Work Text:
Illuga is, for once, on an evening stroll when he hears a familiar voice.
“We are in Piramida, Traveler. People hardly bat an eye when someone stands around with an uncovered sword. A conversation with a lantern is hardly noticeable.”
A much younger voice chimes, “It’s weird when the lantern talks back, right?”
Huh?
His stomach fills with dread as the potential options fill his mind. There are three contenders, none of which he’s particularly fond of. All of them imply the Traveler knows about Flins’ nature, which is relatively obvious to anyone with a keen enough eye, with how little the man tries to hide it. However, due to said nature, shit happens.
Option one is by far the worst. Flins is dead, and all three of them are being haunted by his ghost, or collectively hallucinating in their grief.
Option two is better, and explains why the Traveler looks like they want to tear their hair out: Flins is messing with them. However, option two implies Flins thinks this is a better use of his time than returning to work, taking care of his injuries (should he be afflicted by any), or come see Illuga and give him some peace of mind after the recent events. The latter which he absolutely should have been doing days ago. Illuga will have to pretend not to be angry about this later, and, as always, miserably fail.
Option three makes Illuga homicidal in ways he had not thought possible: Flins has been injured, and has to rest in his lantern form for a while. Of course, this option is an objective middle ground between death and life– however, for the people around Flins’ lantern, this is by far one of the worst. It also means Illuga’s idiotic, near-suicidal partner nearly died again.
If option three is the truth, Illuga will make him wish he was dead. So he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between two gloved fingers, and puts his smile mask back on– hopefully the Traveler is too tired to realise the ruse.
“Traveler! Miss Paimon!” He says as he approaches, “Welcome to Piramida. The other Lightkeepers have been talking about you quite a bit.”
It’s as if Illuga’s very presence brings the Traveler unimaginable relief: their shoulders slump forward, like a marionette with their strings suddenly cut.
(Illuga suddenly feels infinitely worse. For all the disagreements they’ve had with the Fatui, the Lightkeepers– and himself– never dare speak ill of the dead, or make light of their sacrifices.)
“Finally,” they say, oblivious to Illuga’s mental slip and subsequent panic, “Are you Captain Illuga?”
“Oh, you’ve heard of me?”
“Someone,” they say tightly through their teeth as their hand, which holds Flins’ delicate lantern, begins to shake with what Illuga can only describe as inconceivable amounts of anger, “can’t stop talking about you!”
Option one is (mostly) shot out of the window when some passerby looks at the Traveler with concern and curiosity in their eyes. At least they’re not hallucinating the lantern itself– good news. Illuga will take what he can.
“Paimon can’t deal with him anymore!” She whines, cradling her face with her hands.
Illuga reminds himself of the first time he went through this… affliction. He nods solemnly. “How long has he been like this?”
“Two days,” the Traveler tells him, like a man tells another they have an incurable disease that will only get progressively worse; like it’s been a death sentence already, and they’re waiting for the final blow.
He can see it now: both the Traveler and their guide have the same dark undereyes Flins himself sported on the daily. It’s a common symptom of a friendship with the man, and Illuga is quite glad they got over that little misunderstanding. (Arguably, he made it worse for himself, getting tied up to a fae, but hey, who are we to judge?)
Only then does Flins’ lantern begin to glow a more healthy blue, flaring back to life once again, as though the man was simply hiding around the corner, too far from his lantern to properly kindle its fire.
“You’re being uncharacteristically silent right now, Sir Flins,” Illuga points out, eyes narrowed toward the little blue flame. It dances to the rhythm of a heartbeat, but he can see how weak it looks– and can imagine how weak it must feel if he were to cradle it between his hands.
“I am quite hurt by our dear Traveler,” he says, his voice dramatic and morose. “Am I such a heavy burden on your shoulders that you must leave me here?”
“Yes,” Paimon and the Traveler both answer, the latter rolling their eyes and the former with her eyes closed.
It’s option three, then. If Flins isn’t here to kiss his hand and piss him off to no end in person, then he must not be able to. His annoying the two outlanders is simply a ruse to get them to be irritated, not worried. Illuga usually falls for it too, but not today.
“I’ll take care of him,” Illuga ends up saying.
“How noble, Master Illuga.”
The Traveler wordlessly passes the lantern over to him. When he gets it in his hands, he lifts it so the flame is at his eye level, and he grins. “We have some things to discuss, Mr. Flins.”
If fire could pale with dread, Illuga would’ve seen it. “Aha, I’ll answer all your questions, Master Illuga, you have my word.”
Not wanting to dignify that with an answer, Illuga waves the Traveler goodbye— much to their immediate relief— and makes his way back home, Flins’ lantern cradled in the crook of his elbow.
“Master Illuga,” Flins whispers, “this cannot possibly be comfortable for you. Please, hook this poor lantern onto your belt, or wherever else you see fit.”
“But how else would I make sure none of our colleagues think I’ve lost my mind? Talking to an inanimate object is one thing, but speaking to the wind is entirely different.” He unlocks his door, ignoring the many, many letters stuffed in his mailbox, and hooks Flins onto one of the coat racks.
“Perhaps you ought to leave me in your home, then, and go on with your days while I recover? Though I will get quite lonely without my young master…”
He’s got his coat off and is just beginning to undo his boot laces when he raises an eyebrow at the lantern next to him. “You say this as if you can’t just follow me anyway.”
Anyone else wouldn’t have been able to catch the faltering beat of the flame in Flins’ lantern, but Illuga, long used to seeing it echo the rhythm of his own heart, is surprised at how faint Flins suddenly appears. Nothing more than a candlelight on a windy evening.
“Kyryll,” Illuga says, as he so rarely does even when they are alone, “how long do you need to rest for?”
Flins sounds almost regretful when he answers. “A couple of weeks, I believe. Three at the most.”
Of the few times the fae has had to return to his lantern to rest and recuperate, none of them have been quite this long. Last time it was only five days to regain his physical body, and then three more for most of his strength to return. What could he possibly have done for him to require three weeks?
He picks up Flins again, silence heavy between them, and brings him to the modest kitchen-living room his first floor mostly consists of. He sets the lantern on the counter, in the warmest spot of the room– near the stove– and slowly begins preparing something to eat. Flins’ flame waxes and wanes, rhythm evening out, slower than a heartbeat and softer than the feather of a bird’s wing.
Illuga smiles, a silent thing that would be a source of much teasing in any other situation, and tries to keep the noise he makes as low as possible.
It is rather practical to have the reputation of a man who never takes a break– when Illuga does end up taking a week off from work, paperwork in hand the next morning, most of the Ratnik around him nod with a sigh of relief, and the others look proud of him.
His dad is no exception.
“Finally, my boy’” Nikita says, “you deserve some rest.”
Illuga shrugs. “Why is everyone so dramatic about it? It’s just a week.”
Bjorn coughs loudly from beside him. Nikita straightens up with a tight slime. “Well, you haven’t exactly asked for any time off… ever since you joined.”
“Ah,” Illuga says. “First time for everything?”
He feels Flins’ lantern, hooked around his hip and thankfully silent, become warmer and wiggle against his thigh. Of course, he’s not exactly taking time off. Instead, he’s calling out of work so someone can take over his patrol route, and he can take over Flins’. No one else would be willing to patrol around Final Night Cemetery.
“I’ll be out of town,” Illuga continues, “so if there’s an emergency–”
“We’ll send word to Flins,” Nikita concludes. “I assume you’re going to meet him later? That’s his lantern,” he points out the evidence, now gone quite cold again. Illuga tries not to be concerned.
“Hah… yes, the Traveler was going further north, so they entrusted me with it.” He and his dad’s eyes meet– they both know of Flins’ peculiar nature– and some understanding flashes in Nikita’s eyes as he signs the paperwork.
Illuga is halfway out of the meeting hall when he turns around, and his dad, wearing the most mischievous smirk he’s ever seen, wordlessly tells him to use some protection. If he hadn’t been so busy covering his now-reddened face with his hand, he would have felt (and seen) Flins’ warm flame erupt in silent laughter.
It’s only when Illuga is done setting up his things in Flins’ bedroom (some misnomer, that is, since he only ever uses it when they’re both at the Lighthouse) that the flame flares back to life. Once Illuga had left his home for Paha Isle with a bag of supplies over his shoulder and the lantern against his hip, Flins had gone silent again, and stayed that way for a peaceful seventeen hours. Enough time for Illuga to walk the patrol path twice– to memorize it, of course, not to hope Flins would wake up during it and talk to him again, lured back to consciousness by the familiar sights– and clean up the space where he’ll take residence for a while.
It’s only a week, Illuga reminds himself, as he sits on the stiff bed. Then he can go home to Piramida, and Flins’ patrol will be taken over by the Traveler. The silence of the space is nearly overwhelming. He can hear every brush of the wind against the blades of grass and gravel, the crash of the waves against the shoal and cliffs behind the Lighthouse. He can hear everything, his own breaths, his heartbeat, the shift of the blanket against his moving weight.
He just can’t hear Flins. There’s no weird story coming out of his mouth, or movements of his feet against the metal floor, of the shuffle of cards between their hands. There’s nothing.
He sighs, unable to sit still for too long, and puts his coat back on for one last patrol before night falls. Flins stays still, but warmer, against his hip, Aedon’s talons curled around an intricate hook on its side– likely where Flins would hook it himself onto his polearm.
The ghosts here, when he was younger, never scared him. They were overwhelming, creepy even, watching his every move. However, he doesn’t remember ever thinking them scary. They were simply there, faceless shapes against the backdrop of the night sky. During the day, they were gone, with only their gravestones, marble silhouettes adorning the blue-purple hue of the grass. Apparently it was rare for the sun to shine over the Cemetery, but each time he returned to visit Flins, rays of light brightened up the stone enough to be blinding, like snow on a sunny morning.
There is no such sun now; only storm clouds yet to split open, and the distant gaze of the Frost Moon over them.
“My, what has gotten my young master looking so somber?”
By sheer habit, Illuga jumps and twists his spear around himself, as though assailed by an unknown enemy. However, soon enough he recognizes the voice, once he regains his senses, and sighs.
“A warning would have been nice,” Illuga groans, looking down at the lantern.
The little flame dances with what could only be described as mirth. “How else would I draw such adorable reactions out of you, dearest Illuga? If I cannot stand next to you, then I must do the next best thing.”
“Right.”
“It will aid in my recovery, you see.”
“Would salt water help too? I know a very nice pond for you to rest in.”
The flame dims immediately, like a cat sprayed with water skitters away with its tail between its legs. “Aha… young master, how cruel you are, to threaten me when I am at my weakest…”
They spend the rest of the patrol bickering back and forth. When Flins’ flame gets smaller, too small to be a show of emotion, Illuga hastens his pace. He wraps the lantern in one of the spare blankets he brought with him, soaks a wick with some more lamp oil, and sets Flins on the pillow beside his. After he takes off most of his gear, changes, and gets under his own fleece, the flame is nothing but a star in the dark sky of the room.
With the back of his finger, he caresses the purplish glass.
“Good night, Kyryll.”
As as quickly as the skies darken once the sun drops below the horizon, Illuga’s eyes close and his breath evens out. He does not feel the sliver of pale flame against his cheek, or hear what Flins says in return. That is for him to know, and him alone.
The rest of the week goes by more or less the same way. Varka and Nefer drop by, one evening, to get some news from their friend– Flins answers more or less every question with a deflection, but neither visitor mention it. By the end of the night, they seem satisfied with his answers, even if Varka glances at the lantern one more time with something like regret in his face.
“I owe him quite the debt,” Nefer told him when Illuga when he was in the kitchen preparing some snacks, away from Flins. “I doubt he will ever ask something for himself, so I’m extending it to you.”
Illuga does not know her well, but he has heard enough stories about the Curatorium and its strict rules that he’s fairly sure she could take a knife to the thigh and still not have paid back whatever she owes. He is quite glad, however, that he has gone unrecognized enough amidst his coworkers for Nefer not to know he will not, either, reclaim a favor from her. Flins may be quite the distant personnage, and Illuga the self-sacrificial type, but they both know saving someone’s life never comes with an expectation of favors.
The day after they leave, Flins is significantly quieter.
The oil-and-smoke smell of Piramida hits Illuga like a ton of soft bricks when he gets back home, Flins noticeably more alive and talkative against his leg. In all honesty, the time away from headquarters may have done him some good. Most of his colleagues tell him just that, when he walks past them.
Or maybe it was Flins’ silence, he traitorously thinks, once he’s back on his usual patrol, a gang of Wild Hunt in front of him.
“What poor form, Master Illuga,” Flins tells him, “why, you must have been slacking off.”
He just narrowly dodges a swing from an axe, his polearm spearing through the monster. “Maybe I should just leave you here, then,” he says humorlessly, swiping his weapon through the torso of another Hunter. “If you can criticize me for my form,” he continues, looking around for stragglers and finding none. “you must be better than me.”
“Ah, I jest–” Flins replies quickly, “none are quite as graceful as–”
Illuga’s ear picks up something from behind him, and he twists around to cut the thing in half just a step too late. However, before the thing has time to pull down its bat and knock Illuga down, blue fire engulfs it before both the flame and the Hunter disappear into nothingness.
“Flins?” He looks down, and sees the lantern nearly extinguished. He unhooks it from his belt with shaking fingers, knocking on the glass with one hand and pulling some lamp oil from his pocket with the other. His eye twitches when the flame slowly brightens again. “You are quite lucky I’m not throwing you off this cliff now, Mister Flins.”
“Apologies, young master,” and now the man sounds nearly honest, knocking some anger out of Illuga’s heart. “I’ll refrain from distracting you next time.”
“You’re making yourself weaker so I’ll take care of you for longer, aren’t you,” Illuga points out, the lamp oil getting soaked up by the wick he placed in the lantern just that morning.
“How cruel, Master Illuga. Your direct questions are quite astute.”
Flins is extremely lucky the glass of the lantern can’t be broken, because the death grip Illuga has on its surface would snap anyone else’s neck. “You could just say yes, you–”
On a snowed-in patrol, Illuga sits against the rock of a cave, Flins’ lantern beside him and a fire started before him. There’s nothing to do but wait, and he has nothing to eat. They haven’t been here for long, but…
“You should not neglect your nutritional needs, Master Illuga,” Flins says unhelpfully, “it would lessen the risk of such situations from happening again.”
“Is it my fault you somehow needed three times as much oil as you did yesterday? Or have I been neglecting your needs?”
“Never,” Flins tells him, nearly offended, “my young master treats me so well. Perhaps the temperature has made the wick quite voracious.”
Outside, the wind and snow roars on. Through the white blizzard, however, he can see a few mandragoras being swept from one side of the path to the other, from a wind corridor formed between the two cliffs. When one of the creatures is thrown into the cave, Illuga immediately scrambles to grab it before the storm drags it away again.
He knocks it out with a flick of his finger and cracks open the little reservoir at the top of its head.
“What are you…”
Illuga shrugs. “It tastes a little funny at first, but you get used to it,” he says as he sips the golden liquid.
“I fear there may be something fundamentally wrong with you, young master.”
“Well, yeah,” he agrees, sipping some more, “I love you. No one in their right mind would do that, much less do something about it.”
For all the teasing Flins likes to do, Illuga can give just as good as he gets. He’s figured out, in the dead of night and in short, soft moments when they’re truly alone in the world, that Flins gets unbelievably embarrassed at any implications of closeness, whether it be friendship or love. He remembers, a few years ago, telling his dad that he and Flins were friends– neither of them had known he could become as red as he did, fae or not. Once they admitted to Nikita that they’d become lovers, Flins heard the word and immediately vanished into his lantern.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Illuga has seen his lover’s face, though, and he misses it. He would really like to see his face grow red again. Admitting his own feelings toward Flins hasn’t been the easiest thing in the world, but he has gotten more comfortable saying these words when alone together.
The flame in his lantern changes colour, now more purple than blue, and grows incrementally warmer. Aedon, who had been perched on Illuga’s shoulder, desperate for some warmth, moves over to the lantern and falls asleep on top of it.
Illuga smiles as he takes another sip, and waits for the end of the storm.
On the seventeen-day mark, Illuga wakes up without the lantern beside him. Usually, it sits on his bedside table, bottom blanketed by a fleece or his coat. On particularly desperate evenings, after nightmares or once Flins has grown too silent to be ignored, he clutches the lantern to his chest, blanket around it to soften its metal edges and keep the spark warm enough.
Today, though, it is nowhere to be found.
“Flins?”
He nearly jumps out of bed in his desperation. He drops to his knees, hoping he hadn’t pushed the poor man off to the floor or, gods forbid, thrown him somewhere while he was dreaming.
“Flins!”
He gets dressed hastily, coat and boots haphazardly thrown on and untied still as he runs down the stairs. There’s simply no way a lantern can just disappear, right? He had it just last night. He doesn’t sleepwalk, from what his dad tells him, nor does he forget things often. Maybe he’s forgotten what his biological parents looked like, but he wouldn’t forget about–
“My, what sorry state you are in,” a calm voice says as it approaches. “My apologies, I believed it would be best if I–”
Funnily enough, after many near-misses, and still not knowing whatever the hell happened for Flins to require this much rest, finding the man unharmed in his kitchen, holding a steaming skillet in his hand, is the thing that brings him to tears. Whether they’re from anger or relief, he can’t exactly tell.
“Master Illuga?”
He can’t help it. He takes off his boots in the entryway, dropping his coat unceremoniously on the bench next to them, and slowly walks back to the kitchen. Flins stands with his head tilted to the side, as though curious, unsure. Illuga simply closes his eyes and drags him into an embrace, arms tight around Flins’ waist. He wants, desperately, to punch the fae in the face for all the turmoil he’s gone through in the last two weeks, but he doesn’t have it in him to do it. (Not now, anyway.)
“I missed you,” Illuga says, voice muffled by the fabric of Flins’ shirt.
“I have been by your side all week, my dear,” Flins points out, putting down the skillet on the nearest counter and combing Illuga’s hair with his fingers. The movement lets the young man deflate somewhat, tension leaving his frame with every scrape of Flins’ nails against his scalp.
“Welcome home, Kyryll.”
Flins can’t stop his smile, even though Illuga won’t see it. “I’m afraid I have been home for quite some time, Master Illuga.”