Log: Complete

[rouge-knight.livejournal.com]

When; Back-logged March 12th, late night
Rating; PG
Characters; Kyle rouge_knight & Frey dawn_shower
Summary; After Frey finally gets his heart back, the two bond over hair like girls and Kyle gets to be pampered just the little bit. Also, the two TALK!

Log;
It was like a flood. He didn’t know what it’d be like to be caught up in a vicious current but he imagined this was what it might’ve felt like. It hurt. Too feel everything all over again even if he’d only lost his heart for a few days. Still Frey embraced it because there was nothing he detested about this pain, the kind that came from reliving his mother’s declining mind, her and his father’s death, the whole ordeal of the civil war. His heart was back and beating in his chest and he was glad for it.

Gradually that rush subsided to the gentle, steady flow of the Feitas and Kyle was still beside him, holding onto him as Frey returned to himself. He really owed the older man so much. He had no means to repay the debt but the small smile, a real smile, that he’d managed to turn to the blonde was a beginning.

He had a lot to ask, a lot to say, a lot of people to thank and more than a few to meet but for now Frey just sat on the couch in the living room he shared with Kyle, right hand held over his heart. The shaking had stopped finally. Tomorrow, tomorrow he could begin to make it up to everyone that had worried. But before all of them, above all of them, Kyle.

“Kyle?” he called for the blonde softly. A part of him wondered what he must have sounded like while heartless and how Kyle had to bear with it.

To hear that voice. That change in the tone and the fact that he was aware of causing that change in tone, was music to Kyle’s ears. Even if it was only his name, Kyle was glad to hear it because it meant that Frey was back to normal. That he wasn’t some lifeless doll anymore. That he could FEEL.

Resting his head on the back of the couch, Kyle didn’t even bother to lift his head at the call though. He was so tired, but so relieved that he felt pretty much boneless and that moving might have been a greater effort than he could muster up at the moment.

“Yeah?” he answered, a soft smile still dancing beneath his lips. He wanted to smile, but if he smiled anymore, his cheeks were going to start to ache. Didn’t mean that they didn’t want to.

How to start, where to begin, Frey had no idea. But with his heart back he didn’t have to rely on his mind for everything. He reached out for Kyle, resting his hand on the back of Kyle’s wrist. Maybe it was because he’d just gotten his heart back recently but he thought he could feel it flutter just a little as if each pulse was magnified in his mind, able to feel that much more clearly. “Thank you,” the words didn’t begin to explain the hugeness of what Frey felt but maybe everything else would, the way his fingers twitched just a little, the uncertain smile that touched his lips, “thank you…”

It had been above and beyond duty and Frey knew that. Kyle had been with him every hour of the day, stayed with him even in sleep, he’d made Frey eat, made Frey dress, he’d spend hours taking care of Frey’s hair. No one had ever done that, Frey would have never let someone do that but he wasn’t embarrassed, only thankful that he had a friend who would go through so much for him.

He reached up and fingered a strand of mussed blonde hair. “I…” he gave up on the rest of the sentence and just smiled. At the very least he could return the favour.

Oh his cheeks were going to hurt now. Kyle was fairly sure of it with that touch on his wrist. There would be no way that he could possibly keep from smiling with the feel of Frey’s warm touch, much cooler than it had been when the Dawn rune had been sealed, but still warm because he was alive and feeling and that his heart was beating. And because his heart was beating in his chest, things could go back to the way they had been. Well… Maybe not exactly the same because of things had changed slightly between them, though Kyle wasn’t sure how much of that Frey remembered, but things would go back to that degree of comfort and ease they had started with.

Turning his head to face Frey, Kyle smiled warmly and he could feel his smile stretch wider when the prince tucked back one of the random strands of hairs that had managed to slip loose and free from the rest. Giving in to the urge at the sweet, sincere smile on Frey’s face, Kyle found the energy to move. Quickly and suddenly, the blonde leaned over and enveloped Frey in a tight hug.

“I’m just glad to have you back Frey,” Kyle stated, using the prince’s actual name and giving him a squeeze. He’d fallen a bit into the habit when trying to call Frey’s personality back out somehow, so he didn’t really pay attention to what he would call him. He simply went with whatever felt natural.

It was so strange to hear Kyle call him by name even though he knew he must have heard it many times. But this was the first time that he could appreciate it really. True, he let everyone call him by name in the City but back home it had been something limited almost completely to family. Kyle wasn’t family but it sounded right coming from him, more so than “Prince.” He returned the hug, arms wrapping around the older man, letting his cheek rest against Kyle’s shoulder. “I’m glad to be back too,” to think that not so long ago if he’d received this embrace it’d mean nothing to him.

“Let me return the favour? I promise I won’t put your hair into pigtails,” he teased gently, fingers stroking at the blonde hair.

Laughing lightly, Kyle couldn’t help but grin at the gentle teasing. Even more than hearing Frey use his name, the teasing sounded just so right. Even if he had been caught in the act of playing around with Frey’s hair, he didn’t mind. Sides, at least he always had the mental picture to remember it by. It hadn’t looked quite right, but Kyle wouldn’t deny that the small prank had been cute.

Though a part of Kyle wanted to keep hugging Frey, he didn’t mind letting go all that much either. It wasn’t like he or Frey was planning on going anywhere anytime soon. They were just enjoying the time to relax and get things right again. “You want to brush my hair now?” Kyle checked, pulling back, but not before giving one last squeeze, and raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. You don’t think pigtails would look cute on me?” he teased back.

“Well it looks like a little bird decided to nest in it,” Frey teased back, brushing a few strands that fell against Kyle’s forehead. It wasn’t that bad but it was tousled and mussed. He pulled his hand back a little awkwardly, it was like how he would tease Lym but…not. Very not. “You’d look like one of the pretty girls you would flirt with I’m sure…from the back anyways.”

Frey folded his legs underneath him so that he was sitting on his knees. He was still smiling though maybe it was a bit strange for a moment to meet Kyle’s gaze and maybe a very faint flush managed to brush across his cheeks even if Kyle hadn’t said anything to deserve that reaction this time unlike in the past. “Face away from me?” he requested softly. Some things were easier to say without having to look him in the face. Especially with Kyle, it was hard to be serious with him sometimes, the blonde inevitably drawing out a grin or a laugh instead of what Frey intended.

“Aww. You think I’m pretty?” Kyle went on, twisting around Frey’s words with a grin. Rather than be embarrassed about the slightly more intimate gesture, the blonde was more apt to make it into a joke. He wasn’t embarrassed easily and even when he was, there wasn’t much that Kyle couldn’t find a little humor in. Even if that humor was in himself. Bating his eyelashes exaggeratedly like some cheesy heroine in a badly written romance novel, Kyle pretended to blush and wink. “I’m flattered that you think so Frey, dar~ling.”

Although he was pretending, Kyle would admit to himself that he was pleased knowing, at least somewhat that Frey found him attractive. The whole issue with the Dawn rune had finally forced him to deal with his feelings for the eldest son that he’d been friends with for so long. He wouldn’t exactly call it love, but it was a bit more than simply having platonic feelings of friendship. The blonde ex-knight however, would keep his realizations and feelings to himself until Frey spoke up first. This was a bit more serious than his other casual flings had before, hence the desire to keep quiet until Frey brought it up first. Though, if it was never brought up, Kyle could content himself with staying friends.

Turning around so that he had one leg resting casually on the couch, with the other dangling off the side, Kyle complied with Frey’s wishes. His back was straight and with very little slouching due to the training he went through to fall into sword stances without a thought. Shifting a little in his seat, Kyle settled down comfortably in his new position and waited to see what Frey would do first.

Frey gathered the thick hair in his hands, pulling it so that it all fell straight down Kyle’s back. He took a brush that had been resting on the coffee table and carefully worked through the larger tangles. Kyle’s hair was heavier than his, straight and sleek, the strands not as fine and soft as his own but it was smooth. Or at least it usually was. Frey was careful not to tug hard on any of the tangles, patiently easing them loose.

“I’m sorry,” it would have been abrupt if his voice hadn’t said it so softly. Frey wasn’t meek but it was a difficult apology for him. Difficult because he’d done the exact same thing that so often infuriated him. “I knew it would hurt people if I gave my heart away but I did anyways.” Like when Lyon jumped in front of him, when Sialeeds decided that she needed to protect him and Lym from the corrupt nobles, like when Kyle himself had stupidly thrown himself on top of him to protect him from Jowy’s rune.

He combed his fingers through the waterfall of blonde hair, an idle motion that was more to soothe himself than anything else. “I was scared.” So scared of the possibility of a replay of Lordlake, so scared of the blinding light he remembered from his mother’s bouts of insanity. It had been more that fear than consideration for the safety of others that had driven him to submit to the rune, shameful as it was to admit.

“If you’re sorry, then just do stuff that’s going to make up for it,” Kyle stated plainly. He understood why Frey had done what he’d did, since he himself had done something of a similar nature, but it didn’t mean he was as accepting of it because while it was similar, it wasn’t the same. Physical wounds would heal with enough time, but to give away your heart? The thing that made you who you were and not just some lifeless doll that only had some traits that were the same, but wasn’t. He wasn’t about to hold a grudge over it, but he wasn’t sure if he could accept a simple apology to make everything better once more.

But, well, he couldn’t be mad at him either. Not after hearing something like that. Kyle couldn’t fault a person for being scared. And he especially couldn’t fault Frey. Not after what he’d gone through when it came to protecting the people he cared for. Or even just protecting people in general. Finding fault with that aspect of Frey’s nature would be like finding fault with something as uncontrollable as his hair color.

Relaxing into the repetitious and familiar motions of the brushing out of his hair, which sometimes took a while if it was a particularly bad day and there were a lot of tangles, Kyle sighed and resisted the urge to just lean back and meet Frey’s gaze head on. He had an easier time talking to people when they would meet his eyes, but he understood when the person he was talking to was more comfortable with not doing so. “It’s cool. You don’t have to apologize for being afraid. In a place like this, it’s understandable.”

“I know. And I plan to make up for it. You even have my royal permission to juice it while it lasts. Within reason of course,” Frey joked lightly as he worked through the thick mass of hair. Kyle had a lot of hair, Frey didn’t mind though. It wasn’t any more difficult than working through Lym’s when she’d tumbled through a few bushes. And it was soothing to his nerves which had been adequately frayed in the last little while.

“I dreamt a lot while my heart was gone.” He wasn’t sure if he should bring it up, the Dawn Rune’s personality had been warped. Horribly so but he didn’t fault it. “Of Lym and everyone…they’re doing well. Of course she complains once in a while, asking when I’ll be back. But she’s—everyone…they’re doing well. It couldn’t comfort me or even make me feel anything at the time but now I’m glad. The Twilight Rune and the Sun Rune are in the main palace and when I return the Dawn Rune will rest there too. Until then I will continue to bear it.” He wasn’t sure he could ask Jeane to remove and seal it even if she could he wouldn’t. The rune had chosen him and despite the twist of events that didn’t change that. He would bear it proudly as he had in the past until he returned home. He’d make it up to it just like he would everyone else.

“I have a lot of people to make it up to,” Frey commented lightly as he twisted the ends of Kyle’s hair gently before tying it so that it wouldn’t mess up during sleep. “So I can’t go back yet but it’ll be okay.” He pressed his cheek against Kyle’s shoulder, leaning against him casually, “Thank you, for being here with me.” It went without question that Kyle would stay; he’d owe the older man for a long time to come. “I’m done!”

“You might want to be careful with that,” Kyle teased good-naturedly. Not that he’d actually ever take advantage of something like that, Tease as he might, the blonde was more interested in seeing what Frey might do on his own rather than seeing or having him do things that Kyle might either suggest or ask for. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t joke about something like that. “Never know what I’ll ask you to do. And really. Who’s to say what’s reasonable and what’s not? But since you’ll probably smack me if I get carried away, and as much as I love your love taps, Prince, I’ll behave”

Kyle was silent as Frey began talking about what the Dawn Rune had shown him while he was under that rune-induced nap. It brought back a small pang of homesickness hearing about how everyone was doing, but at the same time, he was still glad to hear it. He was glad to hear that everyone was doing well after finally achieving the ending they’d all worked so hard to get to, and that they had noticed that, at least Frey was missing. He’d been planning on turning in his retirement once things were settled anyways. It was kind of forced now, but didn’t really change what might have happened had neither one of them been brought to this strange city. “I’m glad to hear that everyone’s doing well back home,” Kyle said softly, feeling a soft smile work its way onto his face and feeling the mixture of the two emotions. “And I’m sure once we get back home, there’ll be more than enough to keep you busy without needing the Dawn Rune.”

Relaxing his back to make for a slightly more comfortable rest, Kyle smiled to himself at the feel of Frey leaning up against him. He knew that Frey wasn’t shy against contact with other people, how could you be with a dad like Ferid, who liked putting people in headlocks, Kyle himself being a victim of his fair share as well. But that he didn’t do it often since there was the line between royalty and other people, unspoken though it might be. “Hey. If you’ve got your mind set on it, I’m sure you’ll make it up to everyone in no time.”

Kyle was warm. For the first time in a while Frey could feel the chill, it wasn’t bad though, just made him more reluctant to pull away. Frey gave a small laugh at Kyle’s response, there was the faint temptation to smack him right now but he refrained. After all he did say he was going to make it up to them just now. “Taking advantage of it already, I see.” He sat up, pulling away from the comfortable warmth finally.

“Yeah, I’ll have to. Or else Lym will wreck the palace.” Not too much of an exaggeration, Lym could truly be a terrifying force.

He would have toyed with Kyle’s hair if not for the fact that he’d tied it already. Frey had no reason to be nervous but he was, there was something hanging between them in the air he felt like. Or maybe he was tired. It sounded like a much simpler solution even if he couldn’t be too sure. But at the very least it would stop his hands from wandering. He slid off the couch, setting the brush back on the coffee table. He stretched to relieve the stiffness from his body, thankful to be able to comprehend the sensation on something beyond an instinctive level.

He slipped the hair tie from the end of his braid, letting the silver strands unravel. It wasn’t how Frey usually did things, he waited until he was by the bed, undoing his hair and setting the hair clasp on the bedside table there. But…it had been done like this for him for the last few nights, hadn’t it? “Let’s get some sleep, it’s been tiring for you lately hasn’t it?” he suggested gently.

“Can you blame me?” Kyle asked cheekily, tilting his head back and grinning. Eventually, he was going to get so smacked for all of this, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t tease still. He’d just have to enjoy it while he could. And then just bear the smacks when he’d used up his good karma.

“The palace, the docks, half the country, all of the Dragon Horses for sure,” Kyle went on, counting off each thing he’d mention with a tick of his fingers. They loved their Queen, of course, but it was no secret that she’d let nothing get in her way on her quest to get her brother back. They’d fought a war over that point as proof. “Not to mention everybody’s eardrums from Sol-Falena to Lelcar.”

Reaching out to finger-brush the ends of Frey’s silvery-gray hair, a trait he’d inherited from his mother that Kyle would admit, if asked and he had been before, to being very attracted to. The color was just so different and it caught all kinds of colors and light in the sun. Sialeeds had often teased him about his protest over the fact that she had dyed her hair. He sort of understood why she’d done it, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t thought that she’d look just as beautiful with her natural color as with the blonde. Of course, hair color didn’t really matter all that much, but it was a nice thing to look at sometimes. Especially when it was as nice to look at as Sialeeds and Frey’s were.

Taking a bit of the end, Kyle raised the tips to his lips to place a small kiss on the hairs, smiling as he did so. So maybe it was a little out of content and forward of him to do so, but it had just really felt like the thing to do right then. A little bit of remaining knightly behavior as it were. “Nothing too horribly so, but I think I’ll be sleeping better than I have been fore a while now that things are fixed,” he said, still holding up the locks to his lips with a smile.

There was no faint tug at his scalp, Kyle’s grip was careful and gentle as he lifted the strands of spun silver hair to his lips. He shouldn’t have been able to feel anything from that but Frey could swear he did. He froze for a moment, not sure what to do, as if it’d be wrong to pull away but it was awkward to just stand there face obviously flushed. Curse his pale skin, it wouldn’t let him hide the accusing blush. Kyle wasn’t even touching him but it seemed like such an oddly intimate gesture. Like something between…well he could imagine his father doing the same to his mother.

“Still…” Frey turned away, not abruptly as if afraid he’d accidentally reject whatever it was, letting his hair slip out of Kyle’s grasp as he made his way to bed. He wasn’t really sleepy but there was a lot on his mind. He knew when he needed to make himself stop and rest. And whatever Kyle said he couldn’t imagine that taking care of an emotionless doll, even if it was only a few days, could have been anything but draining.

Wrong room, Frey took a pregnant pause as he noticed that he’d automatically walked into Kyle’s room. He knew that Kyle had been sleeping with him the last few nights when he’d been without his heart. After the shard had been removed he was a bit prone to shivers, it hadn’t bothered him, nothing had bothered him but still Kyle would urge him into bed and keep him warm at night when Frey didn’t know well enough to bundle up in blankets on his own. “I…uh…” he rubbed faintly at his forearm, an uncharacteristic kind of nervous gesture. So strange for him to be like this but things had become warped it seems in the time that he hadn’t been fully present. “Sorry,” he apologized with a slight laugh and a shrug that was more anxious than casual.

“Hey, if I say it wasn’t, than it wasn’t, alright?” Kyle stated, standing up and stretching out a little as well. Truthfully, it had been rather tiring taking care of Frey while he was emotionless, and not just physically. It really had been hard to have to talk and order around his friend just to keep him safe when he didn’t know better to do it himself. And apparently the well-bred manners that he’d been taught all his life were ingrained into his brain. It would have made his parents happy to know that, but it had hurt to hear him apologizing for things he didn’t understand. But he wouldn’t ever tell Frey this. There wasn’t a reason to.

Walking up behind him, Kyle just put a hand on Frey’s shoulder and kept walking, pushing the other teen forward slightly. “Be sorry later. After we’ve had some sleep,” Kyle stated, acting if there was nothing unusual about the situation at all. Under different circumstances, it would be, but Kyle had grown just as used to having Frey in bed with him as Frey subconsciously was. More than anything else, it brought with it a sort of comfort having someone else to hold or share the warmth beneath the blankets with. Even if the only thing that did happen was sleeping.

Frey didn’t protest as Kyle ushered him the rest of the way in. There wasn’t any real reason to protest and sliding under the covers was natural and easy as if he had the bed to himself even if moments later he felt Kyle join him. The bed was big enough if they wanted to keep some distance between them but they didn’t. It was close enough that he could feel the body heat radiating from the blonde and Frey was more inclined to inch closer rather than pull away. Not just because it soothed occasional shivers that would slither through him, it wasn’t uncomfortable to be here like this. And after a moment he did inch closer, almost pressed against Kyle’s chest with his body slightly curled.

It…wasn’t something he hadn’t already done now and evidently Kyle didn’t mind.
But it did make him rethink those thoughts, how he wondered about… And rethink those things he’d read in his journal when the Dawn Rune had spoken to others. To ask might make things awkward but there was no blessing in ignorance. To not ask would be to willfully ignore something…whatever it was that might have been there. Frey didn’t think it was one of those things better left unsaid. And it was Kyle, he could ask. He could.

“Kyle… those things you said, what did you mean?” His voice was quiet, it was late, it was dark, and it was warm, to be loud almost seemed like it’d be blasphemous.

And there was the hundred million potch question that Kyle would have rather avoided until later, whenever later might have been. He could have feigned ignorance and tried to have the subject dropped, or he could have just given a sort of vague answer that really didn’t answer anything. Both of those tactics he was quite good with, as previous experiences had shown since he had yet to get in any real trouble with all the women he flirted with. With the men, sure, but never with any of the women.

But after talking with the Dawn Rune, having time to think, and having to deal with someone who looked was his friend, but wasn’t in the same sense, Kyle really felt that it wouldn’t be right if he employed any of his usual tactics. If nothing else, Frey deserved the honest truth and he had finally decided to be honest with himself. If Frey asked, he wouldn’t tell him anything but the truth, nothing else.

Letting out a sigh, Kyle decided that if he was going to admit things, he might as well go all the way with it. Reaching out to snag and pull Frey the rest of the way so that he was pretty much cuddling him, Kyle spoke, voice soft and serious, but still gentle and light. “This is what I meant. I meant that I don’t mind being friends, but, on my part, I think of you a lot more than just my friend. I meant that I want to hold you and help take care of you and laugh with you, and I’ll admit to wanting to kiss you as well, but that’s because you’re special to me. Not because I was a knight, not because you’re my prince, but because you’re you and that’s all that I need to know.” Whatever happened, he would be okay with it and whatever Frey made of him, he’d be okay with that as well. They had too much history for him to worry too much over what would happen in the future.

A faint quiver shook Frey’s shoulders, it wasn’t the cold though. He didn’t resist when Kyle pulled him closer, listening silently as Kyle explained his…feelings. A lot more than just a friend, “Of course,” he wanted to say but he held his tongue. He knew that, he really did but the way Kyle described it he wasn’t sure he understood. Frey could say without a doubt that Kyle was more than “just” a friend, far more. He’d known the blonde most of his life, as long as he’d known Lyon. Beyond that…a lot more, there was a lot more between them than simple friends. Frey knew that, he just wasn’t sure about the other things that Kyle talked about. To laugh, to hold, and to just care for each other they already did that, didn’t they?

He did know that he didn’t want to pull away now. Squirming slightly Frey wrapped his arms around Kyle too, letting his cheek press against Kyle’s neck, skin to skin. It was odd but not uncomfortable. Actually quite comfortably, Kyle was pleasantly warm and he was close enough to feel each breath the man took. Closer and he might have felt his pulse. It was a reversal, usually Frey was the one in Kyle’s position, the one holding someone smaller, tucking them under his chin.

Enough time had passed that either of them could have fallen asleep. That is if not for what had just been spoken. Frey shifted again, hugging a little closer and relaxing, trying it out maybe. He didn’t know and he doubted he would at least for the night but he felt he owed Kyle something. To say something in reply to that honest answer, “Thank you, for telling me that. I think…I need some time to digest that, to try to understand what you mean.”