Author's Note: this takes place during episode 23 of the anime ("The Eve of the Feast".)
Fairy Dust.
Gatsu. Again.
Always.
Griffith had no tongue anymore, but for whatever reason, the Midland Crown hadn't deafened his ears or taken his eyes. Perhaps because they had anticipated this-that one day, his Band of the Hawk would finally come for him, and he'd be forced to lie, near-immobile and speechless, in the back of a wagon, able to hear to their cries and watch their cringing shadows through the canvas.
"What are we going to do?" "Griffith is..." "He can't..." "Was all that true? What they said when they almost captured him-that he'd never hold a sword or ride a horse again...?" "It can't be-it's Griffith-" "Don't be an ass, did you SEE him? He's-"
Right here.
I'm right here.
They thought he slept. How could he sleep through this humiliation? Outside, Caska said to everyone, "I need a little time to think..." and slowly the light turned gold, then red, and shadows melted to darkness. Campfires snapped outside in the gloomy silence. She'd give everyone an answer tomorrow, then.
They'd probably leave him to die. That would be the logical course of action. They'd laugh and throw his body down to the grass, food for crows and wolves, because he could do nothing for them anymore.
Or would they? Even now, Griffith had them. Didn't he? They'd come for him on their own. They hadn't abandoned his body to the wolves already, when the enemy had torn off his bandages and held up the wreck of himself for all to see.
In fact, Gatsu himself had come charging up-
A sudden fury lit within him. This was Gatsu's fault. Everything was Gatsu's fault. Go back and back, and ever since that snowy dawn, when Gatsu's sword had crossed Griffith's and changed everything, Gatsu was to blame. If he hadn't've defied Griffith-if he hadn't've broken Griffith's sword-if Griffith had still had his sword on that fateful morning, when the castle guard surrounded him, and Princess Charlotte still lay asleep-
Gatsu was an enemy. Gatsu was a betrayer. Gatsu had damned him to the dungeon and a life of living hell.
Gatsu had come for him.
Griffith's throat tightened in the memory of a laugh. How could two things, so contradictory, be each completely true? Gatsu had come for him, and Gatsu had pulled him into his arms and wept, and Gatsu, screaming, had driven his great sword straight into the belly of Midland's finest torturer in revenge. Gatsu had cleared the way out of the tower for them all with his sword and his love and his rage.
Gatsu. Again. Always.
Griffith exhaled. Outside the wagon, a shadow moved in front of the firelight.
The rear flaps opened. Was Caska back already? How she fussed over him now, covering him in forced cheeriness and pity, while her true devotion had moved on to someone else. Griffith had seen them, the way they touched and spoke-a betrayal atop a betrayal...
The wagon rocked beneath new weight. Not Caska.
Griffith rolled his head to see. Of course. There was only one other who would dare enter here.
Gatsu knelt at the back of the wagon, a bowl of steaming broth in one hand. His expression was as always: dark and stony, as though about to complain or spit. The thought almost made Griffith smile. Perhaps there were some things that never changed.
Gatsu moved inside. He wore no armor, only clothing, but he still smelled of leather. The flaps had closed behind him incompletely, and a long tongue of firelight lapped over him as he crawled further inside, tracing muscles and hollows, sinews and scars. His body moved so close, Griffith could feel the heat of him, like the warmth from a hearth.
Gatsu resettled himself, sitting up, bowl at his side.
Wordlessly, gently, he pulled Griffith into his lap.
"Huh-"
Still silent, Gatsu arranged Griffith like a doll. Or like a child. Strong, calloused hands gently pulled and nudged him, until Griffith sat up too, his back against Gatsu's chest, supported fully in the other man's oak-thick arms.
Gatsu picked up the bowl and brought it to Griffith's lips.
Griffith sipped. Gentle warmth slid down into him even as it wrapped around him. This was all wrong. Griffith's betrayer shouldn't hold him so. Griffith shouldn't be so weak.
Griffith's lips hit air. Gatsu was having trouble tilting the bowl around Griffith's iron mask.
"This damn thing," said Gatsu. When he spoke, the growl vibrated within his chest, against Griffith's back. "Here."
Gatsu set down the bowl and shifted. Griffith marveled at the feeling of his shifting body-had his own ever felt so solid?-and felt another vibration at Gatsu grunted and dug in a pocket for something. A key ring rattled, and before Griffith realized what was happening, iron slid into iron, a mechanism clicked, and for the second time that day (had it only been today?), Gatsu pulled apart Griffith's iron mask.
But now, Gatsu's body didn't clench in horror.
Then again, Gatsu was behind him, this time.
And this time, Gatsu pulled the mask all the way off-both pieces. Griffith gasped at the rawness of the feeling. The mere air against his face was overwhelming. Old scars itched and tingled, and everywhere felt strangely cold.
A bad smell arose.
Gatsu set the pieces of the mask on the wagon floor. "You know how she is," he said. "With you, I mean. I'm not gonna lie: it's pretty bad. And she would'nt've be able to handle it." He cleared his throat. "You better have the rest of the soup first-this might take awhile."
'This'?
Griffith obeyed, sipping slowly until the bowl was empty. With his naked head against Gatsu's chest, he could hear Gatsu's heartbeat, and feel the rise and fall of his breath against his cheek. The sound and motion was soothing, the tidal rhythms of his own private ocean.
Not your ocean, Griffith reminded himself. You don't have him anymore. Not like that.
But he was too tired for anger now, or even shame, and Gatsu's nearness was too intoxicating. He let Gatsu hold him, sigh against his neck, and pull over a clean bowl of water that Caska had left.
Carefully, like a cat bathing a kitten, Gatsu washed Griffith's face.
Heat arose in Griffith's neck. Somehow, this was more embarrassing-and intimate-than anything. Gatsu's careful hands, the cool stroke of the cloth, the soiled brown streaks left on the rag-his so-gentle touch-
"Stop," Griffith tried to say, pulling his head away.
"Does that hurt?"
Griffith made a noise like, "No."
"Then don't be a baby." Gatsu rubbed the cloth across Griffith's brow, which tingled fiercely with the passage. "You look like hell, and we can't have Caska doing everything for you-including helping you shit in a pan for god's sake-and still be too afraid to see what they've done to your face. Cleaning you up will help.
"And anyway... I've got something for the rest."
"Mm?"
"The scars. And the..." Gatsu cleared his throat. "So, that time when I killed those 100 guys in the woods-you remember that. I got hurt pretty bad. But I've never showed you any scars from that, have I?
"Well, after it happened, Caska gave me a bag of some kind of miracle potion. Fairy dust, is what she says it is. I don't know about that, but I put that stuff on, and you can't ever even tell I got hit. It heals old scars, too, though you have to put it on a few extra times for that. To be honest-" Gatsu cut himself off, glanced away, and said, "to be honest, if we keep using enough of it, I think we can grow your tongue back. And fix your, you know." Dripping cloth still in his hand, Gatsu pointed at the slashed tendons behind Griffith's heels. "The year I was gone, the guy I stayed with had an accident and got a fingertip cut off. We used the fairy dust and the damn thing grew right back. I'm not even kidding.
"The only thing is, I don't know how much of this we'd need to heal you that far. I only go this one pouch, and Caska said it came from Judeau, who got it from some circus troupe or I don't even know. So there's no way to get any more, once we run out.
"But we can try with what we have."
Griffith remained silent as Gatsu bathed him and washed and combed his hair. (A fresh sadness here: whole clumps came out when Gatsu pulled the comb, like dead weeds from parched ground. "It'll grow back," said Gatsu. "Either once you've been better fed for awhile or once we rub this fairy dust into your head-you let me know which one you wanna try first.") When Gatsu was through, he pulled a pouch from another pocket-"This is the fairy dust, and trust me, it feels better than it smells-" and applied the salve, in gentle dabbles, to Griffith's face.
The pain and itching faded. Griffith's head felt cool and clean, and it shocked him to remember what that was, and it shocked him again to know that he had genuinely forgotten.
A third shock, to feel Gatsu's lips touch his still-tingling scalp. "There. That should feel better."
A drop of something warm landed there, like a tear.
"Gatsu?" Griffith tried to say.
A strong finger parted Griffith's lips. Gatsu stroked, just barely, the stump that the finest torturer in Midland had left within him.
Warm tingling spread in its wake.
"Your tongue," Gatsu whispered. "It'll get it back for you."
Griffith made a small sound. He concentrated on not swallowing, on letting the fairy dust work its abstruse magic, but his eyes pinched and his throat felt tighter and tighter. How was it that Griffith felt next to nothing when the torturer had slid skewers through his thighs, but Gatsu's gentle finger in his mouth made him want to break?
"I think that's enough for now," Gatsu whispered. He pulled his finger out. Another drop of warmth met Griffith's scalp. "We'll... I'll do it again later. We really might need a lot more than we have." The drops fell like rain, now. "What do you want more-your tendons or your tongue?"
"Don't," Griffith tried to say.
"I'll try," said Gatsu. He set aside the fairy dust and wrapped his arms around Griffith, the ferocious, protective way that a wronged man clings to what is his. "I'll help you."
His wet face pressed down against Griffith's scalp. "I'm sorry. I came too late."
Griffith's own tears fell. All that carefully-placed fairy dust on the wreck of his face would get washed away.
No, thought Griffith. You didn't come too late at all.
You left too soon.