Title: Everything
Rating: R
Spoilers: Ceres arc.
Summary: Fai wants to be everything to Ashura.

He soon forgot about the life he'd left behind in Valeria, the shadowy forms of parents he'd barely known fading to mere vague outlines. He needed none of them. Ashura was his father, provider, savior; his teacher, mentor, and king. He could not forget about Fai, could never stop loving him… but that love was too tangled with grief and guilt and regret, a promise for a distant day. His love for Ashura was here, and now, and as boundless as the sky above the mountains. Ashura was his everything.

He tried hard to be a good son. He worked hard to be a good pupil, studying his lessons of grammar and mathematics and magic until his eyes burned holes in his head late at night and he woke up to find himself in his bed, Ashura having carried him there. As he grew older, he strove to be a powerful and responsible court magician, a good public servant, steward, advisor. He protected and nurtured the people of Ceres because they were Ashura's people, and he wanted them all to understand what a good king Ashura was and how lucky they were to have him.

Even as a child, he was as brilliant and powerful as most adults; but adulthood itself came slowly on him. He never knew whether it was the preserving effect of his magical studies, or the long starvation in the cold valley, or both; but he was in his twenties before his body started to develop as a man's. When it finally did, it opened new doors of understanding in his mind. Among them, watching Ashura brood sometimes in his favorite chair, watching out the window of his chambers on the sterile, barren slopes of the mountain below… he thought he finally understood. Ashura had no wife, nor favorites; Ashura must be lonely for companionship.

He never knew whether there was one certain person that Ashura had lost, or never gained, and yearned for; he was too terrified to ask, to find out that there was someone Ashura might love more than him. Instead, he determined that he would grow up faster, study hard as he always had and learn to be Ashura's lover, too. If there was no other lover, then he would take the role; if there was another, he would surpass and replace them.

He wanted to be Ashura's everything, too.

Because if he was everything to Ashura, then Ashura would never leave him.

It wasn't too difficult to find the books that he needed; Ashura's library was extensive and contained many subjects besides magic. He suffered a brief dilemma when he realized that he was probably the wrong gender; but as his reading continued, he dismissed the problem as minor. It seemed that technique and attitude counted for far more, in this, than physical body, and he would have no lack of those things.

Finding some way to practice in person what he'd studied in books was harder. He made use of the mirror in his chamber, standing naked in front of the fire and touching himself in different places, imagining that it was Ashura's body he touched. It was difficult to concentrate when he kept imagining Ashura's hands on his own body instead; but at least that gave him plenty of chances to experiment with arousal, as well.

Ashura's would be different than his own, he thought, the books told him that everyone was a little different. And Ashura was older, stronger, experienced and mature. He must have had lovers before Fai's time, and again he had to suppress a rush of jealousy at the thought of the faceless, other lovers.

He would make Ashura forget anyone else. He promised himself that.

He waited in Ashura's bedchamber for him when he returned from a tour of duty in the kingdom; he'd half fallen into a doze, sitting atop the counterpane of Ashura's bed, but woke up when he heard the sound of the door close. He'd dressed carefully for this; in Ceres it was too cold to wear filmy, light clothes, but he'd chosen a long sweeping cloak of the softest velvet, patterned in silver and brilliant blue that would bring out his eyes, make his hair gleam. Underneath the robe, he wore nothing at all. He made a striking image, he hoped, one that would stir Ashura's long loneliness and hunger.

Ashura strode forward into his bedroom, but then stopped abruptly when he saw Fai waiting there. He stared for a long moment, shock and confusion and fascination chasing across his face, before he cleared his throat and said "Fai? What are you doing in here at this hour. Did you want something from me?"

"I want to sleep with you tonight," Fai said, keeping his voice low, seductive.

Ashura paused; a brief appalled look crossed his face, then his expression smoothed. "Sleep with me? Fai, you're no longer a child, to crawl into bed with me at night because you've had a bad dream." He forced a little laugh.

"No. I'm not a child anymore." Fai pushed himself up from the coverlets, feeling the fur-trimmed edges of the robe whisper across his bare thighs. "I'm not your child. I'm a grown man, my king… and I am your servant to command."

"Fai, what are you -" Ashura started, but broke off as Fai stood, letting the robe fall open around his bare body. He stepped quickly forward, laying his hands on Ashura's shoulder and leaning forward against him.

"I want to serve you," Fai whispered, and tilted his head up to kiss Ashura's mouth lightly. Ashura's head jerked back slightly, and Fai leaned forward to follow him, flickering his tongue oh so teasingly over Ashura's lips. "I want to please you. Please, my lord, take what you will of me…"

He reached up, hands moving towards the fastenings of Ashura's elaborate tunic. Ashura seized his wrists in one hand, halting his movement; and with his other, grabbed the edge of Fai's robe and pulled it over his chest. Fai stumbled to a halt, staring at Ashura in perplexity, his fingers curling uselessly in empty air. Why wasn't this working? "Your Majesty -"

"No. No, you don't understand, Fai; you have gotten the wrong idea somehow," Ashura said firmly, his voice agitated. "You are like a son to me, the son of my heart that I never had. We cannot do this - it would be foul."

Foul. It was just one word, but it struck Fai like a body blow, in an instant turning all his warmth and ardor cold. Foul. What better word to describe him, all of him? No wonder Ashura didn't want him; nobody would.

Ashura saw the change in Fai's expression, because he released Fai's wrists, then pulled him forward into a shallow, chaste embrace. "Oh, no," he said gently. "Don't misunderstand. Fai, you are beautiful and special. What you are offering is a precious gift, and it will be a lucky person that you someday share it with. But it cannot be me."

"It's mine to offer where I will!" Fai challenged, arching his neck defiantly. He pulled sharply against Ashura's hold and freed his wrists, staggering back a step and crossing his arms over his torso tightly. "Your Majesty, please!"

"But it's not mine to take," Ashura said implacably. "Nor do I wish it."

Fai stood bereft and cold, bewildered by this soft rejection. What had he done wrong? Why didn't Ashura want him? He felt suddenly humiliated and ashamed, standing half-naked and wanton in his ruler's bedroom where he hadn't been invited. "S - your majesty, I'm sor -" he stuttered out, unexpected tears clogging his throat and blurring his eyes. "I won't do it again, I promise."

"I'm not angry with you, Fai," Ashura said wearily. He turned away, and seated himself on his favorite chair, drawing up his robe about him. His expression was inward and bleak, exactly the loneliness that Fai had so hoped to chase away, but instead only deepened. "Don't think for a minute that I cherish you any less than I did before. But this is one bond I cannot forge with you, because it is one that you would never be able to break with me. I don't want to make this any harder on you than it has to be, inevitably."

Ashura's cryptic statement about bonds and inevitability meant nothing to Fai. He bowed his head and wrapped the robe tightly about his nakedness, tugging the fur-fringed hood up over his head to try to hide his eyes. "I just wanted to… I should go, I'm sorry I…"

"Fai," Ashura said gently. "Come here."

Despite his humiliation, Fai couldn't help but react to that voice; he crept forward to kneel at Ashura's feet, and laid his head across his thighs, creeping into his lap like a wounded animal, like he hadn't since he was a small child. Ashura stroked his hair as the tears fell, like he had back then, and although Fai still didn't understand why, at least he understood that Ashura still loved him.

Nothing had changed between them; everything was to be as it had been before. Fai didn't understand why, then, he felt like he had just lost everything.

~end.