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“He doesn’t mean to be cruel, you know…”
Gentle, pale fingers wound around one of the golden bars surrounding him, and Saps forced himself to focus, head still bleary.
He made out tattoos twisting up each finger, and traced them up an arm until it disappeared under a midnight blue robe, until he finally found a veil, covering a young woman’s face, a tattoo of a wavy sun visible through the sheer fabric. A golden crown was set on top of her veil, and deep chestnut hair, with rubies and unplaceable purple stones, and scraps of what looked like netherite.
It clicked together all at once, and Saps froze dead still, staring at Cynikka, High Priestess of Infernus.
“…Cynikka?”
“It’s Priestess, to you.”
Her voice was quiet, like she didn’t want to be overheard, but Sap caught a glimpse of quirked, scarlet lips, and a hint of a sharp laugh, and soothed his instincts, a little.
Not by much, though. Even in the gloom of this unknown room, he could see the glitter of the golden cage surrounding him, and Saps craned his neck back, feeling his stomach flip as he saw each strand of metal curve upwards, a heavy chain above his head, holding him what must be just less than a metre off the ground, if Cynikka could touch the bars so easily.
“O- oh, ok, wh- what’s going on? Is this- where is this?”
“The King’s throne room.” Cynikka’s smile was gone, and so seemed to be her good mood, back to the wistful not-anger she’d come in with. Saps was sure she used to be angry. But she was so calm, these days. “The centre of Infernus, blessed be our nation.”
Saps’s instincts screeched. He was out of it, but not that out of it.
And he knew the King of Infernus was someone he wanted absolutely nothing to do with, under any circumstances.
“Wait- Cynikka-“ Saps was biting down on one of his talons, and his voice was coming out muffled, to hide his hysteria. “You don’t- you can’t have let him-“
“He doesn’t mean to be cruel.” A manicured nail traced down a single bar, and as Saps’s vision blurred, all he could see was scarlet lips, twisting into a grimace for such a short moment he could have imagined it. “But… he may be. He doesn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No, I- I can’t be near him, you don’t understand…”
Hands shaking, Saps felt around the cage, feeling a latch, then a golden chain winding around it, and the whole structure begin to shake, in his panic.
Cynikka’s hand steadied it, before Saps could move to feeling nauseous as well as terrified. Her grip was firm, and so was her voice, firm and calm and implacable. A perfect preacher.
“The King needs you, to maintain our blessed nation. He doesn’t mean to be cruel, but sacrifices are necessary.”
Saps couldn’t see her, and wasn’t sure he wanted to. He could feel his vision blurring, until everything was darkness and gold and scarlet. Cynikka wouldn’t be doing this to him.
He’d thought no one would go so low as to do this to him. It was a fact, Island One’s water boiled, the sky was blue, Saparata went nowhere near Infernus.
If he stayed away, Fluixon would stay away from him. The young king couldn’t afford to leave his nation, so as long as Saps stayed out of his range, he was out of mind. It had been a good, clean system, keeping everyone safe from the crossfire.
Now…
Saps sat back against the bars, not caring for his wings, a lump in his throat as he tipped his head back, trying to make out the ceiling. He felt like sobbing. He’d tried so hard, not to cause problems, to keep himself out of trouble. But he must have let his guard down, just one night, and now it was all for nothing.
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
In an instant, Saps’s eyes snapped to the Priestess, his breath catching with a desperate sort of hope. Maybe he wasn’t stranded. He’d always thought for Infernus as an implacable evil, but it was just Flux, really. Maybe he’d find mercy elsewhere, within these blackstone walls.
“Are you-“
“Don’t get your hopes up.” Again, Cynikka smiled, and her fingers vanished from the bars of his cage, as her voice began to circle him. “I’m here to bless you, and to ask the Spirit of the Volcano protect you from my brother.”
Saps wilted. No help coming. Just a nation of people who wanted to chuck him into a volcano, or harvest his feathers. He didn’t even know quite what Flux’s excuse was for his fixation, just that nothing good was coming of him being near a member of the Infernus clergy.
“Cyn- please-“
He sounded broken. It must have only been a few hours, but Saps felt broken already. Maybe it was the crashing stress, of so long running and hiding and keeping away from anything dangerous, only to end up right where he’d been trying to avoid. Flux wasn’t even going to have to try.
“Priestess, Saparata. I’m here for your spirit, not for your pleading.”
For a moment, there was the Cynikka he knew. Wicked sharp, amused and dancing and firmly harsh. But there was still something wrong about her.
Maybe avoiding Infernus for so long hadn’t been a good idea. Saps had no way of knowing how Flux ruled, what kind of life his citizens lead. He didn’t know if Cynikka had changed, stepped down, of her own accord, or if he was right to be as suspicious as he had been.
Actually, he’d absolutely been right to be suspicious. Flux had him in a bird cage, and Saps was panicking about that, and he didn’t want Cynikka anywhere near him right now, brainwashed or not.
“Priestess.” He tried again, wrapping his own claws around the bars, feeling the cage tip slightly under his weight. “Please, you have to know your King is unreasonable. What he’s doing… it’s not going to benefit Infernus. It’s just for himself, and it’s hurting me. I don’t want to bring you guys trouble.”
It felt like a fairly convincing argument, even if delivered in the midst of hysteria. Saps could only hope that his meekness worked to his advantage, making him pitiable, appealing to whatever in Cynikka remained kind-hearted. It wasn’t like he could look any more pathetic, a six foot something avian clinging to the bars of a cage, eyes wide with tears and fear.
He didn’t want to see Flux. He’d gone so long, years, scurrying away and ducking his head when it mattered, all to avoid this.
Saps couldn’t help but feel slighted, too, that he didn’t even know if Flux had already been here, while he’d been unconscious. If the person he’d been trying to avoid for so long had already touched his wings again, or if he hadn’t even seen Saps yet. It felt unnerving, vulnerable, and it wasn’t helping anything.
“…Not for the good of Infernus?”
Cynikka’s voice had dropped, to something low and sweet and so, so familiar it was almost relieving, if Saps’s could feel his feathers prickling.
“No, come on, Cyn, you know he doesn’t want me-“
“The King,” She stepped closer, smile tight and deadly. “Doesn’t act for the good of our blessed nation?”
Saps felt like a deer in headlights. A bird in laser sights. A bird in a cage, a blade at his throat, a hunter approaching. This wasn’t the Cynikka he knew. He didn’t know Flux, not anymore.
“Priestess, I swear, there’s- your spirits don’t care about me, Fl-“
“I trust my brother.” Cynikka’s voice dropped, for a second, still harsh, but quiet, just for a moment. “I trust he knows what’s best. If you’re something he wants, the Spirit will be pleased. I can’t let you go, Saparata. I can just give you my blessing, and wish the Spirit to know that you are an innocent soul.”
Her footsteps were the exact same as Flux’s, as she walked away, not looking back as Saps was left in his own puddle of stained white feathers and gold amidst the darkness.
Only when the room was left in total silence, did Saps close his mouth, blink away his remaining tears, and pull his hand back, hugging his knees instead, staring at nothing as his wings failed to even find a way through the bars to stretch.
Cynikka knew he was innocent. Everyone knew he was innocent. He’d never done anything, nothing at all, to provoke whatever had driven Flux to chase him to the ends of the earth.
Saps still wasn’t sure how innocent he was.
What made him innocent, when he’d let Flux go? When he’d known, and said nothing? The complicit could never be claimed to be innocent, not when their hands were stained by holding those of the guilty.
He should never have let Flux go. Saps should have gone running, to 3Below, to Cass, to anyone. Someone would have listened.
But he’d let Flux run, and had been paying for it ever since as he was forced to in turn.
It wasn’t fair. That itched at Saps, at the corners of his eyes, making them prickle with fresh tears of frustration. He’d tried, so hard, to spend his life being reasonable. He’d wanted to be fair to Flux. To give him a second chance.
Flux hadn’t given him one. Saps had heard about his coronation at least a day after the event, from a passing soldier he’d been hiding from. He hadn’t understood what it meant for him at the time, merely smiled with a kind of bitter satisfaction.
This was what Flux made, of his second chance. He pulled strings, he escaped the suspicious eyes on Island Two, he made himself at home with his sister before any of his old allies understood what had happened.
He needn’t have run. Saps had still been living through the consequences of Flux’s actions when he’d had himself crowned, still being hunted with a burning, unanimous vitriol by everyone he’d tried to help. But the pressure must have felt too strong, in his position, and Infernus must have been worth burning a few bridges.
It had been nearly a week, when Saps had understood what he’d done wrong. Why he never should have kept Flux’s secret.
The Infernus soldiers weren’t subtle, the first time they came. They clearly hadn’t got the memo that Saps was being hunted by every authority of Island Two, they’d thought they could just rock up to his registered address and request he come peacefully.
Thankfully, Saps hadn’t been home. Even better, he’d heard from one of his few friends in time to pack up and run, the weight of what he’d let happen already gathering in his chest.
Flux hadn’t stopped chasing him. The soldiers had kept coming, then mercenaries, then Saps’s friends had started vanishing or getting cagey, and he knew he had to ditch them either way.
It had been a game of survival, and Saps could feel his choices shrinking each move he made. He bounced between islands, under a disguise, keeping his fake name clean, just another avian with soot-dyed wings passing through. The wings had been tricky. His most distinctive feature, the one Flux had always pleaded to let him touch, in that childish way Saps was weak for.
He’d been too weak, for Flux. Saps wished he could say he wasn’t, anymore. There was hatred, certainly, but it was a barricade around something out, a wartime construction for the purpose of survival. It didn’t change anything.
It didn’t change that Flux was in control, now, and Saps could do nothing about it but cry silently, and wrap his dirty, stained, disguised wings around himself.
——————
Light.
There was light.
For a moment, Saps wondered if he’d died.
He raised his head, and no, not yet. Even if his wings felt disgusting, the soot he’d used to dye them black clumped in his feather pores and muscles aching from sleeping against and on the floor of a small cage.
Fluixon met his eyes, and smiled.
He was sitting on an ornate, blackstone throne, set with sharpened purple gemstones like a crown on the back, where his head sat against. Or would have, if he hadn’t been leaning on the arm, chin in his hands, one leg crossed over the other like he wasn’t wearing a royal coat, didn’t have a golden circlet sitting perfectly on his jet-black hair.
Saps wanted to throw up.
This, this was evil. He was looking at evil incarnate. And he couldn’t find it within himself to look away.
Flux was perfect, daring smile and flashing eyes, relaxed yet poised, like a regal cat. He conducted himself like a general, spoke like a preacher, with the eyes of a siren.
This was the friend Saps had kept the secret of, and had been repaid for with years of fear.
“…Your- Highness.”
It caught in his throat, and Saps forced a painfully tight impression of a smile. Flux would never be a king, to him. Just a boy, whose feet didn’t reach the floor, who scowled when he didn’t get what he wanted and knew more about jewellery than any creature short of a magpie should.
Flux didn’t scowl back. He smiled, instead, and Saps hated how little of his old friend was in that smile. What had been fire and mischief was now cruelty, and as he shifted, all he looked like was a vicious flame, darting and striking at whoever he deemed fit.
“Saparata. Our angel.”
“Your angel. Don’t pretend this is anything to do with Infernus.”
Saps doubted his confidence would last. But as long as a cage separated him and Flux, he could hold on, call himself something he hadn’t been since he made this world his home, drive the knife into the heart of how much Flux cared about the people he loved.
Not that it seemed to work. Flux’s smile didn’t waver. He’d had power for too long, Saps was sure. He was arrogant, overconfident, and there was an awful feeling on the tips of his wings that he had what it took to back it up.
“My angel, then. And you look stunning, for it.”
Saps bristled. He didn’t, by any definition of the word. But he couldn’t help how he sat up a little straighter, hardy holding himself back from barring his teeth at a grinning Flux.
He should never have been given power. It was like a child gone mad, and Saps would have felt sorry for him, if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing.
Still. It was hard not to feel a little pity.
Saps felt more sorry for himself, though.
Flux stood up, walking over slowly, deliberately, and Saps had a bad feeling about this. Bad enough to scoot backwards, pressing himself against the other side of the cage, feeling it tilt nauseatingly under his weight.
“You… don’t even know what I want from you, do you?”
“You- god, Flux, I’ve got no clue. I’ve been running from you for- for years, and- no. Not a clue.”
Flux still looked like a child, in his eyes. Saps felt like a child, under his gaze. Helpless and scared, staring into the violet eyes of a boy always too fascinated by what he could and couldn’t have.
“You’ve been running?” Flux crouched down, one hand on the bars, voice softening to something almost gentle. “From me?”
“Yes. Yes, I- I’ve been running. What else was I meant to do?”
Saps saw Flux’s lips twitch again, in something more compulsive, a far cry from his wolfish grin. Something more genuine, just like the murmur in his voice, the way he looked up to meet the fallen angel’s eyes.
“Wait for me to say thank you.”
For a moment, Saps believed it.
For a moment, they really were children, and Flux had just frightened him when there was nothing to be frightened of. Saps had been running from the monsters in his head, from the make-believe game the adults would never approve of.
Flux yanked him out of the cage almost gently. Saps almost didn’t hit the ground knees-first, gasping as pale fingers tugged his head backwards by his hair.
“So, thank you, Saparata.” Standing straight now, Flux loosened his grip, petting his hair fondly. And there was still something real in his smile, something real and twisted and a far cry from sane, if he’d ever been. “Thank you for being the one threat I had left.”
He was going to die in this volcano.
——————
The sky was blue. Saps was in Infernus.
Island One’s water still boiled to the touch.
Saps knew these were facts, even if Flux didn’t, because that same boiling water was currently dousing his feathers, and he was trying his hardest not to cry about it.
He didn’t have to put in any effort to this activity, at least. Flux had chained his hands above his head, to some grounding point in the tiled room that for some goddamn reason had a shower in. Saps was leaning on the metal, hard, all his bodyweight going through his shaking shoulders.
He was still clothed, too. Although that felt more like a humiliation, feeling the traveller’s robes he’d worn for probably too long get soaked through, sticking to his skin uncomfortably.
Flux hadn’t seemed to care, when he’d shoved him to the floor. Saps had been waiting for this, in a way. Flux had always cared too much about his wings, he’d felt that burning gaze rake over his stained feathers more times than he’d like.
This was just… worse than he’d been expecting.
“Fuck- Flux, that-“
The water hit a tender point in his wings, where Saps had had a handful of feathers ripped out by a tree branch as he ran through Tricolour. It had been a while ago, but feathers took a while to grow, especially unevenly.
And it all hurt, anyway, but that was a sting of pain Saps hadn’t expected or prepared for. He’d been acclimatising, to the steady burning leeching through his feathers, bringing tears to his eyes as the room filled with steam. But he’d still had his feathers to protect him from the worst of the scalding.
“Shush.” Flux was all business, deceptively gentle in his admonishments. “Stay still, this is your fault. You could have come to me earlier, you know.”
Come to him. Like Saps had been running from some nameless threat, not the King of Infernus himself.
He felt sick. Literally, as the heat seeped through him, making his head spin a little. Saps was just glad Flux didn’t seem to be trying to burn his wings.
Then again, Saps wasn’t putting anything past him. It hadn’t even been a day, before Flux had given up trying to coax Saps off the floor and sit with him, and dragged him here under the guise of cheerful kindness.
“I was- I was hiding from you.”
It was difficult to speak, it turned out, when Saps was trying not to bite off his own tongue from the throbbing of his blood moving too fast, too hot in his veins. Flux wasn’t even being predictable about it. Just dumping boiling water over his feathers, which Saps was grateful for the sacrifice of, because they were acting as something of a shield, at least.
“…You ruined your wings with it. You should have known better.”
Even now, Flux still seemed so blind. It would have been impressive, if Saps wasn’t gritting his teeth hard enough to break them.
“This- isn’t better, Flux.”
Saps hissed again, and so did his skin, he was pretty sure, as some of the water went directly onto the base of his wings, making one of them flare out in a spasm.
“Hey- don’t do that, honestly.” Tutting, Flux guided his wing back down, and Saps hated how Flux knew even better than he did where to touch to make him relax. “This is better. For both of us. I just need you out of the way, and you’ll be safe here.”
It made sense, in the worst way possible. Saps knew what Flux was thinking, in his closed-off and skewed worldview. Everywhere else in the world wanted him dead, except here. Flux would have to be paranoid about someone spilling his secret anywhere in the world, except here.
It made sense, at least to Flux, if Saps was here.
Saps was past arguing, really. He’d thought Flux might have changed. But there was nothing, nothing except an ache between betrayal and disappointment, and his resistance eroding like sugar in water.
Even if this was the least Flux would do to him, Saps was safe here. No more running. No more hiding. No more tearing his feathers out and staining them with soot he was watching wash down the drain, staining his robes on its way past his knees.
With Flux, there was nothing left to fear.
“Nearly… done, I think.”
Flux’s hands moved across his wings, across the slowly cooling water rising in small tendrils of steam, smoothing down his washed feathers. Sap hoped they were washed. He’d been getting so sick, of barely being able to move them, of coughing fits every time he tried to fly. Flux could do that for him, at least.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’ll… that’ll do. Feel better?”
He was trying so hard, to pretend to be normal. Saps could feel it, in how he was chained on his knees, like they were playing some game.
Except he was kneeling in scalding water, and Flux was touching him like an animal, and the whole reason his wings had been so dirty had been to keep himself safe.
Saps closed his eyes, fought back tears, and nodded, just slightly, letting out a shaky sigh.
“…better. A little.”
He couldn’t deny it. Burning aside, his wings felt like they could move again. Saps had almost forgotten this feeling.
Trust Flux, to be the one to make him feel free again.
Saps needed out of here.
He wasn’t getting it, though, as nimble fingers worked at the chains around his wrists, until his hands could fall to his sides, and he knew he had to get up, and follow. No use trying to run. Saps hadn’t had a chance, yet, but he knew how it would end.
Everyone here was loyal. Everyone here obeyed Flux. He would have to, too, or risk more than just the King’s anger.
Saps shook out his wings weakly, still a little heady and aching from the scalding water. His feathers really had protected him from the worst of it, damaged as they were. Small mercies, when he still didn’t know if Flux had been trying to torture him, or was just clueless.
It didn’t matter. Saps felt dizzy, and sick, and even if Flux had been careful not to actually burn him, his skin still felt raw and stinging.
But he was being guided into a chamber decorated in the same black walls and white accents and purple gems and golden paintings as the throne room, and Saps didn’t resist as Flux returned with a soft towel, silent and gentle and immovable as he dried the fallen angel like he was patching a grazed knee.
“…Why, Flux? Why are… why?”
Saps couldn’t resist the silence. It weighs at him, tugging at the part of him that had been tired, for so long, the part of him that said this was coming home, in a twisted sort of way.
“Safety. You’re in danger out there, and you’re a danger to me.” Flux hummed, low and soft, stroking down his feathers with the towel. “And I missed you.”
“…of course.”
Saps honestly didn’t know why he’d bothered. He just stood still, wings pulled weakly in, staring at the white rug on marble floor that didn’t feel like a bedroom at all, but undeniably was. The price of kingship, he supposed. Flux wasn’t expected to sleep in a room normal people would.
Then it was over, and he was just warm, not burning, and so, so tired.
“You’re tired, aren’t you?”
Somehow, Flux was in front of him, reaching up to cup his cheek, and his eyes had never looked so soft. Saps blinked, for a moment, aware of the heat in his cheeks and the heat everywhere else, and unaware of what the right answer was.
Maybe there wasn’t a right answer. It was only him, he was resisting for. No one would judge him for giving in. He lived for himself, these days.
He settled for a shrug, but relaxed, a little, into Flux’s palm. It felt familiar. Like the sharp eyes on him, the ones Saps didn’t want to look at, so he closed his own.
A small sigh, and the hand was falling to his own, and that was fine too.
“I still know you, Saparata. I don’t know why you ran.”
Honestly?
Saps didn’t have a goddamn clue either.
It was just easy, in some exhausted way, as his body came off the years-long high of fear and guilt and frustration, washed away by warm water and gentle touches, to relax, into Flux’s hands, to let himself be tugged onto a plush bed.
It was weird, to be in Flux’s bed. Not as weird as Saps would have liked, but strange. A turning in his stomach, a note of apprehension, a reminder of what he’d been so scared of.
But Flux didn’t seem to be about to hurt him. Even as Saps collapsed like a man cut of all strings, free from the responsibility of existence and preserving himself, all he got in return was a hand, carding through his damp hair, trailing down to play with his feathers.
“You can sleep.” Flux was smiling, for sure. There was something sad, too, but he was smiling. “I can wait. It’s just… good to have you. Angel.”
He wasn’t an angel. Hadn’t been, not for a long time.
But Saps could feel Flux looking at him like he was one, as he drifted into nothingness.