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Flins was distracted.
This, in and of itself, was an abnormal occurrence, as he usually found himself quite capable of holding a conversation, but, then again, the Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius seemed to be the exception to many rules he thought to be immutable.
The bronze pieces of Varka’s gauntlets and chest plate shone in the sunlight, layered over black metal that fit him like a second skin and glinted with each gesture he made as they walked through Nasha Town, the knight having caught Flins on one of his rare excursions to buy supplies. The blue of his irises and the blond of the tousled, haphazardly cut hair that swept across his forehead reminded Flins of a shell he’d found on a beach, once, a swirl of beautiful iridescent blue surrounded by waves of pale sand.
He resisted the urge to reach out and touch the teal gemstone set in the middle of his chest plate, feel the shift of that broad torso beneath his gloved hand.
“…Flins. Flins?”
“Hm?” An absent hum of a reply, the Lightkeeper only tangentially registering the call of his name as his gaze followed the clean-shaven line of Varka’s jaw, the pink scar that marred the skin there. Would it be warm, he wondered, beneath the bite of his tiny fangs? The swipe of his tongue?
“I didn’t think I was that bad to listen to.” A soft chuckle drew him from his thoughts, and Flins blinked, finding himself deliberately faced with Varka’s signature crooked grin and the affectionate gleam in his blue eyes. “Am I boring you, Mister Lightkeeper?”
“Ah. My apologies.“ A slightly embarrassed flush colored pale cheeks pink as the Lightkeeper in question straightened his shoulders and folded his gloved hands behind his back. “Could you repeat what you were saying, please?”
Something unfamiliar flashed across Varka’s expression, had his grin fading as he lowered his metal-clad fingers and flexed them at his side.
“Do you want to get a drink? Uh - with me. Sometime.” The Grandmaster rubbed the back of his neck, fumbling over his words and avoiding Flins’s owlish, yellow-eyed gaze in a manner uncharacteristic of such a loud, confident man. “Not, like, as friends, but - uh - romantically. Maybe.” A tiny wince.
Was Varka nervous?
How odd. Surely, if he had asked, he knew Flins desired him similarly?
“Oh.” Another slow blink. “Certainly.”
“Yeah?” Varka perked up like a hopeful puppy, and Flins could practically picture the pricked ears and wagging tail as a grin brightened the other man’s handsome features once more. “Okay. Awesome. We could do this weekend? At The Flagship?”
A tilt of his head in a nod.
“That would be suitable.”
“Okay,” Varka breathed out, relief and infectious excitement sparkling in his eyes. “That’s - great. Cool.”
“Cool,” Flins repeated, with a tiny smile.
~
The Flagship was a packed and busy place, on the weekends. Filled to the brim with patrons laughing and dancing along to the band playing in the corner and drinking like there would be no tomorrow, alcohol-hazed, smoky atmosphere a stark contrast to the frigid evening air outside.
Such a crowd made Flins slightly uncomfortable. He preferred space, the ability to retreat and observe from the relative obscurity of the shadows, and there was none of that within the tavern teeming with people like a swarm of ants across concrete.
A quick scan of the room showed him that Varka had yet to arrive. Expected, of the chronically late, ever-busy knight, even if a small part of Flins had hoped that he could simply tuck himself beneath the shield of a broad, muscular arm and allow the entire night to pass from there.
Alas, he would have to make do without, for now.
Swallowing his apprehension, Flins braced himself and waded into the fray.
Demyan, the bartender, was valiantly fighting to thin the wall of customers along the bar with Leszek, tossing out drinks left and right while Flins attempted to voice his order, only to get a bottle of beer slid in his direction and a shout of, “I’ll leave it on your tab!” for his troubles.
He had not asked for beer. He hated beer. It was bitter, and stale, and hardly counted as alcohol -
Sighing, Flins gave the liquor bottles on the shelf behind the bar a forlorn glance, before making his retreat from the clamoring crowd, dodging elbows and shoulders and legs as he searched for somewhere, anywhere, with a bit of empty space for him to occupy.
Unfortunately, the tavern was, well and truly, packed to the brim. All the tables and booths were full, and the fae had to settle for cramming himself up against a wall, skin prickling with discomfort as he flexed gloved fingers around the neck of his beer bottle and held it closer to his chest, droplets of condensation rolling onto the thick wool of his jacket. A silent part of him prayed that Varka would magically appear each time his frenetic gaze cast over the room, allowing him to press against the larger man’s side and hide there until the place emptied some and he didn’t have to worry about being trapped in humanoid form, unable to escape, for fear of his inhumanity being seen -
Whatever nearby gods existed did not listen to his prayers, and time ticked on without any sign of the Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius.
The longer Flins spent waiting, the more his mind wound itself in tight, anxious circles, clutching onto his unopened beer bottle like a lifeline as the blue flames within the lantern at his hip flickered faster in response to his agitation.
A horrible thought had him swallowing past his dry throat.
What if Varka - ?
No, he wouldn’t simply leave, he would have told him, if he decided not to come, if he - if he changed his mind -
“Hey!”
A man stumbled toward him from the crowd. Shorter, stocky, and clearly drunk, with reddened eyes half-squinted and a scrap-metal ring on his finger that glinted in the light when he pointed it at Flins. “You’re… you’re the guy! The one who killed that Ratnik Colonel!”
Ah.
Flins stiffened a little against the wall.
He had assumed that the knowledge of a shapeshifter taking his form had become widespread, after the battle with the Rächer of Solnari, but apparently it had not.
“No, no, dude -“ One of the man’s friends - also drunk - threw an arm around the first accuser’s shoulders, a half-empty beer bottle in his other hand. “Remember? It was a shapeshifter. One of the Wild Hunt -“ A vague gesture. “Ghosty… things.”
“Pah!” A sneer as his squinted gaze gave Flins a derisive once-over. “I never saw no fuckin’ shapeshifter. Those useless Ratnik are trying to cover up a cold-blooded murder!”
His rising voice started to draw some attention from the patrons around them, eyes swiveling in their direction, chatter faltering, and Flins decided it was time for him to leave before the situation escalated any further. He would apologize to Varka later.
“If you will excuse me,” he tried to say, moving to step around the men in front of him.
So focused was he on planning his hasty escape, unnatural yellow eyes scanning the crowd, that the first blow caught him entirely off-guard.
Pain erupted in a burst of heat across his mouth.
Metallic liquid spilled over his tongue, and he stumbled back, gloved hand rising to cover his lips, just as another hit smashed into his cheekbone and sent that metal ring slicing straight into soft, pale skin.
Terror seized him like the rope of a noose around his neck.
For he knew, the blood he could feel trickling down his cheek was blue, not red.
Desperately attempting to back away, to shield his bloody face, Flins ended up colliding with the wall behind him, silver-tipped waves of indigo hair spilling around him as he buried his head into his hands and clutched at himself whilst willing his body to stay corporeal.
No, no, no, not here, not now they’re going to know, they’re going to see -
The lantern at his hip flared brighter.
He couldn’t dissolve this human form, he couldn’t, they were everywhere and they would see him and the humans would come with torches and bows and spears and they would hunt him until he broke -
The commotion around him dimmed in response to a shout that echoed over their heads.
Heavy footsteps drummed against the metal floor, approaching him, and Flins curled further into the wall, bracing himself for yet another strike.
That strike did not come.
Instead, thick, heavy fabric was slung over his shoulders, fur collar tickling his nose, worn in with an achingly familiar scent that had him shuddering in sheer relief.
Varka.
Large arms wrapped around him, shielding him, and Flins hid his face in that broad chest he had admired so, coming against no armor as a barrier to feeling the expansion of ribs and lungs beneath his cheek with each breath, the warmth of the shifting muscle he clung to, clutching on like it was a lifeline and he was drowning.
“It’s alright, sweetheart, I’ve got you,” Varka murmured. One hand settled over indigo hair and cupped the back of his neck. “Hold onto me while I get us out of here, okay?”
Flins had no current desire to do anything else.
~
After so long spent surrounded by smoke and sweat and alcohol, to feel the cool evening air chill his skin was a wondrous reprieve.
They had waited until they were firmly on the outskirts of town before deciding to look at his injuries, and now, Flins sat perched on a fallen log, still bundled in Varka’s too-large coat while the man in question knelt in front of him, gently holding his face with one calloused hand and pressing a handkerchief to his bleeding, rapidly bruising cheek with the other.
“I am sorry,” Flins voiced aloud.
Varka paused, confusion evident in the gaze that briefly flickered up to meet the yellow eyes observing his.
“For what?” A tiny furrow appeared between his brows. “Archons, Flins, if anything, I should be apologizing to you. I made you wait so long, and if I had only been there earlier -“
“You are a busy man, Grandmaster. I do not fault you for it.” The smile Flins gave him was faint, an attempt at comfort that only seemed to upset Varka further.
“Not too busy for you,” he stressed, setting the handkerchief aside to take both of Flins’s gloved hands in his. “Never too busy for you. I meant to be there with you, I did, and -“ He swallowed, hard, something pleading filling his expression. “I know I don’t deserve it, but will you at least let me tell you why?”
Flins did not require an explanation, but nodded, anyway, and thus, the Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius began his tale.
~
“… And then, after all of that -“
Flins had long given up attempting to restrain his giggles, and Varka was grinning, all affection, even as he let out a sigh of sheer exasperation and continued, “Two of my knights decided it was the perfect time for them to roughhouse, trip over each other, and knock me right into the mud.“
“Oh, my.” Yellow eyes glittered with mirth. “So that is where your armor went.”
“Don’t remind me, I feel naked without it,” the knight groaned. “Anyway, by the time I managed to get myself clean, I was already late and my armor was unsalvageable, so I left it behind, went down to The Flagship, and, well -“ He gave a half-shrug, still smiling up at Flins. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” the fae agreed. He would have forgiven Varka, explanation or not, but something in his chest had calmed, anyway, with the knowledge that he had not been left to wait alone on purpose, that Varka had truly tried his best to honor their agreement. Had still honored it, even whilst affected by things outside his control.
A hesitant pause.
“The night is not yet over,” Flins ventured to say. He looked at Varka, with those unusual yellow eyes, silver-tipped indigo bangs framing his pale, delicate features, marred only by the bruising blue cut on his cheek and the smaller one on his lower lip. “I would not mind accepting the services of a brave and valiant knight to walk me home.”
Varka’s features softened, impossibly so, and he lifted the gloved hand he had been holding all throughout the story to his lips, only lowering eye contact as he left a kiss to the back of it that made its owner shiver.
“Will this one suffice?” he murmured.
~
It started to rain, as they finally arrived at the Final Night Cemetery that Flins called home.
“Oh, no.” Varka barely even blinked at the droplets that started to pepper his blonde hair, his blue eyes alight with playful mischief as a grin grew across his face. “Looks like I can’t walk back in this weather.“
“How unfortunate,” Flins retorted dryly, a smile tugging at his lips. “It seems you must spend the night here.”
“Seems like it,” Varka agreed.
Flins tangled their fingers together, and pulled him along toward the Lighthouse, while the rain continued to pour all around them.