Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

1.

It’s raining like hell by the time Illuga knocks three times upon Flins’ front door— he’d seen the stormclouds before he’d set out from Piramida, had even had a short chat with Nikita about their prominence, but he’d foolishly believed that he could make it to Final Night Cemetery before the heavens opened.

He spares half a thought to Nikita’s expression when he’d affirmed his decision to leave as he stands shivering on Flins’ doorstep. He’d looked a little helpless, confronted with Illuga’s steadfast determination, but somehow, he gets the feeling that the impending thunderstorm was only half the reason why.

He’s shaken out of his musings when the door suddenly opens, and Illuga is treated to the rare sight of a speechless Flins.

He’s dressed down; not wearing his usual coat or gloves for once, and Illuga wastes a precious few seconds ogling before uselessly hefting the burlap sack he’d brought with him, now completely sodden. “Sorry,” he says lamely, and Flins twitches. “I brought supplies?”

Flins ushers him inside.

“Don’t apologize,” is the first thing he says. “You’ll forgive me, I hope, for not having a fire lit,” is the second as he rushes about the room— about as harried as Illuga’s ever seen him, and he wonders what he must look like to have put Flins into such a state. The question is on the tip of his tongue when Flins snaps his fingers at the hearth. Sparks seem to fly off of his fingertips, honing in on the unlit fireplace, and hysterically, Illuga first thought is of Muspelheimr and Niflheimr, and Ginnungagap and the whole meeting between them— “I did not think you would make the journey, for the weather. Did you think you could beat the storm?”

Illuga shrugs one shoulder. “Guilty as charged,” he admits, a little mesmerized. Flins, God bless him, still defaults to the ‘human way’ of accomplishing most menial tasks— what’s the point in attempting to understand humanity if I do not partake of it myself? Illuga can hear him say, though he gets the feeling that it’s not the whole story— but when he’s in a rush or otherwise impatient, his Fae nature makes an appearance.

Illuga, though he is loathe to admit it, is utterly charmed by the happening.  “I would’ve been here sooner, but I ran into an…  an angry pack of mandragora, that— that slowed me down a bit.”

Flins’ lips twitch into a smile. “And so the hunter becomes the hunted,” he says smoothly, and then unceremoniously dumps a towel on Illuga’s head and begins vigorously drying his hair.

Illuga yelps. “Flins!” he squeaks, face flaming red. “It’s— really, there’s no need—”

“You’ll catch cold,” Flins admonishes, but leaves him to his own devices regardless. “At least remove your coat, Young Master Illuga; I do not feel the temperature very strongly, and yet even I feel cold just looking upon you.”

Thoroughly chastised, Illuga shrugs off his jacket and hangs it up on the coatrack next to Flins’. It is… sopping wet, he realizes with a wince, and he turns back to Flins, an apology on his lips.

He doesn’t get very far— Flins is staring intently, lips pursed with a delicate flush on his cheeks, and Illuga barks out a laugh when it clicks.

He teases, “See something you like, Sir Flins?” and watches as that blush gets darker.

“Direct questions,” Flins bemoans, and doesn’t answer. His eyes are acknowledgement enough, though: they’re glued to Illuga’s biceps and shoulders, and Illuga considers idly that perhaps he should look into acquiring more sleeveless, backless sweaters, if this is the response they net.

His only issue would be the explanation for the sudden, drastic change in his wardrobe, but he’s confident that he can cross that road when he gets to it…

He zones back in; recalls that Flins didn’t give him a straight answer. He decides to be merciful, and doesn’t press the issue any further.

Flins directs him towards a chair that’s a little nearer than not to the fireplace, and presses a mug of something warm into his hands.

“Thank you,” Illuga says, and Flins twitches.

Illuga sips at his drink, and is pleasantly surprised by the taste of chocolate that explodes across his tongue. He looks at Flins quizzically, who answers with little prompting: “A merchant from Natlan,” he explains. “It’s from a  plant called ‘cacahuatl,’ or xocolatl. Accordingly, its beans are processed, dried, and then winnowed, all to isolate a tiny nib within, which is then processed again—”

Illuga listens intently as Flins explains the process by which the xocolatl is turned into the hot drink he’s currently enjoying, though, admittedly, Illuga begins to zone out halfway through. It’s not necessarily his fault— he is interested in what Flins has to tell him— but eventually he began to focus on the timber of Flins’ voice instead, the soft coolness of his voice, and his odd, peculiar way of speaking, and by the time he realizes that he can’t recall what Flins said last, the man himself is staring at him with an amused, faintly satisfied expression on his face.

“Hear something you like?” he asks, a parody of the words  with which Illuga had teased him, earlier, and he looks away, flustered.

“I didn’t think you were the type to fish for compliments, Sir Flins,” he says, and Flins pouts.

“I didn’t think Young Master Illuga would be the sort to withhold them, and yet here I am, bereft…”

Illuga rolls his eyes. The stories that Flins tell, they paint the Fae as been vain, capricious creatures, which Illuga hasn’t found to be the case with Flins. On the contrary, genuine praise tends to make him lock up if he can’t redirect it.

But, he does like superficial flattery. About his eyes, the soft, silkiness of his hair, and yes, the timber of his voice— Illuga supposes that, in that sense, perhaps he is a bit vain.

He doesn’t mind, though. After all, it’s not as if they’re untruths— quite the contrary. He… quite enjoys Flins.

“Though,” Flins murmurs, and Illuga startles, “with a stare like that, I suppose verbal compliments are… unnecessary. Perhaps redundant.”

Illuga flushes up to his ears.

“Regardless,” Flins says suddenly, and stands up with a flourish, “I daresay your father would become even more displeased with me if I allowed you to make the trek back to Piramida in this weather. Allow me to set up the guest room.”

Illuga twists around in his seat to look at him. “You have a guest room?”

“Certainly,” Flins responds. “Though I suppose its intended function is closer to a main bedroom.” He shrugs his shoulders. “It just so happens that I’ve never had much of a use for it. Thus, I’ve rendered it into a guest room.”

Illuga considers the lantern on the kitchen table, usually attached to Flins’ hip, and supposes that that makes sense.

Yet, he can feel the well of questions bubbling up his throat, and for a moment, he feels a bit like Óðinn, ready to hang himself from Yggdrasil’s branches, all for the sake of knowledge.

He’s still working out whether or not it’s an even trade when his mouth gets ahead of him and asks: “Do you… where do you sleep, if not— if not the bedroom?”

Flins goes still for a half-second before he resumes. “I’ve always been rather partial to the kitchen table,” he says. “It’s… quite near to the middle of things, which I like.”

“Miðgarðr,” Illuga says, and Flins smiles.

“Precisely that,” he says, and Illuga looks away. He’s been tripping into that particular language more and more lately— perhaps it has something to do with Bjorn’s passing, mourning a greater connection to the heritage he’d been so abruptly cut off from— but he finds that now that he’s started, he’s hard-pressed to stop.

It doesn’t help that Flins just— understands so easily. Illuga’s heard it said before that half the battle of understanding a language is knowing its culture, and Flins— he understands. All of the idioms, the expressions that don’t make sense to anyone who didn’t grow up with that tongue in their mouth, and it— god, it makes Illuga’s heart hurt, a little.

He’s not paying attention when he asks: “Would you— Would you teach me? Your— The Fae language?”

Instantly, he fears he’s fucked up. Flins goes very still, preternaturally so, and Illuga has an apology on his tongue and out his mouth before he realistically knows what he’s doing.

Instantly, Flins’ expression becomes conflicted. “Do not apologize,” he says gently, so so gently, “there is nothing that has been said that is worth that sort of comeuppance. You merely…” he exhales slowly. “Surprised me, is all.”

Illuga hesitates. Flins’ expression softens.

“In the time of the Belyi Tsar’s Court,” he says, coming back to sit next to Illuga, “the language of the Fae was the highest acrolect among all the tongues spoken there. It was… beautiful, but frosty, cold like the ice which ensconced the land. After the Belyi Tsar died, a certain noble left the court and its new ruler behind, and wandered the country for a time, searching for a better raison d’être.” He pauses. “He heard his language in a new form— something softer, less rigid and frosty. The ice had only grown ever thicker since the new regime took power, but for a moment, the Fae found a small pocket of springtime.”

He smiles softly at Illuga. “Which would you prefer?”

For a moment, Illuga is struck dumb, unable to come up with an answer. Then, he manages a garbled: “Whichever one you consider yours,” and thinks he’s made the right choice when Flins blinks at him, surprise clear on his face.

He ducks his head, long tresses falling over his shoulders, and Illuga’s fingers twitch. He wants to run his fingers through it.

“You make it so very difficult, sometimes,” Flins tells him. Somehow, it doesn’t sound like a complaint.

Illuga apologizes anyways.

Flins sighs, ever-so put upon. “Don’t apologize…”

He sits up straight; combs his hair back into some semblance of order. (Illuga still wants to run his fingers through it.) “Perhaps a mix of the two,” he says finally, “as it that I can manage both fluently, but use them for very different things.”

Illuga itches to know more— wants to ask about the differences, the similarities, how Flins came to divide them so— but he’s cut off when a giant yawn wracks his frame.

Flins’ lips twitch at the corners. “Tired, Young Master?”

“Hardly,” Illuga grumbles, then yawns again. “Sorry.”

Flins’ eye twitches.

“You must stop with this,” he says firmly, and Illuga yelps when he’s unceremoniously picked up and placed on the table, eye-level with Flins for once, “else I will have little choice but to believe you want to be in service of me.” Illuga chokes. “I daresay your father will then have a thing or two to say about that as well, so it would be in the best interests of both of us if you please, stop apologizing, Illuga.”

Flins’ voice leaves zero room for argument, eyes hard and searching, and it really sucks that Illuga’s one thought is, that doesn’t sound like such a bad position to be in.

Flins seems to realize his train of thought, as he sighs before resting his head on Illuga’s shoulder. “What am I going to do with you?” he bemoans. “Here I am, attempting to protect you from my very nature— a nature which other, less-kind individuals share— and you see naught but the ‘fun’ in it.”

Illuga cringes. “Sor— uh. A-Apologies? Does that work?”

Flins makes a few dissatisfied noises against his skin. “It will suffice,” he grumbles. “Common semantic meaning renders that phrase quite useless as an apology, ironic enough, but I would still that the notion be rid from your tongue entirely…”

He trails off. Illuga takes a moment to admire the way that Flins speaks, when he removes his head from the junction of Illuga’s neck and shoulder and stares at him with tired, if rather fond eyes.

“Better that Nikita doesn’t know about your continuous attempts to render yourself into my debt, hmm?” he teases, and Illuga flushes crimson. “Now, to bed with you, Young Master; lest you continue tempting my worser impulses with some of your own.”

If Illuga blushes any harder he fears he’ll pass out. He hops down off of the table (Flins had been standing between his legs, how had he not noticed—) and scurries off towards the main-bedroom-turned-guest-bedroom.

(When he wakes up the next morning, he very pointedly does not thank Flins for the cup of coffee he’s prepared for him, and watches as he smiles, instead.)

2.

He’s covered in flour when he answers the door, and only feels slightly foolish when he realizes that Flins is on the other side of it.

Flins raises an eyebrow at him. “A new hobby, Young Master?”

“Something like that,” Illuga mutters, and steps back to let Flins inside. “Sorr— err, the— the mess.”

Flins’ lips twitch at the corners, and Illuga kicks himself internally.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he bemoans. “It’s second nature to apologize for an unclean living space.”

“Then too should it be ‘second nature’ to apologize for arriving unannounced,” Flins says, voice teasing, “and yet I do not seem to be struggling so.”

Illuga pouts at him. “All due respect, Sir Flins, but you’ve got a few years’ practice on me.”

Flins snorts, then covers his mouth with one hand and takes a seat at Illuga’s breakfast bar, carefully watching as Illuga fights— vigorously stirs— his cookie dough.

“What brings you to Piramida, Sir Flins?” he asks, only slightly breathless. He doesn’t— He doesn’t think the mixture is supposed to be this thick, and adds more butter and sugar.

Flins hums a note. “Reports,” he says, then doesn’t offer anything more.

Illuga pauses. His hands are greasy. He tries to ignore it. “Just reports?”

“That was my initial goal upon setting out, yes,” Flins responds. “And then I decided to visit you.” He tilts his head to the side. “How many cookies— cookies?” Illuga nods. “How many cookies are you intending to bake today, Young Master?”

“It’s meant to be a baker’s dozen,” Illuga mutters, and resists to hit his head against the countertop. Now the mixture is too sticky. He adds more flour, then pauses and adds a tiny bit more baking powder and cornstarch. Does he need to double-up on the egg yolks, now? Motherfucker— “I don’t think it’s going to make a baker’s dozen.”

“Perhaps three baker’s dozens,” Flins says agreeingly, then stands up from his chair and walks around to stand on Illuga’s right-hand side, and shucks off his gloves. Illuga tries not to stare at the motion too obviously. “No matter. May I be of assistance?”

Illuga sighs, and hangs his head. Now the mixture is dry and crumbly, and he’s going to lose his shit. “Do you have any idea how to salvage this?” he asks, and Flins hums consideringly.

“Are you alright with four baker’s dozens?”

“At this point I just want to have my kitchen back, Sir Flins.”

Flins snorts, and gently shoos Illuga aside. “Go wash up, Young Master,” he says. Illuga is momentarily arrested at the sight of Flins doing something mundane— standing in Illuga’s flour-covered kitchenette, with his hands in a bowl of cookie dough— and then remembers himself and promptly leaves to wash the flour and butter and God-knows-what-else from his person.

When he returns, Flins is having an animated conversation with Aedon.

“I suppose you’ll have to ask him,” he says. Aedon caws once. Flins tsks at it. “There’s no need for language like that. I’m on your side.” More cawing. “My, my, like familiar, like master. Did you teach him to cuss like that, or was it the other way around?”

“Can you understand it?” Illuga asks, coming up beside him, and Flins hums a note without looking up from the bowl.

“Not as such,” he says. “I’m afraid Aedon is just a very expressive individual.”

Flins looks over at him at that point, and all the air leaves Illuga’s lungs in a whoosh.

“You’ve got— flour, here,” Illuga manages, and reaches up to wipe a smidgen of flour from Flins’ cheek.

He feels very looked-at, pinned under Flins’ piercing yellow gaze, and he’s the first to look away, at the cookie dough Flins had so kindly agreed to manage for him.

Which… that’s— that’s rather a lot of cookie dough, actually—

“I thought you said four baker’s dozens,” Illuga says weakly. “Flins, this looks like it will make six.”

The fairy shrugs. “What can I say, Young Master; whatever you had wrought upon this poor dough took more effort to rectify than I had initially given credit.” A pause. “Are you adding chocolate chips? Aedon wants to know if it might partake of the finished product.”

Illuga shoots an incredulous look at the bird, who preens before staring Illuga down, and he’s not— he’s not in the mood to be menaced by his own familiar at six in the evening on a Tuesday, but God help him; here he is, being menaced by his own familiar at six in the evening on a Tuesday.

In his own damn kitchen, no less.

“Given that we’ll have something close to sixty-five cookies, yeah, sure,” Illuga grumbles, then sighs. “Well, Pops will be confused, but I keep telling him that baking is a better vice than hard drugs, so I suppose I’m in the clear.”

Aedon gives a warning caw. Illuga feels a migraine coming on. “Yes, you insatiable bird, you may have a cookie— why are you biting me? Motherfucker, I told you you could have one, quit biting me!”

Aedon does not stop biting him. Aedon nips his ear one final time (Illuga swears it draws blood) and then vanishes back into Illuga’s lantern.

Both he and Flins stare at it for a long while, then Flins asks: “Where exactly did you find that bird, Young Master?”

“Beats the tar out of me,” Illuga responds tiredly, then sighs. “Did you have places to be, Sir Flins?”

“Nowhere important. Why?” A glimmer of mischief enters Flins’ eyes. “Kicking me out so soon, Young Master?

“You know certainly that that’s not the case,” Illuga grumbles, then hesitated. “I was… merely wondering—” Illuga bemoans briefly that he’s spending way too much time with Flins if he’s talking like that— “Did you… want to stay and help finish the cookies?”

The words leave his mouth so quickly that he’s left wondering if Flins was even able to understand him, and he turns back to the bowl of cookie dough as his ears go red. Even now, he doesn’t understand why he struggles with this sort of thing— it’s one thing to insert himself alongside one of Flins’ patrols, or to linger overlong after ‘delivering supplies,’ (which at this point is a flimsy excuse just to see him) but for some reason, the conscious invitation to these mundane activities has him stumbling.

For a moment, he envies Flins and his effortless grace and poise— every word out of his mouth is measured and damn near perfect; Illuga doesn’t think he’s ever seen him stumble.

Of course, there’s a reason behind Flins’ proficiency: noble courts and a tongue that can’t lie. They’re not what Illuga considers a kind teachers, even if Flins himself has never seemed bothered by it, but even still, Illuga can’t help himself from feeling just a little envious.

“I’d be delighted to,” Flins tells him sincerely, proving his point in less than five words, and Illuga’s face flames red.

He turns his attention back to the cookies— holy fuck, that’s a lot of dough; he’s half-tempted to ask Flins if he was thinking— and quietly asks Flins if he could get the parchment paper down from the topmost cupboard.

Flins blinks at him, then grins mischievously.

“Don’t,” Illuga warns immediately, and feel very aware of his shorter stature in that moment, and the dining chairs that sit undisturbed in the next room over. On cue, Aedon manifests on the back of one of them and caws expectantly, as if saying, “hey! Use this one, you short useless fuck!” Illuga considers cooking the bird for dinner.

“I have not the faintest of which you are speaking,” Flins replies, perfectly poker-faced, and gets the parchment paper down.

He watches intently as Illuga begins rolling the dough into palm-sized spheres, placing them one-by-one into the parchment-lined baking tray, then asked: “What else would you have me do, Young Master?”

Illuga startles— there’s always a bit of an innuendo in Flins’ words, and he’s entirely convinced that he does it on purpose— and then responds: “Could you— Would you mind putting away the ingredients?”

“Not in the slightest,” Flins says smoothly, and they pass the time in silence for a while, broken only by Illuga eventually caving to Aedon’s whims and feeding it some chocolate chips out of his hand.

Then, he turns around, and quite promptly has a problem on his hands. Well— perhaps problem is too strong a word. ‘Quandary’ might be a better one, because Flins hasn’t— he’s not actually put anything away. Everything is still scattered around his countertops, though as Illuga looks closer he realizes that they have been moved, they just— they haven’t been put away.

He hesitates for a long moment, then asks: “Do I need to give you cream, Sir Flins?”

Flins frowns at him. “Hmm? Well, I certainly won’t object if the Young Master is offering, though I get the sense that that’s not what he means…?”

For a moment, Illuga wonders if Flins is teasing him— but no, there’s genuine sincerity in his voice and on his face. Then, out of the blue, he remembers when he and Flins had fallen into the ruin with the iron doorknobs. Aside from the horrific burn Flins had been saddled with as a result, there had also been the tchotchkes and knickknacks they’d found scattered about— all items which Flins had put back exactly where he’d found them, as if—

“‘Better still to leave them as if they had never been disturbed,’” Illuga realizes, and Flins stares at him in surprise. “Like— Like you’d never even been there to begin with?”

Flins stares at him in shock, then understanding dawns on his features, along with a decently strong blush. He stares at the flour and eggs and cornstarch still on the countertop, and admits: “Usually I am— more in control of my natural inclinations. My apologies, Young Master Illuga.”

Illuga shakes his head. “No need,” he says, and watches carefully as Flins begins to put things back into the cupboards. He’s itching with questions, desperate to know more, but he’s leery of asking personal questions when he knows Flins can’t lie.

And it’s not— he knows that Flins isn’t obligated to answer, that’s not it at all. It’s just, if he chooses to obfuscate, then that’s  sort of an answer in and of itself, isn’t it? Illuga will notice regardless, and he doesn’t think that that’s particularly kind of him.

Unfortunately, Flins reads his curiosity on his face: “Most Fae have a predilection to leave a space as it was,” he explains. “It’s no hard-and-fast rule, but when there’s no pre-established contract…” He shakes his head. “It is… not a habit I find myself beholden too often, in this day and age. Back… before, it was— more common, but now—” He cuts himself off, an almost helpless expression on his face, then huffs a laugh and ducks his head. “What can I say, Young Master; so comforted am I in your presence that it seems the notion is brought to the surface once more, whether I wish it or not.”

Illuga goes stock-still. To his mortification, he feels a flush welling up on his features— a dark one, too. Flins will surely take note of it, and the teasing that will follow—

“I’m glad,” he chokes out, beet red, “that you feel— comfortable enough in my presence to do that, Flins.”

He’s met with surprise for the second time in as many minutes, then Flins’ expression softens. Unable to bear the full weight of his stare, Illuga turns back to his cookies.

“Will you— help me give these out, later?” he asks, and hears Flins huff a gentle laugh.

“When you ask so sweetly, Young Master,” he says, voice full of affection, “how can I refuse?”

3.

It’s coming upon Nikita’s birthday, and thus Illuga finds himself saddled with the age-old problem: what the hell does he get him.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the old man gave any indication of something he’d be pleased with receiving as a gift, but God help him, every time Illuga prods, he’s fixed with a stern glare and told, in no uncertain terms, that Nikita doesn’t want nor need anything, and he’d “best not waste [his] money, young man, I’ll have your head on a platter—”

So Illuga’s way up the creek without a paddle.

“Perhaps this, Young Master?”

“Pops has more teacups than will fit in his china cabinet, Flins. I don’t— I don’t think so.”

So, he’s enlisted some help. Namely, Flins.

They wander around Nasha Town, eyeing the vendors’ wares, occasionally stopping for a closer look. Flins is undoubtedly the best man for the job— he’s got an eye for keen detail like no other— but Illuga is worried that despite that, he’s not going to find anything.

Nikita, man. What Illuga wouldn’t give for him to be just the tiniest bit more materialistic.

“I got him hand soaps last year,” Illuga complains when Flins suggests just that. “He went and cut a chunk of lavender out of it because he thought it was rotting.”

Flins’ lips press into a thin line the way they do whenever he’s trying not to smile. “Perhaps we shall abstain from bar soap, then,” he replies, and moves onto the next vendor. “Hmm… I must say, Young Master, I did not… quite understand what you’d meant when you quoted this as a ‘Herculean task.’”

“Having fun, yet?” Illuga grumbles, to which Flins laughs and ruffles his hair.

“Chin up, Master Illuga; the day is still young. Doubtless we shall find that which you need.”

God, Illuga hopes so.

“What do you usually get Nikita for his birthday, Flins?” he asks after they’ve looked into three more stalls and found nothing for their efforts. Despite Flins’ earlier words, Illuga is starting to become discouraged. “I’m not looking to piggyback, just… inspiration.”

Flins hums a note. “Usually, I procure for Nikita a bottle of Firewater,” he says, then, at the look of incredulity on Illuga’s face: “Oh, ye of little faith. Remind me, Young Master, to share with you a bottle of proper Firewater. That which Demyan has is perfectly acceptable, but does not hold a candle to that which I might find in Snezhnaya.”

Illuga is immediately curious, but also very wary. He can remember all too well what happened the last time he’d gotten into Firewater— he still blushes thinking about the whole misunderstanding that had followed. Flins, for his part, laughed himself sick over the whole thing, but it had taken a good deal of convincing before Illuga decided that he wasn’t better off changing his name and moving to Inazuma.

He’d sworn off Firewater after that, because God help him, his shattered dignity couldn’t take another blow, but God help him again, because Flins’ offer sounds very tempting.

“One glass,” he says, and Flins’ grin widens. Ah, so he also remembers that whole event, then, lovely. Illuga is so pleased by this turn of events. “And none— no perceived,” he stresses, because that word is about to do a lot of heavy lifting for him, “walks of shame back to Piramida.”

Flins’ eyes glitter mischievously. “Are you implying you’d sooner stay in the morning, Young Master?” he purrs, and Illuga’s face flames red. “My my, how forward of you.”

“Flins!” Illuga hisses.

Flins just blinks innocently at him. “Hmm? Was it something I said, dear Illuga? Perhaps you could…” A wicked grin crosses his face and he leans in closer, voice a solid two octaves lower as he says, right in Illuga’s ear: “enlighten me as to where I misstepped?”

Illuga squawks, mind emptying completely as it fills with the terrible horrible no-good very bad things Flins’ voice brings to mind (yes, Illuga does want to enlighten him, desperately) and he brings his hands up to cover his face. “Hví ertu svá… skammarlauss?”

Flins laughs, delighted. Illuga is starting to suspect he prefers Illuga’s mother tongue over the common language— that, or he just enjoys tripping Illuga into it with his— his Flins-ness. “You wound me, Young Master! Skammarlauss, sannliga?”

Illuga scowls even as he feels his face go darker. His mother tongue isn’t anything particularly delicate; it’s actually quite rough, all things considered, but hearing the way the syllables roll off of Flins’ tongue… he’s got a new appreciation for it.

He shakes his head. “Enough of this,” he says firmly, and wills the blush away from his face. He’s got an objective, for fuck’s sake; he can’t let any of Flins’… Flins-ness (he feels that the term become rooted in his vocabulary in that instant, God help him) get in the way of the task at hand. Namely: finding a gift for Nikita. “Come on. There has to be something here.”

The universe seems intent on proving him wrong.

“I must be the only bastard on the face of Teyvat with this problem,” Illuga says dramatically, a half-hour later after he and Flins have scoured the market twice and still found nothing. “It’s one thing to be hard to shop for, but even things he likes he says no to! Who the hell does that? What does that achieve, aside from driving me nuts?”

Flins hums a note. “It wasn’t so uncommon to refuse gifts in the Belyi Tsar’s court,” he comments. “It was simply… safer, sometimes, provided you could do so in a way that didn’t offend the gifter.”

Illuga pauses. “Yeah?”

Flins nods. “Mmm. Certain humans grew wise, after a time, but there were many who did not understand that the Fair Folk did not give gifts with no strings attached, often or at all. I am… not entirely sure of what became of them, past then.”

Illuga bites his lip. He’s no stranger to hearing stories about the Fae in the Belyi Tsar’s court; it’s been a staple in his relationship with Flins since the day he met the man, but something about them… something has changed since he’s learned that Flins is one of those Fae. He finds less enjoyment in them, now, though not necessarily for their content.

It’s Flins’ tone, his expression as he recounts the absolute cruelty the Snowland Fae enjoyed. He’s not so bold as to state that he can hear self-loathing from the other Lightkeeper, but it’s not— there’s no a positive association, and it worries him, a little.

He hedges his bets. He’s not brave enough to ask Flins if he has any happy stories from that time (and more the coward still for not asking if he can conceptualize of any) so instead he asks: “Was it all the Fae, Sir Flins?”

“No, not all,” Flins admits. “It was just… most of them. You can divide the Fae into two broad categories, Young Master,” he says suddenly, “Seelie and Unseelie— not to be confused with the mindless blue whisps which the Traveller so enjoys following; though they can lead weary travellers to safety, I assure you, we are not the same thing.”

Vividly, Illuga is reminded of Flins’ words on the night his Fae heritage was revealed: “I was certainly no brownie.” There’s some of that haughty tone in his voice again, and despite himself, Illuga finds he has to suppress a smile.

“You don’t really look like a seelie, Sir Flins,” he teases. “Go on?”

“Seelie Fae were… kinder to humans,” Flins says after a moment. “More likely to issue a warning instead of revenge. Unseelie were… capricious. Cruel. They hurt humans, and they liked it, Young Master Illuga. It brought them joy.”

Something about Flins’ voice chills Illuga to the bone. His voice is usually somewhat devoid of emotion, just layered with a subtle sort of amusement, like he’s laughing at a joke no one else knows about, but Illuga thinks he hears genuine hatred in his voice, and for the first time, he doesn’t know what to say.

He teeters on the precipice of a silence that stretches for just a fraction of a moment too long, each second excruciating, and then one of the shopkeeps calls out to him: “Looking for something special, young man?” and the relief that washes over him is palpable.

“It’s been something of a quest, today,” he says as he makes his way over to the stall, Flins following only somewhat reluctantly. “What have you?”

The shopkeep grins at them, all teeth, and Illuga’s a little… for some reason, he finds himself on edge. There’s something about them that makes his hair stand on end— every fibre of his body is screaming danger, but he can’t tell what’s making his fight-or-flight act up.

They look perfectly ordinary— better than ordinary, actually; they’re startlingly attractive. Illuga can’t tell how old they are; they’re hovering somewhere between “ancient” and “no older than 22” but he’s a little disturbed to realize that something about them reminds him of Flins.

He wastes precious moments trying to figure out what it is, then just as quickly deems it a lost cause and moves on. “I’m looking for a birthday present for my father,” he explains, eyeing the wares with a curious eye. There’s a bizarre collection of bits and bobs; odd coins, gemstones, pieces of jewelry that look absolutely ancient— plenty good for Flins, but not so much for Nikita… “He’s… He’s a hard one to shop for.”

The shopkeep hums a note. “Parents always are, aren’t they?” they ask, then incline their head to the side. “I do not believe we’ve been acquainted before— I see many buyers in the market, but your face is a new one. May I have your name?”

All at once, it hits Illuga like a sledgehammer.

“You may call me, ‘Illuga,’” he says, and tries to ignore the flurry of panic he can feel welling up inside him. He understands, now, why they’d reminded him of Flins— and they’d just asked Illuga his name—

Frantic, he replays the conversation in his head— had he said ‘thank you?’ Did he say ‘sorry?’ Flins had always impressed upon him the dangers of the silver-tongued Fae, but it’s different to see it in the flesh—

“Try this, then,” the shopkeep says, suddenly, and presses an unprocessed piece of parchment into Illuga’s palm. Perplexed, he just blinks at them. “Humans value gifts that have ‘effort’ and ‘heart’ put into them, don’t they? Besides, everyone likes a story— and how rare is it that this is one you get to write yourself? You don’t have a lunellum, do you?” they ask, and abruptly turn around to rut through the mountain of crap they have behind the counter. Illuga hadn’t noticed it before. “I swear I have one around here; I’d be very happy to part with it for a price…”

“Your generosity is appreciated, but truly, we wouldn’t wish to overstep,” Flins says suddenly, and Illuga doesn’t think he’s ever been so grateful to have him step in as he is then. “It would be… unwise, I think, to tip the scales into unevenness, wouldn’t it? After all, cleverness ought to be rewarded, but it’s terribly uncouth to try two tricks in two minutes, isn’t it?”

The shopkeep scowls at him. Flins smiles, all teeth.

“A pleasure doing business with you,” he says, then turns and leads Illuga away, one hand at the small of his back.

Illuga waits until they’re out of earshot, then blurts: “That was a—”

“A Fae, yes,” Flins mutters. He doesn’t sound happy. “I wonder if Nefer knows…”

Illuga doesn’t respond. He’s turning the parchment over in his hands, obsessively running his fingers across the fleshy side of it. It’s so damn soft— the Lightkeepers don’t use parchment anymore; he doesn’t think anyone on Teyvat does. Paper’s cheaper, after all. “Is this… Is this safe?” he asks.

“Hmm? Oh,” Flins says, then nods his head. “Yes. That was an… equivalent exchange, Young Master. The Fair Folk did so enjoy it when humans were clever. It is the difference between a gift and a reward, you see.”

His expression goes a bit pinched, then shutters entirely. “Are you… quite alright?”

“I’m fine,” Illuga says weakly. “It’s just not every day a Fae asks to possess my name, is all.”

He looks back at the parchment without really seeing it, and allows his mind to wander— what would have happened if he hadn’t been quick enough on the uptick, if he’d willingly signed over his name— his person— to a fairy who wasn’t Flins? Where would he be, right now? Flins had mentioned before that fairies sometimes rendered humans mindless— and God, all this while he was trying to find a birthday present for his father, too—

“Illuga,” Flins interrupts. “Breathe.”

Illuga sucks in a strangled breath. It doesn’t do much for the vice around his lungs, but he is determined to be Illuga and not Illugi, and forces his mind to be quiet.

“Sorry,” he manages. “Got— lost in thought.”

“It is no small thing,” Flins tells him quietly, “to have a fairy attempt to take your name. Frankly, Illuga, I would be concerned if you were not the slightest bit unsettled.”

“Would you take it?” Illuga blurts, and Flins goes very, very still. “If— If I needed you to? Could you— keep it safe, that way?”

The silence that stretches is excruciating. Then, Flins speaks.

“If I were blessed enough to have your True Name in my possession, Illuga,” he says, voice very, very soft, “I assure you, I would do my absolute utmost to keep it safe. It would be… treasured, something kept near to me at all times. But that shall not come to pass. Your name will remain your own, Illuga. I will make sure of it.”

Illuga shivers. There’s something about Fae and promises, he remembers distantly, something about an oath that once made, cannot be unbroken? Flins is— cagey about it, to be blunt, and even though the word ‘promise’ hadn’t left the other’s mouth, Illuga has the uncomfortable feeling that that was what he’d just done.

He looks at the parchment again, then, without another word, holds it out to Flins.

“Keep it,” he says, voice rough. “Consider it… given from me to you. Not a gift,” he says quickly, because he remembers what Flins had said about them, earlier. “Just… it’s yours. Please.”

(Is there a rule about saying ‘please’ to fairies? He can’t remember.)

Flins takes the parchment almost reverently. He stares at it for a long moment, then says, quietly: “It can be… quite dangerous to regift that which was given to you by a Fae, Young Master.”

Illuga’s stomach flipped. “Good thing that it’s not really a gift, then, isn’t it?” he responds. “Besides, I… I trust you not to go telling.”

Flins goes very still. “Do you, now?”

“Yeah,” Illuga says softly, and means every word. “I do.”

Flins is quiet for a long moment, absently running his fingers across the flesh side of the parchment like Illuga had been doing not 5 minutes earlier, and then he says: “Perhaps sea glass, Young Master?” and Illuga tells him that he thinks that’s the best idea he’s heard all day.

4.

“Is it that Nod Krai suddenly developed a rainy season, or are we just supremely unlucky?” Illuga asks one evening when he opens his front door and is immediately met with a faceful of very cold rainwater for his efforts. He shuts the door and turns back to Flins. “Because this is getting a bit ridiculous.”

Flins huffs a laugh. He’s curled up in the corner of Illuga’s couch, a compact ball of mischief and gentle smiles (Illuga has half a mind to ask him where his limbs have gone, he’s folded up so neatly) though he stands up to offer Illuga a towel to dry his face. “Perhaps Freyr is trying to tell you something, Young Master.”

Illuga snorts. “With a storm this violent? No, Sir Flins; this is Þórr’s handiwork, if any.”

His good humour fades as a flash of lightning lights up the entire room. Automatically, he starts counting in his head— timing the interval between the lightning and the resulting thunder, trying to work out how far the storm is.

He’s displeased by what he finds. “You’re going to meet the worst of it on the open ocean if you leave now,” he says, and pulls back the curtain by the window to peer out into the thick of it. Another crack of thunder splits the air, and he winces. “Stay here tonight, instead?”

There’s a long beat of silence, then Flins responds, voice thick with mischief: “Methinks Freyr is telling you something. How very forward, Young Master. I thought we weren’t doing walks of shame through Piramida any longer— ah, but that was only with reference to your own person, wasn’t it?” Flins hums quizzically while Illuga makes a myriad of sounds quite near to a dying whale, face bright red. “I suppose then that I am not beholden to the same rule, oh dear.” He sighs. “Well, I suppose my reputation can take the hit, but my, what a cruel lover have I taken.”

“Stop— Stop putting words in my mouth,” Illuga sputters, and tries to ignore the way his face warms at Flins’ casual acknowledgement of the— this thing between them. Have they put a name to it? Should they put a name to it?

Pops might bury Flins alive on another continent, he thinks, and resolutely puts the matter to the farthest corners of his mind to be dealt with later.

Flins blinks innocently. “So the Young Master doesn’t have designs on my person?”

Illuga chokes. “Cease!” he blurts, horrifyingly red in the face. “Cease your— your— your words and cease them now!”

Flins laughs. Illuga presses his forehead against the window and wishes faintly for death.

“In truth, Young Master,” Flins says suddenly, and Illuga shudders, because he’s right behind him. When had he gotten so close? “Your kindness and generosity does me a great boon. I should not like to imagine the trials of attempting to wend back to the Final Night Cemetery in this weather, much less actually attempt such a thing. You have my gratitude.”

“You sure do have a way with words,” Illuga grumbles, then hesitates. He remembers the conversation clear as day, but how to actually phrase such a thing— “Would you be taking the— the kitchen table…?”

Flins’ lips quirk at the corner. “I daresay Nikita would have me drawn and quartered if I asked for your bedside table,” he says. Illuga doesn’t think he’s joking, “so yes, your kitchen table would be much appreciated.”

Illuga briefly considers asking if Flins would require— bedding, or pillows— and then just as quickly decides against it. There’s an excited glimmer in the Fae’s eyes, a too-mischievous, teasing grin on his lips that tells Illuga all he needs to know. 

Instead, he asks: “Card games? Loser has to feed Aedon its dinner,” and Flins laughs.

~~~

So. Here’s the thing. Illuga is like. Genuinely fucking terrible at sleeping.

It’s no trouble for him to fall asleep; he’s long since mastered the ability to pass out anywhere and at any time— hell, he’s even done it with his eyes open a few times, which never fails to freak people out— but he’s a damn light sleeper. It comes with the territory of being a Lightkeeper, but it means that if the house settles even slightly wrongly on its foundations, then Illuga is instantly wide awake.

There’s also, ah. There’s also the nightmares.

Night terrors, when he was little, though Illuga has long since grown out of them, thank God. There’s just something about fighting for one’s life and country against soulless, dead corpses  of friends and comrades, each puppeted by some force of pure evil that just wants ceaseless and utter destruction— it’s not exactly tea and crackers for the constitution. Illuga sees ghouls whether his eyes are opened or closed; he’s made peace with the face.

But far worst of all are the nightmares where he recognizes the Wild Hunt— they may be headless but they are not voiceless, and Illuga can recall with awful clarity the timber and reckoning of their voices, even through the uncanny filter the Abyss puts them through. He sees Nikita, his birth parents, his friends and comrades— he sees Flins too, calm blue flame swapped out for something violet and sickly and wrong, and it makes him sick to his stomach.

Tonight, though, it’s different.

Illuga comes to slowly, limbs heavy and almost disconnected from his body as he shuffles forward almost out of his own accord. His vision is— funny. It’s shrouded in pink-purple flames, and the world looks wrong, somehow. It’s warped, as if he’s looking at it through layers and layers of packing tape.

He steps forward.

He hears voices, wavering and drifting through the air like every word is pain: “lambs to the slaughter,” is a common motif, as well as “you will join us in the grave,” and there are frequent repetitions of “prey, my prey.”

That last one unnerves him most.

There! Just ahead, a speck of movement— Illuga darts forward with unnerving speed, limbs not his own to control, and his voice joins the thousands of others that are suddenly wailing alongside him. He screams at them (them? Whom? Whom is he talking to? Who is listening?) to take places with him, to lie down in his grave and let him sit up instead, whole and hale with a heartbeat in his throat, and vividly, he remembers the old stories of the Wild Hunt— of the draugar, frozen corpses that weren’t put through a corpse door, cursed to wander the earth and hunt anyone to the absolute death who trespassed upon them—

He chokes on a sob.

I’m sorry, he tries to say. A garbled threat leaves his mouth, something about walking on his grave.

I don’t want to do this, he cries. Prey, prey prey— it’s all that he can say, all that he can conceptualize, and he is powerless to stop himself as he tears through Lightkeepers— through his friends, his family, that’s Nikita dead on the ground— and his screams take on a fever pitch as he begs someone get rid of him before he hurts anyone else—

Shh-CRRUNCH.

Everything slows down.

He looks down at himself, and sees the end of a polearm sticking out of his gut. Black blood leaks out of the wound, desiccated and sluggish, and he follows the polearm until his eyes meet the one who put him out of his misery.

It’s Flins. Of course it’s Flins.

He tries to say thank you. Tries to apologize, maybe, but his tongue is too thick in his mouth and the words won’t work. They clog up uselessly, and to his utter devastation the only thing that leaves is a weak-willed: “I… hate… you…”

That’s a lie. He doesn’t hate Flins, he could never hate Flins, and God, he hopes he knows that, but the only things leaving his mouth are pleas of hated and Illuga isn’t so sure—

Flins gasps, suddenly, and jolts in place. He stumbles forward, coughing, and Illuga is alarmed to see blood, because Flins— Flins shouldn’t be bleeding, he— he should be fine—

Illuga’s hands are grasped around his own polearm, the head of which is buried in Flins’ abdomen, all the way in, and he’s not in control when he pushes it further in— God, the sound Flins makes at that— and he’s apologizing, he’s apologizing desperately, but all he can say is “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you—”

Illuga gasps and jackknifes upright, a keening wail stuck behind his teeth as he bends double, eyes squeezed shut against the horrible images he can still see behind his eyes— Flins, face screwed up in pain with Illuga’s polearm stuck through his stomach, Flins, dead on the floor, eyes open and unseeing and so so dead, pale and dead and dead because Illuga killed him, Illuga killed him—

“Illuga— Illuga—”

Gentle hands pull him forward and Illuga fights for a moment, believing them to be of the Wild Hunt, but then the timber of the voice registers and a new wave of tears come to his eyes when he realizes who it is that’s holding him.

“Flins,” he croaks, and breaks down nearly immediately afterwards. “I’m— I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

(Is catharsis supposed to hurt? For how desperate he’d been to tell those very words to Flins’ lifeless corpse not five minutes ago, they wrench like they’re taking out chunks of his ribcage with them as they leave his mouth, and Illuga can’t remember the last time he felt more like Illugi than in this moment.)

“Don’t apologize,” Flins says. “You have done nothing to apologize for. I will not accept it; I will not take it.”

He’s wrinkling Flins’ dress shirt, he realizes dimly; has it clutched so tightly in his hands that the fabric is undoubtedly ruined, but he can’t— he can’t bring himself to pull away, not when Flins is solid and real and so very alive against him.

Flins doesn’t ask him what’s wrong, doesn’t ask him what’s happened, and for that is Illuga grateful— he doesn’t think he could recount the details of his nightmare without falling into incoherency— Flins just holds him tightly, balanced awkwardly on the edge of Illuga’s too-small bed like it doesn’t matter.

“Αύριο,” Flins murmurs into his hair, “αύριο, μπορούμε να κάνουμε μια υπέροχη βόλτα στην Πιραμίδα, Ιλούγα—”

Illuga clutches him closer, focuses all of his attention onto the timber of Flins’ voice, the way his shirt bunches up in his hands, and the unmistakable sensation of his core flickering through layers of unreal flesh and muscle and bone; a heartbeat unique to Flins.

“I’m sorry,” Illuga says thickly, once his breathing has levelled off. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Don’t apologize,” Flins replies without a second of hesitation. It doesn’t ring like any of his usual admonishments do— there’s no reprimand for unintentional Fae-dealings, only a gentle reassurance that he’s done no wrong. “I’m glad you did.” H pauses for a moment, then asks, voice full of caution: “What…?”

Illuga presses his head against Flins’ chest. “Wild Hunt,” he mutters, and hopes Flins doesn’t press for more. He’s not sure if he can stand to recount the details— waking up as a wilderness ghoul, massacring and killing everything that stood in his path, massacring and killing Flins— without falling to pieces again. ‘Wild Hunt’ is a full sentence, though, especially where Lightkeepers are concerned.

He’s not sure how long the two sit there, Flins’ presence a comforting weight against the vestiges of Illuga’s nightmare, and then he finds himself speaking without even meaning to:

“Don’t— Don’t leave?”

He can’t stop himself asking. The words leave his mouth without his own permission, and he almost wants to take them back before he feels Flins nod against him.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes as Flins scoots into the bed next to him, having correctly surmized that he wants Flins as close to him as he can manage. There’s not much room on Illuga’s small twin mattress, though, so he’s going to get that wish in spades. “I…”

He trails off; leaves the sentence hanging in the air. He has nothing to say, nothing to offer that hasn’t already been offered before.

“Don’t apologize,” Flins tells him. “I don’t mind.”

Is it unfair to take solace in Flins’ inability to lie? Illuga feels like it’s the sort of thing he should feel guilty for, but right now all he can find is reassurance.

He’s practically lying on top of Flins, head nestled in the junction of his neck and shoulder, and he feels very aware of of the press of their two bodies together.

They’ve never shared a bed before, actually— lantern-habits aside, Flins doesn’t need sleep the same way humans do: he can go for longer without it. Illuga reckons this is the closest they’ve ever been, physically, and is suddenly very grateful that Flins can’t see his face, because he’s not sure what expression is on it.

“I don’t think I’ll sleep,” Illuga mutters into Flins’ shoulder. Every time he closes his eyes he just sees visions of the utter devastation he’d caused, feels the phantom sensation of molasses-limbs, piloting him without his own permission— he shudders, and Flins wraps his arms around him, pulling him closer.

“That’s alright,” he replies, then hesitates for a moment, almost considering in his silence, before he begins to hum softly.

It’s a gentle, soothing tune that Flins doubles back to and changes the key of every so often, and Illuga almost doesn’t notice when he adds lyrics:

“Αγόρι μου, στολίδι μου,

σαν γέρνεις και μ' αγγίζεις

πιο πέρα κι απ' τα πέρατα

του κόσμου μ' αρμενίζεις.”

There are legends about the Fae and song, just like their are legends about their beauty and tricks, but Illuga doesn’t hear anything like coercive magic in Flins’ voice— on the contrary, he stumbles and his voice breaks sometimes, the way voices do when their owners are trying to keep them quiet, and before he knows it, Illuga’s completely fallen asleep, Flins’ voice in his ears.

~~~

Illuga wakes only when the sun slants directly into his eyes, which is how he knows he’s overslept.

He tenses immediately and pushes himself up off of the bed, only to fall back against it with a startled yelp when the arms around him tighten.

“Stay a while,” Flins mutters, and Illuga realizes that the mattress he’d been laying on is no mattress, but Flins. He’s sprawled right across him, head resting on his chest, hands knotted in his dress shirt, and Illuga feels himself go very red.

Flins doesn’t offer anything else in ways of conversation, just repositions Illuga against him like he weighs nothing at all, and all the while Illuga just feels so very aware of his pulse in his throat. He wonders if Flins can hear it.

“I— I have reports I need to give to Pops—”

“He can wait,” Flins mumbles. “Being late one day out of hundreds will not scar your reputation irreparably, I assure you.” A pause. “Or is it that you are worried about your so-called ‘perceived’ walk of shame? Truly, I do not think the term applies here, Young Master: it is your home.”

Illuga chokes.

“How can you be so silver-tongued while half-asleep?” he manages. “That’s not fair.”

Flins chuckles against him. “You ascribe me far too much credit,” he says, and cracks open one eye to look at him, unbearably fond. “I have been… ‘half-asleep’ for quite a while, now. Perhaps a better term would be one-quarter-asleep.”

Illuga sighs and presses his forehead against Flins’ chest. “Why didn’t you wake me?” he bemoans. “Flins, I have things to do…”

“You looked like you needed the sleep, Illuga,” Flins tells him, and the usage of his first name, devoid of any honourifics, immediately catches his attention, the way it always does. “Why would I deprive you of that?”

Illuga’s struck silent for a moment; he genuinely doesn’t have a response to Flins’ question. He’s not… God, he can’t even remember the last time he’d gone back to sleep after a nightmare of that caliber— usually, he whiled away the rest of the nighttime hours writing reports, and then (sometimes) caught the rest of his sleep in the middle of the day, when it was light out— if he had nothing more important that needed doing, of course.

But this… he can’t deny that this is better than his usual alternative— he’s not groggy and disoriented upon waking, thrown off-kilter by the fact that the sky is dark when he wakes, and for all it’s better for a lightkeeper to keep to a more nocturnal schedule, Illuga’s never adjusted to it as fully as he needs to.

This… This is a better resolution to a horrifying dream.

“I suppose I still won’t be as late with my reports as you are with yours,” he mutters, and Flins huffs a surprised laugh.

“What cruel words, Young Master Illuga,” he says, then tilts his head to the side. “Shall I take this to mean then that my earnest pleas have convinced you? I’m afraid you’ll still need to worry about walks of shame, perceived or no.”

“That’s alright,” Illuga tells him, and settles back in against him. In a similar vein, Flins’ hands find their ways into his hair, twisting the locks around his fingers. It’s rather soothing, actually. “Like you said, it’s my house.”

~~~

Illuga hands in his reports late, and doesn’t like the way Nikita glares at him suspiciously because of it.

His mouth runs ahead of him. “I… didn’t sleep very well last night,” he admits, and Nikita’s expression fades into one of concern. “Nightmares,” he elaborates, as if he needs to. Nikita is well-aware of that factoid, having raised him. “Flin… Sir Flins convinced me that I was better off recovering sleep in the morning than in the afternoon.”

It’s amazing how quickly Nikita’s expression shutters back into suspicion, and in a strange way it makes Illuga think of the way Flins politely, but very firmly and insistently, declined to accompany Illuga to visit Nikita. Surely, the two are related.

“Flins spent the night?”

“I didn’t want him capsizing on the way back,” Illuga admits. “I don’t… I don’t think that would have gone down very well, Fae or no Fae… oh come on!” he bursts out, because he recognizes the expression on Nikita’s face: he thinks they slept together, again. “Pops, it was pouring rain! I didn’t want him to die, we didn’t— he spent the night on the kitchen table! In his lantern! He doesn’t even use the bed back at the lighthouse, why would he have any interest in mine?”

(Because you’re the one in it, dummy, Illuga’s hindbrain tells him. Mentally, he beats it up with a Large Stick.)

Nikita has an expression of extreme consternation on his face, and Illuga feels a wave of foreboding. The entire situation is starting to feel a little too similar to the whole firewater-episode, and Illuga is, to put it bluntly, very afraid.

Finally, Nikita speaks: “Have you… looked in a mirror, Illuga?” he asks, and his blood runs cold.

“What? No— I mean, yes, obviously, but what—”

Nikita coughs. “It might behoove you, Illuga,” he says loudly, “to brush out any fairy-locks from your hair before you attempt to explain that you and Flins didn’t share a bed last night.”

Illuga chokes.

“Hvat?” he hisses, and frantically runs his hands through his hair, yelping when they get caught on numerous tangles. They’re weird, though, it’s like someone has purposefully tied his hair into bows— “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

His mind flashes back to earlier that morning— Flins with his fingers in Illuga’s hair, absently twisting the locks into various shapes— and he buries his face in his hands before cursing violently.

“You—” he says, and points a finger at Nikita, who now looks more amused than suspicious— ah, so all it takes for Illuga to be believed is his neverending humiliation? Brilliant; he’ll just change his name to Loki Laufeyjarson and be done with it, then— “stay put. I—” He points to himself, and promptly feels like an idiot. “Will be back shortly.”

(“What the hell is a fairy-lock?” he demands the minute he walks through the door. “Why did my father immediately assume we slept together when he saw I had some in my hair?”

Flins, for his part, sputters incoherently for a moment, about the most ill-equipped Illuga’s ever seen him, and somehow manages to convey that it’s “simply a thing that happens sometimes when fairies sleep in human beds with a bedmate— like fairy circles— it is— fairly inconsequential in the long run, I—”

There’s no apology, because Flins is a fairy and fairies don’t apologize, but Illuga understands his intent anyways.)

5.

Sumeru City is warm, humid, full of birdsong and the sound of creaking swings, and Illuga is so fucking lost.

He feels like he looks a little pathetic, or perhaps a little insane, standing aimlessly in the city’s center (or what he thinks is the center?? Honestly, he could be at the entrance or the very end, or somehow upside-down and Illuga would be none the wiser— perhaps this is Ginnungagap? Illuga’s a little dumbfounded that he’s managed to find it—) staring uselessly at the shopkeeps and the blacksmith— he thinks there’s a crafting table a little ways a way, somewhere, but for the life of him he can’t remember if it’s up or down, or even where that ‘up or down’ even is—

He takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose, and resolutely sits down right where he is.

That’s how Flins finds him, at any rate.

There’s an expression of faint surprise on his face— for a man like Flins, who doesn’t emote as strongly as the next person, he might as well have yelled in outright shock. He recovers quickly, though: “Are you staging a protest, Young Master Illuga?”

“No,” Illuga grouses. “Say, Flins, did you know, I think I’ve found Ginnungagap? All this time, and it was right underneath my nose!”

Flins’ lips twitch at the corners. “Is that so?”

Illuga nods. “Yes.” At last, he sighs and hangs his head. “Truly, Sir Flins, I do not know how it is that you manage so well in this labyrinth. Have you been to Sumeru City, before?”

That gets a huffed laugh, but no mutter of ‘direct questions,’ so the answer’s not embarrassing, at the very least. “No,” he answers easily enough. “I always thought the climate would be… a little too warm for my tastes.” His smile turns a little wan. “Indeed, I do find myself longing for Snezhnaya’s blizzards more than anything, now, but nevermind…” He looks back down at Illuga, and without another word, offers him his hand.

Illuga takes it.

“To where are we wending, Young Master?” Flins asks, and Illuga sighs before fishing a crumpled-up piece of paper out of his pocket. His schedule is unfortunately jam-packed with crap that needs doing— it’s all well and good that Nod-Krai is branching out after— everything— and it’s wonderful that the newly-formed League is doing much of that branching, but Illuga considers it an utter-fucking-shame that he is the one who’d been elected to go work out all the negotiations.

He understands the necessity— there’s only so many times an egotistical maniac drunk on the power of three moons’ marrows can proclaim himself a god before international powers decide they need to become a little tighter-knit, but Illuga can’t help but consider himself the worst person for the job.

But Nefer had turned it down, citing an ‘animistic relationship with Sumeru’s Akademiya,’ Lauma was still sorting things with the Frostmoon Scions, and neither Aino nor Ineffa were a particularly good fit— Illuga had just accepted his fate with quiet grace and eloquence, and only slammed his head into the table when he was sure he was alone.

His only saving grace was that Flins came along— and while he’d been worried about depriving the Lightkeepers of one of their best ratniki, Nikita had been quick to dismiss his worries.

“If we fall apart the minute two of our members leave, then we’re in more dire straits than I’d thought,” he’d joked before shooing Illuga away. Illuga, for his part, had been too relieved that there hadn’t been an accompanying lecture about being safe and using protection to follow (the very thought made him shudder) and had quickly acquiesced.

Which leads him to his present circumstances.

“I need to establish a connection with the Adventure’s Guild before anything else, but fuck me—” Flins chokes on a laugh— “I can’t fucking find it—”

Immediately, Flins turns and points down a random street. “Approximately thirty paces that way.” A pause. “Depending on the individual’s stride, of course. Counts may vary.”

Illuga squints at him suspiciously, but follows his advice.

“Ad astra abyssosque,” Katheryne parrots the minute he turned the corner, Illuga’s jaw drops. “Welcome to the Adventurers’ Guild!”

“A pleasure to be here,” Flins says smoothly from where he’d come up on Illuga’s left-hand side. He sounds unbearably smug. “How do you do?”

“I am well,” Katheryne responds. “I am Katheryne, the receptionist of the Adventurers’ Guild. My job is to provide the adventurers with quests and intelligence support.”

“Is that so?” Flins says mildly. “My, what tiresome work.”

Katheryne fixes him with a plastic smile. “Since it looks like you’re already familiar with the Adventurers’ Guild modus operandi, I’ll leave it at that. How may I help you?”

Illuga startles, then launches into an explanation of the League and its objective, his own objective within that whole scope, ect, ect. The entire time, Katheryne listens… he’s not sure he can say attentively; that implies a conscious level of focus that he doesn’t think Katheryne can actually control, but she repeats that she’ll pass the relevant information onto the relevant people, and he’s finished before long at all.

“How did you know she was there?” he demands as he and Flins walk away from her booth. “That was— you just knew, instantly. How?”

Flins smiles mysteriously. “I am a man of many talents. What is next on your list, Young Master?”

Illuga frowns at him, but refers to his list. “The Corps of Thirty. Where…?”

Flins points him on his way without a second’s delay.

And so it continues.

The Matra’s headquarters, Flins walks him there like he’s been there a thousand times before. The Akademiya, Flins takes him through a shortcut and has him there in less than half the time.

Finally, when they’re walking up to the Sanctuary of Surasthana, up a long, winding ramp that tests every muscle in Illuga’s lower body, he begins guessing.

“A map,” he says. “Plus eidetic memory?”

Flins laughs, the sound like windchimes in the winter. “I’m flattered, Young Master, but no.”

Illuga scowls. Flins is being sincere with his answers, too— ‘yes’ and ‘no’ the entire way, as if he really wants to emphasize that he’s being 100% truthful, none of his clever workarounds or wordplay in sight. It’s quietly maddening.

Or perhaps loudly maddening. Flins looks far too amused for Illuga to assume his suffering is well-hidden.

Their meeting with Lesser Lord Kusanali is illuminating, to put it in a word. She meets them in the center of the Sanctuary of Surasthana, sitting on a floating swing, and one of the very first things she asks them is if they’d be interested in taking a look at Dottore’s files from before he was Dottore.

Illuga’s eyes go wide. Yes, he says, before he’s aware of what he’s saying. Yes, he’d be very interested in knowing information about the man who nearly rearranged the world order because he felt like it.

Yes, he’d be very interested in knowing more information about the man who nearly killed Flins.

(Flins has told him, during late nights when the moon hides behind a cover of clouds, that he doesn’t think Dottore is truly dead. Says he thinks there’s some ancient, arcane and downright evil methodology he’d found that might circumvent his death.

“He was too smart to hedge all his bets on one outcome,” he’d said. “I reckon there’s another shoe waiting to drop.”

Illuga told him, quietly and sincerely, that he hoped he was wrong. Flins had smiled sadly at him, and said that he hoped that, too.)

“Alright, smart guy,” Illuga said a while later, after leaving the Sanctuary of Surasthana. “Feel like guiding us back to our lodgings?”

Flins smiled mysteriously at him. “Guiding, you say?” he asks. “What an interesting choice of words… a wonderful idea, Illuga. I think I’ll take you up on that.”

Then, without another word, he vanishes.

Illuga’s jaw drops. “Flins?” he calls, and takes a hesitant step forward. Even his lantern is gone, what the fuck— “Come on, where— where’d you go? Flins—?”

Ahead of him, he sees a azure light— an azure flame, the exact colour of the fire normally contained within Flins’ lantern, and he bolts towards it without a second thought.

Except, as soon as he comes within two feet of it, it vanishes.

Illuga stops short. “Flins…?”

There! Just ahead— that same blue flame, whom he’s certain is Flins, and like before, he races towards it, only for it to vanish the moment he gets near.

His eye twitches, and so it begins.

He follows that azure flame throughout the entirety of Sumeru City, way back to their lodgings at the bottom of the massive tree. All things considered, Flins isn’t a bad guide, even in this odd form he’s chosen to take— he’s patient, waits for Illuga to catch up before disappearing, makes sure he’s easily spotted— but Illuga’s just baffled by this turn of events. He can’t shake the feeling that he’s being teased, somehow.

“What a wonderful idea, Illuga. I think I’ll take you up on that.”

What the hell had he suggested?

“Would you like a hint?” Flins asks sometime later, after he’s finished leading Illuga on some cat-and-mouse game throughout a giant tree. Full credit though: he’d been a terrific guide. Illuga can think of another so-called guide whom he could give pointers to.

Flins also sounds endlessly amused by the whole thing, and it gets the cogs in Illuga’s head to start turning.

“Guiding, you say? What an interesting choice of words.”

“Not many can claim to have followed a will-o’-the-wisp to the end of their road, and even fewer can claim to then have conversed with that will-o’-the-wisp at crossroads,” Flins says, once it’s evident that Illuga has figured it out. He sounds almost giddy. “You’ll forgive me, I hope, my methods— it has been many a year since I’ve deigned to lead a lost traveller in that particular form. It has a certain charm to it.”

Illuga just stares at him for a moment, then huffs a laugh and ducks his head. “I didn’t know you had perfect bearings,” he says, and Flins grins.

“An ameliorative side-effect of my nature,” he simpers, “what good is a will-‘o-the-wisp if he is prone to becoming lost himself?” and Illuga laughs.

Flins’ grin widens, evidently pleased with himself. “There was a certain nobleman back in the days of the Belyi Tsar’s court,” he explains, “who had a game which he liked to play with curious humans and ill-to-do Fae alike. The King of Winter Holly had a truly impressive hedge maze which ensconced the Northwestern half of the palace grounds, you see, and this nobleman— who shared the nature of the jack-o’-lantern— would enjoy challenging humans and Fae to see who could reach the center, first. The only issue with this was that, admittedly, it was no fair fight— the nobleman knew from the start who would win, because he would guide them there himself.” Flins chuckles lowly, and Illuga, a little dumb-struck, gestures for him to continue. He can’t help it— he’s known for a while that Flins has a mischievous side, has been on the receiving end of that mischief far too many times to count, but there’s something different about this. Something distinctly Fae, and Illuga desperately wants to hear more.

(Besides, Flins has so few happy stories to tell of his time at the court. Selfishly, Illuga wants to know that it wasn’t all misery— that that wasn’t Flins’ life before he came to Nod Krai.)

“Of course, nothing ever came of these challenges,” Flins adds, after Illuga’s pressed him for more details. “The fairy would lose, the human would win, and everyone would go home with a story to tell. After all, that’s much the point of these things, is it not? Storytelling?”

Illuga stares at him in surprise.

“Yeah,” he hears himself say. “Yeah, I think it is.”

+1

“It has to be because of the— the funny stuff Dottore did with the moon marrows, right?” Illuga asks when the sky splits open, buckets of wind and rain and lightening pouring from the heavens. He wonders if Þórr lost his hammer again and is mad about it. “That’s why the weather’s being funny?”

Flins hums a note and walks over, pulling the curtain further back as he leans right into Illuga’s space, shameless as always. “It could be,” he says. “I confess I’m not the right person to ask.” He peers sideways at Illuga. “Should you prefer to overnight here?”

“Please,” Illuga says, relieved, then pauses. “Is— Is there a rule about saying ‘please…?’”

Flins pauses before peeling himself away from Illuga’s side. “Not in the manner you’re thinking,” he says after a moment. “Tea, Young Master?”

“Sure,” Illuga says, a little hesitantly. “So there is a rule?”

Flins’ lips quirk at the corners. “Ever observant. There is no trick the Fair Folk could pull on you by quirk of their nature if you were to ask one of them ‘please,’” he explains. “However, the word itself carries connotations which… mmm. It is a not a word I would use lightly around them. It carries with it a measure of desperation, does it not?” he asks when Illuga makes a concerned noise. “It is unwise to clue fairies into how much you want something, Young Master. They’ll keep it from you, past that point, for the sheer delight of seeing your torment.”

“That’s cruel,” Illuga says softly, and Flins smiles.

“Yes,” he says in an agreeing sort of voice. “The Fae Folk often were.”

He pauses, looks between two boxes of tea, one in each hand, and asks: “Hibiscus, or ‘Caramel Shortbread…?’”

Illuga shudders. “Hibiscus, please,” he says. He puts the conversation to the corners of his mind— Flins’ tone had brokered no room for further discussion, and Illuga doesn’t want to push him.

(He tries so hard not to be cruel.)

He does need to ask, though: “Why do you have caramel shortbread flavoured tea, Sir Flins?”

Flins shrugs. “It was a gift from Lady Columbina,” he explains casually, and Illuga chokes. “Who received it as a gift from the Marionette, who received it as a gift from Lady Furina of Fontaine, who received it as a gift from the Chief Justice of Fontaine, who received it as a gift from the Duke of Meropide, who… well, I’m certain it was gifted to him by someone as well, but I’m afraid I don’t know who.”

He says it with such a straight face that Illuga thinks he’s joking, but then he remembers with a jolt of horror that Flins can’t lie.

“I believe she was operating off of the knowledge that my kin and I enjoy sweet things,” Flins says, at the look of horror Illuga’s sure must be on his face. “However, I confess I’m not the best candidate for tea— it is far too bitter for my tastes.” He smiles a little. “In saying that, this makes a far better trinket than it does a tea.”

“Yeah,” Illuga says once he’s found his voice. “Yeah, it— it does.”

Flins smiles at him, then ducks around the corner to put the kettle on. Illuga can hear him humming faintly— that same song from before— and he zones out a little as his eyes drift towards the bookshelves lining every corner of Flins’ home.

There used to be more, or so Flins has told him: books scattered across the floor, piled high in neat little stacks, and then eventually the space simply became too crowded, so many of them were given away.

“’Tis the occupational hazard of the curious,” Flins had said. Illuga found that he couldn’t argue with that.

He scans the covers one by one; several are written in languages Illuga doesn’t know but thinks he recognizes, and then he spots a word he definitely knows, and he’s taking the tome off of the shelf and flicking through the pages before he realistically knows what he’s doing.

This has to be a gag gift, he thinks as he marvels at the pictures within. There’s no way.

“I’ve been told by an enthusiastic tea merchant that I am to leave it to steep for five minutes for best results— oh.”

Illuga straightens up like someone’s shocked him and he whirls around, colour high as he stashes the book behind his back like he’d been reading something much worse. “F-Flins! I didn’t— I hadn’t heard you come back…”

His voice dies in his throat. Flins has him fixes with an unimpressed look, and sheepishly, Illuga hands the book over to him.

“Sor— err,” Illuga stalls, Flins’ warnings about ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ ringing in his head. Helpfully, he says: “It is… a book.”

“Ever observant, Young Master,” Flins says dryly, and Illuga cringes. “Found something that struck your fancy, mm?”

“I was… curious,” Illuga replies. “Forgive me saying so, Sir Flins, but it’s not the sort of thing I thought you’d purchase for yourself.”

At that, Flins finally huffs a laugh and turns the book over in his hands, eyes skimming over the title: Fairies, Elves, and Fauns. The cover features a very scantily-clad humanoid figure resting on a flower petal, but the main attraction are the large, delicate wings sprouting from her back, glittery and iridescent.

“Indeed it is not,” Flins admits. “It is a… birthday present, from Miss Nefer. She never fails to impress.”

“Is it accurate?” Illuga asks skeptically, and Flins’ lips quirk at the corners.

“You tell me, Young Master,” he says, and places the book back in Illuga’s hands. “Do you see any wings upon my person?”

Illuga opens and closes his mouth a few times. No words come out.

Flins, apparently satisfied that he’d rendered Illuga speechless, hums approvingly then turns around, wending back to the kitchen. Traitorously, Illuga’s eyes scour every inch of his back for wings without his own permission.

“I believe the tea has finished steeping,” Flins calls, and Illuga snaps to attention. “Are you coming, Young Master?”

Illuga hurries after him.

~~~

Humiliatingly, the thought doesn’t leave him.

It haunts him the entire evening. While he sips the tea Flins had made for him, while he listens to Flins tell stories about years gone by, while they debate which weapon the Æsir must have lost to lead to such a downpour— all he can think about are shimmery, iridescent wings and whether or not Flins has any.

He feels oddly perverted, wondering about it, which doesn’t help his cyclical thoughts in the slightest— if anything, the perception that he shouldn’t be thinking about it only makes him think about it more, and he’s sure that if his bright-red face doesn’t give it away, then the fact that he keeps zoning out certainly will.

“Something on your mind, Illuga?”

“No,” Illuga replies, a beat too late, and Flins arches an eyebrow at him.

“How unfair,” he muses, “to engage in the sport of lying when I am unable to compete at the same level. What a cruel lover I have taken.”

Illuga gapes at him. Flins smiles at him, self-satisfied and pleased all at the same time, and Illuga gets the distinct impression that Flins absolutely does not need to be able to lie in order to beat him in a game of words.

“So, Illuga,” Flins says, and Illuga shudders. There’s just something about the emphasis Flins adds to his name when he neglects the honorific that sends chills all up and down Illuga’s spine. “Something on your mind?”

He wonders if there’s something in a fairy’s speech, some sort of— power of persuasion, or the like, because Illuga capitulates far, far too easily to Flins’ whims, each time.

“Do fairies have wings?” he blurts, and Flins blinks at him in evident, visceral surprise for a moment before he throws his head back and laughs.

“That’s what’s been on your mind?” he exclaims, and Illuga scowls before looking away, a blush on his face. “This whole time?”

“Not the whole time!” Illuga defends. “Just… some of it.”

Flins laughs again. “‘Some of it,’ you lie like a fairy, you know,” he says, and Illuga’s flush deepens. “I did not know the Young Master had such designs on my person! I wonder what else  of mine he would have…?”

Illuga chokes. “Flins,” he hisses, much to Flins’ obvious amusement.

“What with the way you had been staring at me, Young Master, can you truly blame me for arriving at such conclusions?” he teases. “You needn’t be worried about any— what was the terminology you’d coined? Ah, yes: perceived walks of shame, either—”

Illuga squawks. “You talk too much!” he squeaks. His voice is a solid three octaves higher than it should be, and Flins breaks into peals of laughter again. “Cease! Cease at once!”

Flins does not cease: “And all this to question whether or not I possessed a pair of wings of my own, too… the Young Master’s curiosity truly knows no bounds.”

At this point, Illuga wonders if he’s better off not knowing. He knows Flins a little too well for this sort of cat-and-mouse  game besides— he’s not cruel like the Fae in the stories he tells, but he’s always been minded to an equal exchange, whether he notices it or not. Tit for tat, one might say, and Illuga senses that he’s not going to get a straight answer unless he successfully bargains for it, and once again he finds himself thinking of Óðinn and the World Tree.

It’s too bad his embarrassment won’t suffice— he feels like he could cook an egg on his face, but it begs the question: what the hell does he bargain? He’s not exactly ready to hang himself for the sort of knowledge he’s after; that seems… a little extreme for  the scope— even though he supposes that he’s also after rúnar, in a way— Flins rúnar, since Illuga doesn’t think his name would follow traditional declensions— though he’d be keen to have a go with his first name, Kyryll, now that he thinks about it— Kyryls, probably, and then he remembers Kirya and Flins’ teasing him: “perhaps if he asks me very nicely, ‘Kirya, please, won’t you carry me?” and then an absolutely wicked idea occurs to him.

He makes sure he’s looking Flins in the eye when he turns to him and says, very earnestly: “Kirya, do you have wings?”

Flins chokes. He makes a noise Illuga has never heard from him before, and his face goes bright red. He sputters absolutely incoherently— Illuga thinks he’s switches over to the language of the Fae, actually— and he wheezes out a word Illuga doesn’t recognize but understands regardless, “ναι,” and he grins. Brilliant.

“May I see them, Kirya?”

Flins makes a downright wounded noise. “You would have utterly annihilated me had you been in the Belyi Tsar’s court,” he says, and Illuga feels himself redden. “That nobleman would not have survived three hours with you…”

He’s still muttering to himself as he turns away from Illuga, fiddling with something just out of view. Moments later, Illuga realizes exactly what he’d been doing when his shirt slides down off of his shoulders, and Illuga’s startled slightly by the scarred skin the action reveals— for some reason, he thought Flins would be unblemished— such that he almost misses it.

Flins goes very, very still, then shudders, and Illuga watches, wide-eyed as two gossamer wefts of light, two wings, split and mirrored down the middle, shimmer into existence right around the upper middle of Flins’ back.

They’re tiny, is what Illuga first realizes, and they almost don’t look real— they look like patches of light, or crystal, almost— they shimmer and waver at the edges in ways that make Illuga question what he’s seeing, and it’s only after he’s reached out a tentative hand and touched something solid that he realizes it’s not an illusion.

Flins goes ramrod straight at the contact, and Illuga draws his hand back like he’s been burnt. (On the contrary, Flins’ wings are lukewarm at best.) “Sorry!” he blurts, completely forgetting Flins’ warnings, because the idea that he’d hurt him, somehow— “I— I should have asked—”

Flins inhales shakily, then huffs an unstable laugh. “Do not fret,” he says, “and don’t apologize. I am… simply unaccustomed to touch. You are fine.”

Illuga can’t see his face, but Flins can’t lie. It’s a maddening contradiction that drives him absolutely batty at the best of times, but right now it’s making him nearly homicidal.

“Can I…?” Illuga hedges, because that wasn’t permission.

Flins shrugs one shoulder. “If it would be pleasing to you,” he replies, then, without another word, pulls out a chair from his table, spins it around, then sits in it without another word, head resting on the wood of the table. His arms and long hair cover much of his face, but Illuga can see that the tips of his ears have gone red.

After a long pause, he steps forward, just barely brushing his fingertips over the perimeter of the left one— it’s strange, there’s a definite edge to it but Illuga can’t find it even if he looks— and Flins quakes like Illuga’s done something much worse than just touch his wing.

He freezes. Flins sounds wrecked when he says, “You’re alright.”

Illuga gently touches his shoulder. Like his wings, his skin is cool to the touch— not freezing, but not warm, either. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

Flins huffs a laugh and buries his face further into his arms. “Like I said, it’s been a while.”

“It doesn’t— it doesn’t hurt you, does it?”

“No,” Flins answers. “It is…” He sighs, and his wings flutter at the action, almost anxious. “I am simply unaccustomed to touch, Young Master, and I… well. It would be a lie to state that I often go about my day with wings, so I won’t.” There’s a slight smile in his voice when he adds: “I can’t, in fact.”

Illuga huffs a laugh, and goes back to tracing the outline of Flins’s wings with one finger. There’s a slight give to them, now that he’s paying attention, not spongey but almost bendy, and God, Illuga has too many questions.

“They are… merely decorative,” Flins murmurs, as if sensing some of those questions. “Perhaps vestigial; I confess the fairies in the Belyi Tsar’s court were less concerned with their providence, and more with their appearance.”

“Eldr-önd,” Illuga says, absolutely wrecked. He lingers over the tip of the right wing, entranced by the way the indigo-blue wisps wind around his fingers, and Flins shudders again.

“Yes,” he says, and he sounds a little ruined, actually. Selfishly, Illuga wants to find out how much further he can push him before ‘a little ruined’ becomes ‘completely ruined;’ wants to wright it with his own two hands.

He takes a deep breath; resumes his gentle touch.

“The— The Fae at the Belyi Tsar’s court,” Flins says, voice notably unsteady. “Would— Would esteem each other by their wings. H-How big, how grand, wh-whether they turned colours…” He trails off and takes a few deep breaths that Illuga knows he doesn’t need. Selfishly, he gives him no reprieve, skirting the palm of his hand along the flat side of one wing, and Flins whimpers.

Illuga curses softly. “Go on?”

“I— I never participated,” Flins says, and Illuga thinks it says a lot that he refers to himself directly, rather than as ‘a certain nobleman.’ “I found the whole thing utterly vacuous and shallow, completely d-devoid of purpose. Pointless, in a word. Besides it— it was safer to stay on the outer edges of the Belyi Tsar’s court. Humans weren’t the only thing the Fae Folk liked to keep.”

Illuga slows his ministrations. Flins’ shoulders go lax, and for the first time he lifts his head out of the cradle of his arms to look at Illuga.

He looks a complete mess, which is about what Illuga expected— his face is bright red, lips bitten near raw, and there’s a glassy sheen to his eyes. But he looks so painfully sad at the same time that Illuga’s not thinking when he leans forward and presses a kiss to his forehead, only that he should do it.

Flins’ voice is shattered when he pulls away. “What was that for?”

Illuga can’t bear to break eye contact. “I just felt like it.”

He leans in, again, presses more kisses to Flins’ face— his forehead, his nose, cheeks and yes, lips, and then he stands up, pulls Flins to his feet, and starts leading him towards his master-bedroom-turned-guest-room.

“Where are we going?”

“Bed,” Illuga says simply, then hesitates. “You… seem tired.”

There’s a beat of silence, then Flins huffs a laugh and ducks his head.

“And so I am,” he murmurs, then leans down and kisses Illuga once. “Lead the way, Young Master.”