Varka half-growled with wrathful prejudice, barely contained. “Here to play diplomat again? Getting your ass whooped until you ran off last time, tail between your legs, wasn’t enough?”
From up close, Rerir chuckled in that terrible way of his that felt like nails on a chalkboard and whistled. That’s when Varka saw it—the black cage wasn’t empty, but there was something in it.
Something living.
Fuck. Varka tensed under his thick winter coat, resisting the urge to ball his gloved hands into fists. Human trafficking.
“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Did I come at a bad time?” Ignoring Varka’s muttered “it’s always a bad time when you show up”, Rerir continued like it was nobody’s business: “I thought the Grandmaster would appreciate me turning up, unarmed, for an honorable exchange of transactional means. Or do you intend to steal from me?”
“Honorable, my ass,” Varka scoffed. If Rerir throwing down a smoke bomb and hurling grenades at him, or trying to slit his throat in cold blood in misty nights in ambushes set by his men counted as honorable, sure.
But then again, Rerir thought everything was exchangeable goods, so nothing was holy to him. That heroes and villains were the same—which couldn’t be further from the truth. Contrary to popular belief, Varka had principles, and that was also why he was going to take the human with him, Rerir be damned. “I’m sure you didn’t come here to joke around with me and play nice all of a sudden.”
Varka stopped, letting a faux-grin take over. Feigning nonchalance was his best bet. “Unless… you came here to surrender and turn yourself in?”
Varka was very aware where these ‘negotiations’ inevitably needed to lead, once instructing the men and women at the Knights’ headquarters: “Negotiating with criminals isn’t about splitting the difference. Imagine a criminal taking two hostages. Leaving anyone behind would be against our creed. The only just solution in this situation is to talk to the criminal until we can take both, and leave the criminal with nothing.” He licked his lips. “And then kick their ass for good measure.”
Rerir gestured to their surroundings.“ Look around you, outlaw. You operate outside the legal system and I operate outside the legal system. We’re the same,” he sneered. “So, where do you suggest I turn myself in? Will you accompany me there, then, to turn yourself in as well? We are both but shadows of what we used to be.” A pause. “Or do you expect those puny heroes to still come forth at your beck and call? For them to kiss your feet and worship the ground you walk on like they used to?”
Wow. Low blow. Rerir was for sure well-aware of it, too.
Did it taste good on his tongue? Varka couldn’t decide if he wanted Rerir to stay that way, licking his figurative knife and spitting insults that Varka wasn’t justified because he walked alone now without anyone following his lead, and savoring the taste.
On one hand, Rerir could eat dirt, for all Varka cared. On the other hand, some twisted part of Varka wanted Rerir to twist his words into his heart like a knife, because… he wanted it to hurt. What happened to him. To keep it real and close to his heart.
The truth was, Varka cared about everyone who ever chose to leave him.
He snorted, trying to ignore those kinds of feelings resurfacing. Sure, he was just a shadow of his former self when he was leader of the Knights. But still, he pushed it to the side and played cocky vigilante, because that was something he knew how to do. “As if. Plus, I don’t need anybody else to help me turn the likes of you in, Rächer of Solnari. And I certainly don’t need to be backed by the law to get away with it.”
“Certainly,” Rerir drawled lazily, picking at his fingernails. Or, more like the bandages on his fingernails. Varka always associated his mannerisms with uncut nails scraping down a blackboard as a pathetic replacement for chalk, all while Rerir was lecturing him on the flaws of his belief in justice. So, by nature, Varka despised it. "Anyway. As I was saying, I originally came here because I thought this would capture your attention. I come bearing... a gift."
Varka’s attention immediately shifted back to the cage. Rerir tapped it with the back of a knife, likely waking what was inside.
Black-gloved fingers appeared and wrapped around the bars shakily, their breath shallow and rapid. When Rerir did it again, the person tried to hide under their hood. They clutched its fabric with a frantic intensity that made alarm bells go off in Varka’s head. Then Rerir stuck his hand inside and pulled the cloth back.
Terrified eyes stared at him like a deer in headlights—for once the hunted, and not the hunter.
Varka stared directly into his eyes this time—eerie yellow eyes, not clear with mischievous intelligence and curiosity for humanity like he remembered, but murky and clouded. Intoxicated. Drugged with fear toxin? He had never seen him look so desolate.
Flins.
To say they’ve never met before would be a blatant lie—one Varka’s bed and nightlamp would definitely have things to say about. Physical intimacy had been important at the time it happened, but now, after the incident that made them separate, he found himself thinking more about what it was like to hold Flins in his arms, trying hard not to let the memory slip.
Would’ve. Could’ve. Should’ve.
Again, those were the things that remain after, like footprints. But whenever Varka tried to make sense of what came after, he would inevitably draw closer to that moment where Flins disappeared. And he’d backtrack from there again, wondering where exactly things went downhill. The worst thing about footsteps in Nod-Krai was that they would inevitably be covered by fallen snow, painting a perfect pretty white lie.
Fuck. Varka knew what Rerir was playing at. Come with a proposal to exchange gifts for maps and other secret intel Varka was privy to, so Rerir could conduct whatever shady business he wanted to without disturbance. Superheroes would never let him operate under normal circumstances—but Varka was a far cry from a hero.
A far cry from what you used to be, a voice in the corner of his mind snickered, continuing. When people talk about the absent Police Captain on sick leave, do you still feel like they’re talking about you?
"Ohh," Rerir looked up again at Varka, a knowing glint in his eye. "Don't be so cold. I'm sure you'll enjoy this..." his lips twisted cruelly into a sneer, “little fae I found prowling about your grounds." He stepped aside and pulled the black cloth outside off to fully reveal the inside of the cage.
Varka's blood ran cold. To hear the nickname he had for his ex-partner out of Rerir's mouth made him want to gag. Worse, to see Flins so terrified, so unlike his elegant, composed self, made his blood boil. His anger rose in his throat in an attempt to mask the fear Varka held for Flins’ safety.
He knew the drill—either trade Rerir intel for Flins, and one day he’d jump out of some tunnel armed with explosives, fully intent on blowing up the city, and way worse, any citizens in it; or not give him what he wanted, and he’d torture Flins right before his eyes. Varka kept his gaze level, though inside, he was burning up. "Is that so?"
Though Rerir caressed the cage tenderly, his eyes did not hold the same intention. "I worked very hard to capture this one," he cooed. "All I ask is but a fraction of your state intel, Grandmaster—I'm sure you can consider this a fair trade, no?"
Varka could hear the beating of his own heart ring loudly in his ears. Rerir was asking for classified information—for treason. Varka was gritting his teeth, nearly snarling to tear this bastard’s throat off now. Calm diplomacy gets you places where brute force can’t. This is one of those places, he reminded himself. "How can I trust you didn’t put a tracker under his skin?" It sounded weak to his own ears.
They both knew Varka would take him back either way, and at any cost.
“Well!” Rerir exclaimed, rubbing it in. "You can take a look at this pathetic little thing yourself." He kicked the side of the cage, rattling the bars and causing Flins to cling to the bars and groan weakly. "Or maybe cut under his skin and check? I hear fae blood does wonders for gut health.”
Right now, Varka’s hands were just itching to wrap around the hilt of his greatsword. Alas, good old self-control was ringing in his brain again, like an Ancient Greek goddess descending into the middle of an army council to stop bloodshed after an act of dishonor in the epics of old. So instead, he took careful steps over to the cage. Knelt down to Flins' level and gently reached his hand through the metal bars, touching his cheek. He was burning, feverish. The hero beneath him keened, eyes still blown, but he stilled in recognition after seeing Varka.
From his dilated pupils, Varka now was fairly certain he had been infused with fear toxin. Varka felt like throwing up, nausea pooling in his throat. Had Flins started hallucinating already?
It was no secret that toxins worked notoriously well against the fae people, which was why not many fae heroes or vigilantes ever went public with their identities. Fae poison wasn’t easy to gain access to—but anybody with an agenda, drunken courage or pure insanity like them, and a few hundred bucks? Easier than taking candy from a toddler.
But how had Rerir found out? How much about Flins did he know? Did he know more than Varka did?
He pulled away, ignoring the weak whine Flins let out at the loss of warmth. He slurred a few incoherent words, probably unable to form a complete thought under the blaze of the toxin ravaging his body.
"What kind of maps do you want?" Varka forced out, resisting the urge to shudder. He takes a deep breath, instead. In and out. "Name your price." So much for keeping his territory under control. His reputation was going down the drain by the second, from a terrifying outlaw who showed no mercy for the evil turned disgustingly soft. Weak. Someone who was vulnerable.
In the end, maybe Varka was too soft to be a tough leader. But he couldn’t stand to see suffering right in front of his eyes when he had the chance to do otherwise, and had less qualms trading the future for his immediate goals than letting injustice happen before his eyes. The rest, he could always deal with in the aftermath.
Always pushing his problems to tomorrow. And when tomorrow came, he wondered why he was alone. That aged like the cheap and off-brand liquor he rinsed his mouth with after first the Knights left him never to come back.
Probably one of his many fatal flaws.
Maybe that was why he couldn’t hold onto Flins at the time. Why he left and would never have turned up in his life again if they hadn’t met again like this, with Flins locked in a cage and in need of help.
Rerir grinned. "Excellent. Let's talk business. The maps of the old underground railways."
"Excuse me?" Varka thought his ears were deceiving him. He turned around to glare at Rerir incredulously. “Fuck you.”
“Well, more like, fuck him. Oh, don’t look at me like that! I meant you!” Rerir merely shrugged. "Do tell, if you wish to haggle. After all," he paused, “is it really you who holds the bargaining power here? I do believe I am being quite generous on my end of the bargain. You want him, do you not?"
...He knew. He knew. There was no way Rerir didn't know of the rooftop chases between the hero and... whatever Varka was. Again, he didn't do labels. Labels were tacky. Did Rerir know about their breakup? How Flins never fucking called because he was too technologically challenged to even use a modern phone? Or, at least, that was what Varka liked to tell himself now that he was stress-drinking again and no one was there to stop him this time around.
Flins used to call it depression drinking when he was still around. Varka had protested and then proceeded to pass out on the floor. Next thing he knew, he’d been in his own bed with his boots off and the blanket to his chin—and Flins was nowhere to be seen.
Ah, fuck it. Exes who never exactly stopped being… whatever they were being. There was a word for it, what they were—they had been too scared of loss, and had never said it aloud beyond the ambiguous ‘partner’.
Varka swallowed, his throat bobbing uncomfortably. He was glad many years of training had taught him a constructed poker face, and a temper that could be subdued despite its heat. As patient as an outlaw who kept his morals together with duct tape kinda guy like him could get. "... Fine."
As Varka handed over the plans—he’d always held them close, lest someone try to steal them from one of his safehouses while he was out on patrol—Rerir smiled, his pearly-whites sending chills down Varka’s spine. Something about him just felt wrong. Like Rerir wasn't exactly human.
Then again, who was Varka to judge when the memories of him turning himself into something not exactly human loomed over his head constantly? Maybe Rerir was right, in a way—they were more similar than he initially thought.
"I have illegal business at the docks to attend to, so do excuse me.” Rerir raised his hands in mocksurrender and backtracked towards the exit of the park. He was submissive in body language, but they both knew better than that. "Have fun, Grandmaster." His lips curled upwards with a tinge of mania in his face.
His tone and choice of words was crafted in a way that suggested Varka was going to do something lecherous. Varka hated even the implication—falling for all of his provocations freely.
He walked off without the cage, throwing a key behind onto the cobblestone ground carelessly. "It was a pleasure doing business with you."
This time, Varka didn't hold back a scoff. He really was having his pride tested now. "Alright," he replied harshly, growling like a wolf who wanted to lick his wounds alone. "Now get out of my face."
Usually, on Varka’s part, that would end in a chasedown through the streets to get the maps back as soon as possible, honor be damned. Varka’s title of Grandmaster had gone vacant a long, long time ago, after all. But Varka had more urgent matters to take care of right now, so he scrambled for the key on all fours in the snow, rushing to take care of the door to the cage. He checked for any explosives or traps, of which there were luckily none.
The lock clicked open softly.
When Varka still commanded the policemen, he met Flins for the first time after busting a child trafficking ring. On a foggy night, Varka saw the lamp before the man. He walked with an oil lamp of all things in the 21st century, and guided the children to the safety and care of emergency first responders. Then he returned back to the crime scene to secure more evidence.
Varka noticed how both the pigeons and rats around the harbour, and even stray cats avoided him.
The man in black just looked up and offered his gloved hand politely, though, seemingly blissfully ignorant to his surroundings. His eerie yellow eyes appeared like he walked out of many nightmares before, and had the scars to tell. “My name is Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins, but you can refer to me as just Flins for the sake of simplicity, Grandmaster. I couldn’t imagine it to be very pleasant if you stumbled all over your words trying to pronounce my name properly every time you spoke to me.”
A Lightkeeper.
Varka knew about them as an organization, of course. Whether to call them special task force or intelligence agents, in essence it was the same: they descended upon the city in the dark night when monsters came out of their hiding with a lantern to shed light into the dark, to guide the people and vanquish all evil. Then they would disappear as if they never were in the picture.
And next time, it would be someone different. Nobody ever got a hold on any one individual, or knew when and how they’d disappear without a trace. If asked about the last one, they’d all say the same: ‘What does it matter who is holding the lamp? What is important is that it is held.’
“You’re like a ghost. But you work with justice reinforcements,” Varka observed.
Flins turned around. His eyes nearly glowed in the dark like an impartial judge. He tilted his head nonchalantly—yet the corner of his mouth just twitched as he brought his gloved hand to his chest. “Are you afraid of ghosts, dear Grandmaster?”
Flins was hugging himself now, trying to stop himself from shaking. His breathing was condensing in the air. He was obviously restraining, clenching too hard to speak.
“Chudomirovich,” he said after a moment. How should he even talk to him? Flins had made it clear by disappearing forever that he wanted nothing to do with Varka anymore. So maybe, despite hating formalities, this was the moment for a formal address. Show him he was not a threat, and not here to breach the boundaries Flins had established between them last time by leaving.
He sighed. This was a mess. Varka just solved the problem of the locked cage, and now the cage spit a drugged Flins from its maw.
Varka walked alongside Flins on his patrol along the edge of the city and the frozen riverbank. He wondered when he’d even gotten used to the man tagging along. He came back to collaborate on cases, and he hadn’t really left since. They worked well together, understanding each other’s signs and tells on the battlefield without words. At some point, it was as easy as breathing, even for someone like Varka.
It was quiet, but not uncomfortable. Simple, just the way he liked it. With Varka’s greatsword and Flins’ polearm and lantern, they stalked through the night together to keep the city safe. “Won’t you ask why I do this in the afterhours?” Varka asked one night.
“Flins…?” he tried. That was how he told guests and travellers to Nod-Krai to call him. Varka approached very carefully, laying a gloved hand on the bars.
“No, I don’t ask questions like that.” Flins replied easily. He never did. “Secrets are like ancient coins. You can look at the surface and see the scratches and honor—a history that they must have survived.” Flins was smiling a little now. “When the right time comes, they will reveal their truths themselves.”
Perhaps an example of this was when Flins told him to ‘pick him up’ during one of their missions; Varka learned that he was no ghost, but he could hide inside a lantern because he was a fae. He was possibly much older than he let on, if his… lack of modern language or technical knowledge wasn’t an obvious enough indicator.
Varka had brought the flashlight once since he couldn’t see shit with the oil lamp, even less so in the mist. “You’re certainly a strange one, Little Fae.” The nickname slipped easily from his lips.
“Oh.” Flins picked up the strap of Varka’s flashlight curiously, tangling it on his gloved finger. “The wonders of modern technology, indeed. Still, I would prefer my oil lamp.”
God, how much had Rerir dosed him with? He was the most alert being Varka had ever known. To be rendered so completely out of it… was unnerving, to say the least. The blatant show of power—the ability to render Flins unable to fight back or even escape—made something inside Varka curl in revulsion.
As he was trying to coax Flins out of the cage, he realized what Rerir had been suggesting. Varka barely managed to reel back in disgust. He might not be a goody-two-shoes, but there were things he drew a hard line at. Drugs was one of them.
Varka gritted his teeth, his temples already throbbing with the oncoming headache. He was going to kill Rerir. The dark corners of his mind agreed, their whispers a mix of get revenge and take what's yours.
“You want him, do you not?" Rerir’s voice echoed in his head.
This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted—he wanted the little fae in front of him to draw close to him by choice, to choose him over his rules of secrecy and detachment as a Lightkeeper. Not this—whatever this was—
Varka let out a resigned sigh and tapped the hero’s nose softly—if it was to reassure himself the man in front of him was alive and breathing and warm, that was something for only him to know. “Little Fae, how did you manage to fall into a trap like this?” It slipped out without Varka having meant to. Little Fae. He used to call him that, then.
But somehow, that broke the spell.
Flins looked up. Varka watched how recognition filled his dilated eyes. He opened his mouth, and his breathing quickened, like he had something to catch up to. When Varka removed his glove and offered his palm, Flins let him gently feel his forehead. He looked down desolately and made nothing more than another soft noise at the brief skin-to-skin contact, already leaning in for more. He tried to keep his agitation low, despite it being clearly visible how he was still fighting to reject what the fear toxin was making him feel.
“Climb on my back,” Varka said too softly again, then he dipped forward and offered his back. Flins reluctantly crawled out of the cage and wrapped his arms around Varka’s neck, lips pressed tightly in frustration. Varka thought Flins was trying not to cry and make any undignified sounds, and it was taking all his willpower, so he turned to what was in front of him and pretended not to notice as he let Flins’ weight slump against his back.
When he looked back to the floor, the black cage was still sitting in the snow. Varka felt the sudden urge to destroy it. The cage with Rerir’s nasty fingerprints all over it had no use to the world.
But before he could even lift a finger, Flins limply brushed his gloved ones against the back of his hand—and Varka snapped out of it. Flins let out something between a nudging whine and then an audible sigh of relief. It did not tug at Varka’s heartstrings at all. Not a moment later, Varka sighed in defeat, though. “Alright. Hold on tight. Let’s get out of here first.”
Snow was falling from the dark sky above again.
Eventually, Varka and Flins came by a graveyard.
Varka knew from his line of work that undercover agents were buried here under fake names. Still, they were real people who gave their all for the safety of the citizens, so Varka always silently thanked them when he walked past. He wondered what Flins thought.
“There,” Flins said all of a sudden, pointing over the old fence and bushes in the general direction of the tombstones. “There lies my predecessor. And my dear comrades.” He made a court bow toward the cemetery. “Let us hope our long awaited reunion is delayed for a bit longer.”
It started to rain soon after, cold and icy.
By the time they finished their patrol—for cutting it short would endanger the citizens, so they never did that—Varka didn’t know whether they were drenched dogs or icicles.
For some reason, Flins’ oil lamp hadn’t gone out yet, still glowing with that ghostly fire that sometimes changed colors from pulsing blue to purple to red when dangers approached. But Varka assumed it had some other powers beyond that and the invisibility trick, as did its wielder. No one was in the Lightkeepers for nothing.
One thing led to another, and that was how Varka learned Flins sought refuge in a literal lighthouse with dark wood bookshelves and gadgets from last centuries mapping the stars. Not that Varka ended up mapping that many stars of all things when Flins pulled his hair back and blew out the candle.
There was one pair of heavy footsteps, but two dark figures disappearing into the night of Nod-Krai together toward a safehouse. Varka might’ve sold out national secrets, but he’d worry about it another time. Or until it came crashing into his life again, whatever came first. For now, all that was left to do was to get somewhere safe—Flins had gotten himself tangled up with the worst person to play nurse, anyway.
Step by step, old footprints disappeared under fresh snow again. But this time, Flins was still holding on, their shared body warmth like a hearth on a chilly winter’s night.
All Flins was perceiving was how he was hanging over Varka’s back. He was listening to Varka’s breathing and the sound of his boots in the snow, one step after another. The repetition soothed him. It must’ve been a long time already. But Varka’s breaths were even, not straining to carry Flins on his back.
If they were still on good terms, Varka would probably have teased him about it to lighten the mood, like he did back then when Flins had sprained his ankle at work once. ‘Can I princess-carry you out of the rubble? I know you can walk if needs be, but let me do this for you, okay? I, uh, always wanted to try it, too,’ he said with a sheepish laugh.
But it wasn’t the same anymore.
They weren’t on good terms anymore since they grew apart—a distant place of betrayal that interpersonal feelings could hardly reach. And Flins knew the fear toxin hadn’t flushed out of his system yet.
When the pounding in his head became too much, he let go and plunged back somewhere into his subconsciousness.
“Will you give me back what is rightfully mine?” Rerir demanded with the fear toxin in hand, already filled into a syringe. It looked mucky, the least one would want in one’s system. But Flins was strapped to a chair, so his resistance was rather limited. “If you don’t, I think you know what happens next.”
“No,” Flins said, struggling against Rerir’s grasp. “I won’t tell you where it is.” But he couldn’t stop Rerir from yanking his sleeve up, sticking the needle into the crease of his arm.
Hallucinations of his worst fears.
He felt himself falling… falling from the lighthouse to the abyss of darkness beneath. The abyss’ darkness held onto him like a thousand hands as time moved backwards, and he watched the lighthouse being just in construction, and then to a place even farther back where it hadn’t existed yet. A world of darkness.
And yet, graveyards have always existed since time immemorial.
He fell fast first into the damp earth, scrambling to his feet. Like in the early days when he was a young man, he summoned his polearm and fought Wild Hunt abominations in the dark. At that point, he didn’t have his lantern yet.
Eventually, humans came. There were people settling in Nod-Krai despite the hostile cold climate. They gave him a hand, and for short moments of bliss, he felt relieved building the lighthouse a second time, stacking stone after stone together as comrades in arms, companions, and friends.
But the winters were harsh, and with each attack they repelled, Flins watched them perish one by one again—until he was alone.
After a long line of people close to him vanishing like shades in the dark, Flins grew tired holding the lamp. But even so, inside his swaying heart, even if he was just a ghost to history, he was imbued with the wish to hold up another light for humanity. Even if he grew tired and his limbs ached, as long as he was still here, he’d hold up the lamp in the hopes it could show at least one other person the light back home—then it would be worth it. The Lightkeepers found him in his darkness and gave him purpose, after all.
It wasn’t all in vain, after all, he told himself as he hugged his middle atop the lighthouse. Some of his dear friends and companions made it to old age, after all. That he would stay unchanging against the erosion of time while they aged and perished were the natural peculiarities of a long life as one of the last fae. Still, in those moments it was the hardest to cling to his love of humanity.
After long sequences of fighting and rebuilding the lighthouse over and over again—he watched through history how the simple lighthouse and farmlands became a city and then a metropolis, and how the Lightkeepers, simple guards once, joined with local law enforcement and eventually dipped into the shadows as intelligence agents.
At some point, he picked up Varka—or Varka picked him up, Flins wasn’t entirely sure. But they found each other, in the end. Varka sat with him atop the lighthouse as Flins kept watch so its light would never go out, even in the worst of hail and storms and made him that bitter oversteeped tea that he h—no, that he loved despite it all. He should not lie. Those would be memories he would always hold dear to his heart.
The warmth of companionship soaked into his bones and gave him relief like none other.
In the blink of an eye, he had traveled once more back to the present time. Or, nearly there. It was two years ago, as Flins ran down fire escape stairs to catch up to his partner Varka chasing a mass murderer. It was a large-scale operation, with Varka as police captain charging at the vanguard, and many Knights blocking streets and evacuating citizens. They went from two directions, ready to corner the villain—then they met in the middle at the swage plant pipes, drenched with filth and breathing heavily.
Their suspect had just transformed into a swamp monster and plunged into the pipes. Metamorphosis, a mutant’s ability.
There was no way for either Flins or Varka to chase him.
Flins was about to reach out, trying to calm Varka’s very understandable anger and frustration. The man always despaired when he could not close a case with success. Saving future victims, as he always so proudly proclaimed. But this time, something was very different, very wrong.
And it wasn’t that Flins was drenched in icy water in the cold. Varka, instead of falling into his usual spiral of regret and frustration, stood very still.
There was a vial of poison in his hands.
“No!” Flins screamed at the top of his lungs. “You’ll poison the water system if you pour it in now,” he begged, “the plant won’t clear it out fast enough before it reaches the citizens. We can’t do that! Let’s… let’s block all the water exits and try again!” They both knew they couldn’t block all water outlets that fitted a human. And who knew if the metamorphosis ability didn’t involve smaller organisms? But Flins had to say something—anything.
“Sacrifices must be made,” Varka simply replied.
Flins knew Varka didn’t listen to reason. So—before he could throw the vial into the water, Flins jumped at his back, knowing it was his blind spot. The spot he didn’t guard because Flins usually guarded it—it was low and dirty, but Flins felt like he had no choice but to restrain him. Just. Just hold onto him until it was over.
As he tried to pin down his arms, Varka snarled, wrestling Flins’ hold in an attempt to throw him off. His hate-filled eyes set chills down Flins’ spine. “Stop trying to stop me! The city will never be at peace unless I stop him!”
A kick to the gut. Flins rolled over, scrambling on the wet floor and summoning his polearm. In turn, Varka summoned his greatsword. It was the first time they went at each other's throats with fully sharp weapons. They circled each other, each painfully aware of all the other’s weak spots and lapses, having caressed and covered them before.
It was an equal, but devastating fight—each striking without mercy fighting for their own ideals. Varka fought to protect what he fought was the greater good, and Flins fought to protect Varka from himself.
Blood was spilled, too. Though as Flins would recall many times later, either of them would stop before actually causing the other any critical damage. So the fight lasted forever, really, having no end unless their stamina drained.
Flins didn’t exactly know how long they were in a deadlock like this.
But time tilted the battle in Flins’ favor—it had to come to this naturally, because at some point, the Knights of Favonius caught up to them under Jean’s lead, and that’s when everyone, including the young recruits Varka had raised himself, saw him with the poison. All the while, the more seasoned Knights rushed in to restrain him.
That ended Varka’s career as a police captain.
“Get lost!” Varka yelled at Flins, still in the knights’ grasp and with chains around his wrists. Flins stood quietly to the side, clutching his polearm as he vaguely registered a young medic asking if he was okay. For once, he was at a loss for words. “Fuck off and never come back!”
So he did.
That day, he left Varka before Varka could slip through his fingers entirely. Flins’ greatest fear, after all, was loneliness.
Flins jolted back out of sleep in cold sweat, eyes wide and breathing hard. His temple was throbbing with a splitting headache. He was dizzy and tender and by himself.
Though his instincts told him it was safe there in the dark, because the pillow and sheets had smelt like Varka, though the man was nowhere to be seen. The moment he sat up, nausea hit him, and he barely stumbled into the hallway. He didn’t remember… but he somehow made it to the bathroom, and promptly emptied out his stomach violently. And Varka was somehow there, holding his hair. He rinsed his mouth holding onto the sink and barely made it back…
With no energy whatsoever to protest, he fell into a blissful, heavy sleep this time.