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Ash's bed is a nest.
Ewron's hands freeze halfway through skimming the collection of TCG cards. His mouth falls agape, eyes unblinking as he determines what exactly this revelation ensues.
He knows a nest when he sees one, alright. It wasn't the sight he anticipated when entering the Pantheon's attic to rummage through the chests, though. Then, truly, the Pantheon itself is a nice gift wrapper with only sawdust inside, and none of the expected prestige. Emptiness echoes.
Clearly the resources to make it look nicer were limited, or maybe it's the technique, as right there against the quartz wall, in its full, carefully crafted glory is his bed. A mess of pillows and blankets. It should seem just like that: a mess, but there's a hint of structure to the way the mattress dips.
Cozy, kind of.
"Gonna tease him for that later," he chuckles, shrugging, figuring that’s how Ash is comfortable in his own four walls, before his sticky fingers remember their job there.
A trail of crumbs since then led Ewron down the path of Ash's pedant demeanor.
Now, he himself likes to get all in other people's personal space—therefore making it a shared one.
"Bestie," he'd say, throwing his arm around Katie's shoulders, holding her in place. Smile stretching.
Complex, is how it got since then, but Ewron still squeezes her knee when they sit next to each other. Exaggerated, yes—not necessarily disingenuous. Definitely more of a hyperbole than sincerity. A learned you-owe-me system, something taught through his other, medieval life of favors being a currency higher estimated than coin. Point is, it gets him what he wants, the role of another player in a game rather than spectator.
But with Ash…
Ewron's hand hovers in the air when he laughs at one of Ash's jokes, reaching out out of habit but holding back out of second thoughts. Just like he wouldn't tell him I love you—because what value does that hold in the face of all they've done for each other thus far? Ash is the owner of his blade, life, death and everything in-between so really, that empty phrase is just as inadequate as the small touches he tends to exploit to bring someone closer.
He’d hate to startle the guy with his usual half-hug and high five, is all. It’s called respect. Even if there are unaddressed undertones of bashfulness as well.
The other seems to do anything but hold back.
"Here, you've got something," Ash murmurs, already reaching for the eyelash reclined on Ewron's cheekbone.
He brings it up on his pointer finger, close to Ewron's lips. Ewron's eyes flicker from there to Ash's expression, unreadable but soft, akin to when he's at peace but lost in thought simultaneously.
Something is going through his head. A secret only Ash is in on.
"Go on," he says, "make a wish."
Ewron blows the eyelash away, cold breath over Ash's fingertip, holding eye contact all the way.
To read your mind.
Sharp canines flash in a smile. Could he—well, Ash did it first, so there isn't a reason why Ewron can't get all up in his face now—he leans in so the background melts away, only Ash's face obscuring his vision.
"Wanna know what it is?"
Ash scoffs. "Obviously. But if you tell me it won't come true."
Ewron hums in response, insidiously relieved Ash believes in silly things like that.
Over time Ewron finds hands around him, brushing away stray fur or picking lint off. Not like he minds—though if without a good reason, he prohibits himself of reciprocating. With Ash everything must be thought through beforehand (and, to his credit, Ewron doesn’t think much before he dives in to move, do, get done; his gut seems trusty so far).
It simply strikes some chord within Ewron. Perhaps the visceral bit of his consciousness, because he’s been there before. Fixing Graf’s tie for him or something as stupid as folding away Multi’s dirty lab coat for laundry day. It boils down to Ewron’s red panda ancestors licking their cubs’ fur. An itch to tidy up. Ash could have somewhat of an itch too. He’s not exactly human, after all.
Now while he twiddles with the fabric of his belt, torn bristles at the edges, Ash rows the boat through crystalline waters. Languid pushes, as he’s clearly exhausted from their escapade. Ewron told him it was fine, and that he could simply warp to The Regime, but this imbecile sputtered some nonsense about manners and walking Ewron home—as if they were high schoolers or something.
So Ewron took him up on the offer, though not without an initial snide remark. Can't let it be known how much he likes the image of spending even a bit more time with Ash. Outside of the turbulence of black magic, dead daughters and, of course, their plan.
It's a selfish indulgence, anyway.
Except, walking home after resource gathering turned into a long, tiresome stroll and then boat ride. Against Ewron’s back are crammed all the blocks they’ve got. And he’s pretty sure it’s calcite that’s stabbing into his side.
Colorful meadows stretch far on both their sides and lavender starts to sprout as they get closer to the new Prawdziwa Polska. Ewron peers at the sky from under dark lashes, clouds floating by while the sun grazes a citrusy glow against them. A soft breeze brushes through his hair.
Ash’s shoulders rise and fall in a deep sigh. Ewron hums halfheartedly, as though to offer empathy. His own biological clock stopped working properly the day he decided that being nocturnal just doesn’t work anymore.
He’s toned, that guy. Ewron can see it even through (unnecessary, in his humble opinion) layers of clothing; how his jacket dips to paint the outline of his waist, the way the fabric stretches to curl over biceps. And then. An unnatural curve over his shoulderblades.
Ewron’s fingers are already there, wary to touch—when Ash straightens his back.
He clears his throat. “We’ll be there soon, right?”
“Mm,” Ewron glances around. “Yes. Just turn right over this way.”
Curious. Doesn’t seem like tense muscle. Not with how it juts out. But there's no way Ash got hurt, and firstly Ewron doubts he'd hide it like it's something to be ashamed of.
Souls linked or not, there are things Ewron simply doesn't know, or can't know, about Ash. Speaking one's mind has become a practice between the two of them only recently, and there's a lot to work on still.
Infuriating, that he won't ever see how Ash was as a kid or before the Island, all the things that made him into who he is today. Almost as though there's something missing, as if their lives should've always been intertwined. He truly started breathing with the exhale of telling Ash he'll commit to a farfetched goal together. Before that, it's a blur.
Ewron can't imagine a life without Ash by his side.
What a ridiculous thought.
“Get up. We need to take the baggage out.”
Ewron winces, gaze refocusing. Right, they were traveling. He moves to step out of the boat—but comes to a halt when a twitch under Ash’s jacket catches his eye.
Now, surely.
It's a gamble of sounding demented. But he's the owner of a casino for a reason.
He dusts himself off, shaking invisible particles off his robe. “Ash. Be honest with me. Are those wings on your back?”
Ash, for the lack of a better way to put it, stares back at him like a deer in headlights.
“Maybe.”
Only through the strength of his will it is that Ewron doesn't burst out laughing, the same manic feeling of getting three sevens on a slotting machine making his heart stutter. It even muffles the blaring alarm of Ash not telling him something so vital.
“Will you show me?” he probes, stepping closer. Beaming as he looks up at him. “Do you want to show me?”
“I… They’re not a sight to behold, really.” An awkward laugh bubbles from his throat, and he pointedly glances away.
“Please?”
His nose scrunches momentarily. A sign of defeat.
“...Fine.”
He shuffles away, one shoulder rising to shrug off the long shadow of a cape first. Hangs it over the edge of the boat. Undoes the buttons of his jacket, and it falls heavy on top of the silky cape fabric, a chime of badges.
Undressing is usually sexier than this—Ewron muses—but his mouth pops open in consternation anyway, when Ash strips from his undershirt to reveal a grungy binding going all the way around his chest. Squeezing tight. Ewron's own lungs sharply ache.
Unclipping at the front, Ash unravels the bandages in a slow, prolonged motion.
“Wings.” Ewron exhales softly, expression going slack.
Two crescent moons (more crater than lunar dust). Stunted. Weighted down by neglect. Ewron can’t tell which bird they’re corresponding to, but the murky black pinions sit huddled between Ash’s shoulderblades like a narrow valley.
“Wings,” he says it through his teeth, as though admitting to a nasty, untreated wound. But they’re incredible—like a siren or an angel—Ewron can’t decide, not when his hands are already searching for a bucket. “I could never reach them. They’re kind of. A mess, now.”
He stops to look at Ash, the metal clinking against his claws. “Oooooh. Is that why you’re so emotional all the time? Your wings are neglected; of course you’re dramatic about everything!”
“I’m not dramatic or emotional, what? I always. React accordingly. And how would you know how someone with wings feels about them?”
“I’ve seen how Multi gets when they’re dirty.” He snickers, moving to shove the bucket underwater. It fills to the brim. “He spends entire days underground, comes out with wings covered in dirt and dust and all that stuff. You know how people say—don’t, er. Don’t talk to me until I have my morning coffee? That’s Multi, but like, don’t talk to him until he has a bath.”
“Right,” Ash deadpans, as otherwise he’d cave and crack a smile. “His are bat wings, though. Mine have actual feathers.”
Ewron grimaces. “Then it has to be even more uncomfortable for you.”
Ash feigns nonchalance, shrugging.
“I could help you clean them, if you want.”
The silence is loud when Ash gawks at Ewron like he’s sure he misheard. Ewron, once more, wishes he could read his mind.
“I mean, only if you want, obviously. But the Supreme Leader shouldn’t walk around with dirty wings on his back. That’s like, not… you know.”
For a heartbeat he hesitates, brows furrowing. “I don’t let anyone touch them.”
“No?”
“My second in command had offered, but… it’s too personal.”
“Am I not your—” Ewron starts. He changes course, “Aren’t we close?”
Glitches jump around Ash’s cheeks, purple rectangles obscuring so much Ewron has to squint to try and read his face.
“I guess,” he croaks out. Keeps speaking as if he can’t believe his mouth is producing these sounds. “Okay. Okay, I guess if it’s not too much of a bother, then. I wouldn’t hate it.”
“Sweet.” Ewron lodges the water bucket down on top of grass with a loud thud, and sits by it.
Ash shifts his weight from one leg to the other, before he gets down on the ground cross-legged, back turned to Ewron. Stiff and tense with nerves, he hunches his shoulders and gets uncharacteristically smaller—
“...I don’t know how to really. Clean them, so. Um. I trust you.”
—No longer the rampant dictator who takes up space like it’s already belonged to him, but someone Ewron doesn’t entirely recognize. A tactic to invoke pity, perhaps, a stance of don’t hurt me, I’m already so weak. But Ewron doesn’t understand why Ash would need to perform that now.
“Relax,” he insists, placing his palm over Ash's upper arm, stroking gently with his thumb. “Open them up for me? I wanna see.”
Ash spreads his wings how one would stretch a limb that hasn’t been used in ages, muscles protesting with an ache. Shivering curtains of matted black mass stagger to expand; the primary flight feathers are the longest of the bunch, and even then they don’t go past the length of Ewron’s palm. Ruffled, all of them, the barbs split and glued together in stiff clumps. Further down, the structure seems fractured and bent, snarled with dried blood. By the few slanting gaps in the ebony panorama, he figures a couple feathers are missing. There’s a sticky sheen, but caused by grease rather than a healthy reflection of light. In the interval between wings, over Ash’s spine, runs a long scar. As though someone tried to carve them out.
Stiff and a little woozy from the sudden change of body balance, unsure whether stretching would make the ache in his back worse. And it—expectedly—hurts senselessly, a pulsing bruise untended to.
Ewron rolls up his sleeves. Silently thanks the mighty powers above for his ability to bluff through any situation. “Hm. Bath first, okay?”
Ash can only respond with a dragged exhale.
He leans over to search through his backpack, fishing out a piece of sponge. A small, yellowish thing. He drenches it in the water from the bucket. His hand stills when he goes to start the work. Not only the realization seeping in, that those are real wings on Ash’s back, but also a pinprick of something like concern. Though Ewron himself wouldn’t give it a definitive name.
“How long did you let them be like this?”
Ash huffs out a mirthless laugh. “I don't know. When I was a kid, some kind of effort was made to upkeep them, but. I haven't been a kid for a while.”
“I see.” Ewron nods.
So, this is years of build-up. All Ewron’s got is a sponge and a dream.
He picks away the tufts sticking out first, alert for any telltale reactions from Ash, but he sits perfectly still. Almost like he’s not even breathing. Ewron is left to hope he's not making the situation worse. He presses on the base of the wing joint, and muscles squirm, but any noise of surprise dies in Ash's throat.
Guiding the sponge against the base of the wings, Ewron works outwards and down the arch of each feather. Ash's hands—so far firmly in his lap—squeeze his knees so hard it is certain to leave marks. His shoulders uncurl slightly as he allows Ewron more access.
The plumage curves along Ash’s ribs. Ewron bites the inside of his cheek. He hesitates to place his hands there and pull at the feathery underside; is it even a nice feeling for Ash, to get touched up like this?
“Tell me if I pull too hard.”
“It doesn’t hurt. I can barely feel it,” Ash says, craning his head to glance at the other.
“It doesn’t?”
“It’s kinda like. Cramps. Because I haven’t let them out like this in ages. But other than that it’s like if you pulled my hair. Barely anything.”
Ewron purses his lips and swallows back a rather inappropriate joke. “Alright.”
A low hum, akin to purring, sounds from Ash’s chest. It’s new to see him at rest, not pacing back and forth as he usually tends to do, but it’s not a bad change either. Ewron can appreciate his presence, like this. Letting himself be taken care of. And there’s some immodest satiation in it for Ewron—to be the one making Ash presentable, for the work of his own hands to be noticeable in the slow unraveling of the full grandeur he’s kept hidden.
“This will take a while,” Ewron murmurs under his breath, plucking away a feather that was barely hanging on. It falls on the grass beside the two of them, joining the rest.
“You don’t have to,” Ash says. The purr in the back of his throat doesn’t stop. “I can bind myself again.”
“Ja pierdole, jak już zacząłem, to przecież skończę,” «Fuck’s sake, if I started it, then I’ll finish it.»he hisses back, hands working gently in contrast to the sardonic tone.
It gains him a sincere chuckle, at least. Ewron smiles as well, despite himself.
Returning a favor, is all this is. He wouldn’t be able to put his finger on what favor exactly he’s returning, but the details don’t matter. The tally tends to balance out. And Ewron doesn’t know how much this means to Ash, but to him it’s a declaration of belonging. They’re each other’s person. That’s been obvious for a while though, or at least Ewron takes it for granted. He’s greedy—he long stopped acting like he isn’t, especially when it’s about Ash.
Some dead feathers fall out themselves, pirouetting before they’re adrift amongst the blades of grass. He nudges his fingers underneath, grasping at old black fluff gathered there. It’s comfortably quiet except for the chirps of birds flying overhead, and rhythmic cicada clicking. His dampened fingers work through the barbules of glued dried blood.
The unspoken intimacy of the act steadily creeps up on him. This would be the equivalent of giving someone a massage, which has… connotations. He goes with it, rubbing upwards with his pointer and middle finger where he deems muscle to be particularly knotted up. It earns a content hum.
“Did you have family? Who helped you wash them, I mean.”
Ash sighs, the wings unfurling fully at last. They’re exceptionally petite still, but Ewron guesses they’d look bigger once all the feathers regrow and get in good shape.
“I can’t remember. Someone would take care of them for me—it wasn’t… it wasn't them, but. Gentle, small hands.” Ash’s voice fades out into a soft rumble, until he goes entirely quiet. The kind memory embraces him in something unexpected from trying to remember who he was before the Island. Longing. He’s back there—with someone kind putting his feathers into place—living through the past now. It comes out small when he admits it: “It felt nice.”
“Does it now?”
“Does it… now?” Ash parrots, distant as if he’s floating through a dazed trance. “Yes. It’s nice. You’re doing a good job, Ewron.”
Ewron grins, tail poofing to life behind him; he rises and sits himself down on it so the thing with a mind of its own doesn’t start wagging. “Oh, yeah? I’m just doing it na czuja, you know. Do they work, by the way?”
“They’re too small. I… never tried to see if they’re functional.”
He dips the sponge back in the water, wipes away the crust on the underside of Ash’s wings. Ash shivers in delight.
“I think I’m scared of being disappointed.”
“You shouldn’t hide them. They give you insane aura.”
Ash doesn’t sound too convinced when he replies, “I’ll consider it. But they’re so small.”
“Are they like this naturally? Or is it because of the binding…”
Ash shakes his head, hanging it low.
“They… tried to get my wings under control before they got bigger, but,” he pauses, trying to collect fragments into a cohesive chronological order. The tape stutters, plays again where all he can remember is quartz white and pain—and someone’s screams. Maybe his own. “Then they noticed the wings stopped growing altogether. And I wouldn’t be able to take flight anyway. So they left me alone. I think that hurt more than if they, you know. Clipped them.”
“I’m sorry, Ash.”
“Don’t be, it’s fine,” he insists, despite the goosebumps running up his arms. “The oil glands, um. Don’t work. You can get the lavender oil from my jacket.”
Ewron leans away to examine the progress he’s made thus far. The feathers gleam now, droplets falling down, having darkened with the dampness. When he grabs and uncorks the oil, a familiar drowsy fragrance fills the air, and it carries with the light wind. Ewron spreads it over his fingers, rubs his hands until it layers evenly and gains warmth.
He reaches out, painting a curve down the slant of a wing in front of him. His work speaks volumes, responding in a silky, velvety touch as Ewron strokes the primary feathers between two fingers, coating them in lavender. Sprucing up the smaller feathers up top, sunlight catching on the rounded angles with an azure glow. A warm slide over and down Ash’s right shoulderblade, dipping into the hills of his vertebrae, leaving a trail of a honey-like hue.
Electricity tickles at his fingertips as his senses slowly register the surroundings; besides a flowery fragrance, a smell of ozone and musk—crackling thunder intertwined with sweetness of a summery evening. Ewron, despite himself, salivates. Wishes silently that he could bottle the scent, or drown in it. He shuffles closer, inhaling deeply.
He’s in a good mood, dammit. “So am I your… what’s it called, y'know, when animals form groups?”
“Are you asking,” Ash says slowly, “if you’re my flock?”
“Well, yeah.”
He’s quiet for a while, only the soft rustle of feathers between them. “You’re so weird.”
“I’m not hearing a no.”
He continues unfurling the knots of tension in Ash’s neck. Concentrated unwinds, leading relief down the vertebrae like a stream of water flowing down a stack of rocks. The feathers drink up the oil, truly parched, drying down to a gleam.
No sound reaches Ash anymore, void engulfing him like a cocoon while he relaxes for what feels like the first time since forever. No Regime, no past or present of even future exist, only this bubble gently curated by Ewron's hands.
A soft press between his wings, chaste kiss over the scarring, before the touch is gone like a dream after blinking awake.
"Well, I think I'm done," Ewron says, joy evident in the high pitch.
Wordlessly, Ash stands up on shaky legs. Back still turned to Ewron, he stretches his wings as far as they go to examine them. Folding and unfolding.
A light, floaty rush of relief. His bones feel hollow—he could fly, right here.
"Where's my thanks?" Faux offense.
Ash beams, turning to look back at him with shining eyes. "Thank you, Ewron."
Yup, Ewron thinks, worth it.