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“Tell me a story.”
Flins blinks, attention elsewhere, thoughts wandering. He didn't realize Varka woke up until now, too lost in his own mind. It ought to be morning soon then, he guesses; but time is impossibly hard to tell with the perpetual twilight of Final Night Cemetery. Varka is his only way of estimating the hours between evening and morning because he will wake at dawn without fail, military precision drilled into him by years of service, by years on the road.
The rustling of fabric as Varka sits up. A soft hiss; the bedroom is cool and humans are so sensitive to temperature. Flins allows himself a smile, barely budging as Varka drapes himself around him.
He is a furnace against Flins, blazing hot everywhere they touch. Bare skin against bare skin. Varka's hand on his hip, his thigh, trailing up along his side, tracing his ribs. He follows the marks he has left during the night: colourful bruises that stand out starkly against Flins’ pale skin. There is intent in his every touch although the fire is banked for now, tamed.
Flins shivers.
“A story?,” he repeats quietly, halfway distracted by Varka's hands. He has a near infinite supply of those, having lived for as long as he did. There are many Varka already knows and twice as many still that he doesn't. Flins has told Varka about the old days in the fae court of Belyi Tsar: snippets of a life as a high ranking nobleman, surrounded by intricate schemes and convoluted plans. He has spoken about the people he loved and lost, melancholic wistfulness tinting each word.
One day, Varka will become a story Flins may tell to whoever cares to listen. A story so dear to his heart, etched into his memories forever. Human lives barely last longer than the blink of an eye to a creature like Flins.
Sometimes he thinks he's already mourning Varka, even though Varka is alive and right next to him, his fingers hot brands on Flins’ cool skin. Humans and their short lifespans, Flins thinks, somewhat regretful. The shortness of life is what makes human nature so interesting to him yet at the same time, it brings unimaginable heartache.
“Mondstadt to Kyryll,” Varka says right against his ear, startling Flins out of his thoughts. There's an immediate reprimand on Flins’ tongue for speaking his first name so carelessly but then Varka presses a kiss against his neck, sensual and light. His lips are hot like everything else about him. “Tell me a story.”
He's an enigma sometimes. A riddle Flins can't ever hope to solve.
“... what do you want to hear?”
Varka's chest against his back. More skin and heat than Flins knows how to handle, yet he's still greedy for more. One scarred arm circles his waist; Varka's head rests on his shoulder. “Tell me about the Lantern Fae of Nod Krai,” he says, before he turns his face against the crook of Flins’ neck. More kisses peppering cool skin.
Flins tips his head to the side, baring his neck. Varka grazes his skin with his teeth and Flins’ breath hitches in anticipation. But those blunt teeth never sink in, merely a tease for what might come. Clearly Varka is, at least to some degree, more interested in the story he requested than anything else.
Flins sighs again. Near inaudible but Varka cannot miss it with the way they're pressed closely together. He sways with the exaggerated rise and fall of Flins’ shoulder.
“You are aware that this story is about me.”
Varka figured him out long ago, bluntly calling Flins out on his nature as a fae; so much smarter than he lets on most of the time. He is just like that: putting things together in silence, while hiding behind loud laughter and a mask of cluelessness. He is sharp and cunning and clever. Flins had been drawn to him from the start.
“Why do you want to hear it again?”
Varka makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a sigh that vibrates into Flins’ skin, into his bones, and settles warmly in his chest. The arm around his waist tightens. Varka is broad and tall, towering over everyone he meets and yet in this moment, in the tiny bedroom at Final Night Cemetery and the even tinier bed, he makes himself small. Fits himself around Flins, enveloping him with heat and his scent and his heartbeat.
“I've never heard it from you,” he murmurs into Flins’ neck. “It's a good story.”
Flins disagrees.
It is a story full of loss and tragedy and Varka knows as much; Flins has, after all, told him parts of his history before. The comfortable atmosphere in their shared space hardly seems fit for such a depressing tale but Varka is insistent and terribly distracting. Flins’ hesitance melts away under Varka's rough hands and hot lips, and he surrenders with yet another heavy sigh. Tipping his head back against Varka's temple, Flins begins to talk.
He speaks first of the splendor of the court under the Belyi Tsar's rule. Of fellow fae and their schemes, bets and promises alike made for personal gain. Of how Flins himself used to be involved in countless mind games just for his personal amusement. He speaks of the fall of the fae court and the moment he's had to leave the land he once called home.
Nod Krai comes close to Snezhnaya in some ways but it misses the brutal beauty of everlasting winter and frozen earth. Flins hears his own voice turn wistful as he recalls the splendor of Snezhnaya's snowy landscapes. When he closes his eyes, he can picture what it used to look like: a perfect still life made from unyielding ice and swathed in the pure white of snow.
He speaks of Nod Krai and how he came to love this land too, a second home away from home. He speaks of the disaster that befell it: the Cataclysm that swept across the nation, bringing with it death and suffering.
And hereafter comes a part Flins has never told Varka before.
“Did you ever wonder,” he says quietly, his voice barely louder than the steady thumping of Varka's heartbeat in his ears. “Why there is a gravestone outside the Lighthouse with the name Chudomir on it?”
Varka thinks about it. Flins counts each breath he takes, each beat of his heart, until Varka answers: “Arnivalkea Chudomir, right? I always assumed it was your father's. Or something like that. Figured it might be a story you'd rather not tell so I never asked.”
Considerate of him, really and Flins appreciates the sentiment, however misplaced it is.
“Not quite,” he begins. This part will not be easy. Flins tests the words on his tongue, tries to formulate the most gentle way of explaining. In the end he settles for putting his hand over Varka's resting on his stomach. Varka tangles their fingers together unprompted.
“It is my own grave. I… witnessed the destruction the Abyss brought onto Nod Krai. I watched countless people I had come to call friends die. And all the while, I was powerless to stop it.”
Varka stirs against him, makes a move as though to sit up, to put distance between them but Flins holds him back with a tug on their joined hands. He might retreat into his lantern if Varka looks at him now, the intensity of his summer blue eyes too much for Flins to bear.
“It wasn't your f-”
“It was indeed not my fault,” Flins agrees lightly, stopping the sentence before it is fully formed. His agreement rings hollow but there's earnest conviction in Varka's voice and… he is not ready to hear that. Flins takes a breath he does not need. “Yet I could not help but feel like it was. So many lives lost, despite me using every skill, every trick, every bit of magic I had. I was… heartbroken. So I tried to extinguish my own flame out of grief.”
Deafening silence follows that statement.
Flins still remembers that moment all too well. How meticulously he'd carved out that pompous headstone, intentionally making it bigger than the others, letting it tower like a silent guardian over the graveyard for centuries to come.
How he had buried his lamp in soft soil and sunk into his own flames. How he had closed his eyes and willed sleep to come.
Waiting for death to take him into its peaceful embrace.
Maybe it would have worked. Flins remembers the sensation of floating, further and further away from an invisible shore into a vastness beyond imagination. Cold and infinite yet comforting all the same.
He opens his eyes to stare at the wall across. Unseeing, stuck in memories.
Varka has gone utterly still against him; even his breath has stalled. Only the rabbit-quick beat of his heart convinces Flins that he isn't merely a statue. Undoubtedly, hearing such a confession must be unsettling. Worrying, even. Humans tend to care so deeply, after all. It is what Flins admires so about them.
When several minutes counted in heartbeats pass by, Flins acts. Fae do not love gently like humans do - but Flins has been around for long enough to know how to imitate that tenderness. He twists his body still held tightly in Varka's arms, until they're somewhat facing each other. Sitting like this, they're almost of one height and Flins uses it to his advantage.
Wrapping the arms he frees around Varka's head, he guides him against his own chest. There is no heartbeat to be heard but proximity, Flins knows, can do wonders to ease a burdened heart.
“I am still alive,” he reminds Varka. Shadows dance on the walls, moving in tandem with Varka's heartbeat. Flins holds him tight, acting as an anchor. “I am still here. I am dutybound to this land for many more years to come, Varka.”
The sensation of floating, further and further away from an invisible shore into a vastness beyond imagination. Cold and infinite yet comforting all the same.
And then a desperate plea tearing through the silence. A rush of hot blood. Desperation etched into each laboured breath: the broken words of a dying man.
Save us. Save us. Save us, please. Anyone. Save us, you have to, there has to be someone, please pleasepleasepleasePLEASE-
Flins blinks away memories of blue flames and purple fog and guttural growls. He tethers himself with the warmth of the man he's come to care about, the human he would love to keep safely hidden away, a most exquisite addition to his collection.
If Varka demanded it, Flins would leave his duties behind.
But he knows that Varka would never bind him like this, just like Flins can't tie him down forever. It's maddening and illogical. It makes Flins’ instincts go wild but this is the agreement they've made, the rules Flins must follow.
Varka sighs. A heavy exhale that seems to shrink him, molding him further into Flins’ embrace. His arms around Flins’ waist flex, tightening their hold.
Possessive, maybe. Protective for sure.
“You're right here and yet I can't help but think What If. What if you had died?”
Flins wonders the same sometimes. What if, what if, what if. He is aware it was a plan doomed from the start, for fae are truly immortal but this last truth, he chooses not to disclose. Not now, at least. Maybe never.
Besides, it is pointless to dwell on the past, for it is done and absolute. There's no way to change things that have happened.
Flins cards his fingers through Varka's unruly hair. Golden like the sun, curling at the nape. He sinks his fingers into it - gentle, gentle, gentle - and tugs. Varka looks up at him, head tipped back. Summer blue and gold. His mouth is hot when Flins kisses him.
“Think of something else,” he says when they part, a hair's breadth between them. Varka's arms open. His hands fall on Flins’ hips, the grip just as tight as the embrace before, the touch molten. Possessive. Protective.
Embers in Flins’ chest, hot in the pit of his stomach. Flames roaring to life; desire, fondness, affection. Love. Flins steals another kiss, although it is never stolen when Varka gives so freely.
“I'm right here,” Flins reminds him, their half naked bodies pressed together. Varka's heat against Flins’ cold. Hungry hands and even hungrier mouths. “Think of something else to do with my presence, Grandmaster Varka.”
The frown on Varka's face that hasn't left so far finally eases. The summer blue of Varka's eyes lights up with his reluctant smile. It's small and beautiful and so unlike the full-body laughter Flins is used to. Varka's hands are hot brands on Flins’ hips, his thighs, trailing up along his side, tracing his ribs.
Flins knows for sure that they will talk more about this. Varka will want to hear more details, the exact reasoning behind Flins’ decision all those years ago. But later, later, later.
For now, Varka tips him back against the mattress. It's a small miracle they both fit the bed. There is a promise in his smile, in the blue of his eyes and Flins wants.
“I'm sure I can think of something, Lightkeeper.”