Title: Some Other World, Some Other World
Summary: That's where the red haired fairy lived now. Some other world, with Zak. And Pips quite liked it, too. A reverse on an old familiar theme. One-shot.
Warning: Slash, humanization, theories bouncing off the wall, swearing, naughty bits, etc. Also, please pretend that the Ferngully sequel never, ever happened; I know I do.
Dedication: To the insufferable Anon that refuses to leave a better name so I can curse you personally for how much you've been pestering me about writing another Ferngully slash fic. I would like to say with this completion—LEAVE ME THE F*#K ALONE!
-:-
He gave me another destiny, and I knew that no matter what I looked like, I would be alright.
-Brightheart, Warriors: Secrets of the Clans.
It still itched along the scar tissue lining his shoulders where his wings had disappeared much like the reversal of gestation of a butterfly in a cocoon; the same way it had itched since he'd made the request to Crysta to change him to a human so he could make sure that Zak had, indeed, been trying to keep Ferngully safe and hadn't forgotten his promise.
His fingernails dug into the itchy Goldenrod yellow sweater that Zak insisted he wear around the apartment they shared in New York on the edge of the large wood that the blonde, going-on-twenty-two years young man ("Look, I know that you don't like wearing boxers around this place so early in the morning, and it's not even all that important since we don't have company in the morning—if at all—but just wear the sweaters for my peace of mind, fairy. You are not built for New York winters and the next time we visit Crysta, I don't want to have to explain how you got frostbite sitting on the open windowsill eating that disgusting raw wheat cereal,") had bought after bringing Pips back from the Rainforest in the aftermath of finding the (former) fairy wandering around naked near the conservation camp Zak had been a part of after the incident in Ferngully. Pulling his hand away from the itch, he dug small fuzzy-bits from his nails and snorted as they flew up and away from his warm towards the open window that made steam appear once the hot apartment air crossed into early morning daylight.
Paying little mind to the way that whatever was left of his magic acted on the hardwood floor of the apartment (magic from him a sort of color that Zak equated with that Gatorade bubbly-water that Pips found disgusting in aftertaste; each step he took making the wood groan and shutter like storms from the south were weighing down on them; the underside of the floorboards had sprouted roots and dug into the cement that led to the apartment below them so many times that the old tenants had moved out and the landlord thought it was haunted like the old fashioned Russian blood in him suggested to his senses,) Pips stepped over to the overlarge bed that sat in the corner of the bedroom just beside the window and kicked at the snoring lump under the Red Rum covers.
"Gah…wha…what? What d'you want, fairy?"
"It's your day off," Pips stated, referring to Zak's job that had a technical name the redhead couldn't remember, but basically involved taking care of Central Park at a fairly high level capacity that made Zak enough money that Pips didn't need to get a job (hired by people who asked where he came from, why he was so skinny, why many objects tended to do things that they weren't supposed to in close proximity to him—why he sometimes levitated when his mind drifted to things and Zak had to pull him back to earth with a yank to his brown, bio-degradable made material pants) and could just wander around the city most days making the parks outside Zak's jurisdiction come alive again, "Let's go get fresh, warm donuts and hot coffee at that place across the park."
Zak's well calloused hand lightly parted the edge of the covers from the surface of the mattress and when both plopped back down again, followed by a groan, Pips grinned wide and wicked as he turned to get some clothes that were very warm and yet still had that rugged look that Zak seemed to like.
"It snowed a foot last night, the temperature is below forty and you want to go out before the sun's warmed anything?"
"I want to finally use that weird thing in the closet that we haven't touched since you brought it home."
Months after leaving Ferngully and going back to his home of wires and metal, sparse plant life and pet animals that had a tendency to run into traffic and get killed instantly or after five hours of bleeding internally, it came as quite the shock that Magi Loon's sacrifice and small speck of magic in Zak had imparted a conditioned response to noticing the unseen that Zak hadn't noticed before. He told Pips this after they'd settled into their apartment and brought up the fact that if the redhead intended to support and nurture the city parks and other such life force, he'd have to be careful to the little poncho monsters that crept around in shadows or car exhaust.
Those "poncho monsters" had been laughed at by Pips and Zak had been informed that they weren't really dangerous; they were just hobyans and hattocks and goblins. Creatures Pips considered to be like his Beetle Boys, but bigger than squirrels, smaller than Chihuahuas and less inclined to listen to Pips on a whim.
The red umbrella that Zak had shaken free of dust from their closet attracted the crooked eye of the goblin the two often passed on their way to breakfast, it still sitting among the dead leaves underneath a statue of Alice atop her mushroom speaking to the Caterpillar of Wonderland, but Pips spun the umbrella in a circle in hand again, laughter immediate (it was a beautiful thing to the green-green eyes of the fairy, unable to understand how it worked even after Zak had explained it to death) and banishing the thin-legged creeper back into thin air where it would—doubtless—wait for someone to pass by and then trip them so they'd drop their coffee closer to the afternoon.
"If you decide to have those weird powdered donuts with the glaze and sprinkles today," Zak breathed, annoyed and a little embarrassed for unexplained reasons that they were the only people in the park this early and the twenty-dozen aloof, non-verbal beings that weren't quite faery were watching the blonde and redhead's shared umbrella like it was a UFO (each breath unleashed from his lungs, used and heated, turning into clouds that lasted a little longer than a normal human's; there had to be magic laced in him that made this possible, Zak swore and Pips grinned secretly) in the hands of beings that didn't deserve it, "Please just get black coffee. I don't want to haul you down from the ceiling like Peter Pan's shadow again."
Pips crinkled his nose, removing one hand from holding the umbrella to tuck it into Zak's hand that was stuffed deep into his jacket (fleece and fine weave, but not from any dead animal and so Zak was unrepentant when Pips glared at it hanging in their apartment the first week he'd owned it) so his ungloved hand (no need for gloves, not for Pips) could provide added warmth.
"You're the only one I know in this whole city that likes that stuff black. I'll get the Irish Cream blend, if you don't mind."
They stepped along the bridge like it was an arrow facing their destination and when Zak groaned at the thought of Pips antics once his digestive system was filled with more spirits and sugar than any fairy had the right to be, the echo of the sound reverberated on the bridge's underside against built up frost, spiderwebs that still hadn't fallen away after the fall and summer months, and an old robin's nest that still held crumbling blue eggshells that were left over from three chicks that had made it to maturity to flown off towards Mexico when the leaves in Central Park turned fire colors.
A small cluster of pure white snow, ice and slush mixed together floating in the river (not iced over entirely, only at the edges where rabbits and squirrels had left paw prints that both men saw and would see every time they passed along the bridge until the spring greens grew out from hiding in the underground) that looked like twin icebergs rocked with a small wave when an icicle off of the bridge's edge collided into the river from a small burst of magic Pips released while snickering at Zak's face.