Title: Stepping Out
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1200 words
Content notes: None except remembering canon and recovering.
Author notes: Post-canon, Eagle's working on getting better, recovery is a long-haul journey
Summary: “Having the Captain of the Guard carry me around won’t make me feel any less trapped,” Eagle muttered.

oOo

A few months after he’d managed to wake up – after he’d mostly learned to walk again, but before he was able to walk very far – Eagle started to spend a little too much time staring out at Cephiro, itching to get out and explore. All the greenery, the trees and the meadows, so much nature everywhere. He wanted to see it for himself, close enough he actually know what he was seeing.

But currently he could barely make it down three flights of stairs on his own, and no one was going to let him go out hiking.

They added a balcony onto the suite so that he could ‘get some fresh air’, and that only made the curiosity worse.

When Lantis found him staring outside for the yet again, it obviously wasn’t hard to work out how Eagle was feeling. “Would you like to go out, my next day off?” he asked, that wonderfully deep voice carefully nondescript.

“Having the Captain of the Guard carry me around won’t make me feel any less trapped,” Eagle muttered, though he leaned into Lantis as he said it. The rigid form of Lantis’s armour wasn’t as uncomfortable as it might be, but he still appreciated it when a shiver of magic ran between them and it was replaced with layers of fabric instead, Lantis’s off-duty clothing. It made it easier to rest his head in the curve of Lantis’s shoulder and soak up his warmth.

“A captain of the guard,” Lantis corrected, and Eagle grinned.

“My captain of the guard. I still don’t want to be dependent on your not getting called away.”

“Well,” Lantis said, and there was a note in his voice that had Eagle looking up. “I did have an idea about that, if you wouldn’t mind my speaking to the healers?”

“What kind of an idea?” Thoughts of being taught to summon some flying creature flickered across Eagle’s mind.

Lantis looked down at him, amusement in the slight curve of his lips. “You’ll see. If they agree.”

“But-“

“It’ll keep for a surprise later, if not. Now, will you come have dinner?”

Eagle sighed, heavily, but acquiesced and let Lantis lead him to the table, and it wasn’t as though he disliked their quiet evenings. Anything but, in fact.

Still, he couldn’t help wondering.

Lantis’s next day off came three days later – three days in which he didn’t mention the idea again, and Eagle refused to let him see how curious it had made him. Probably Lantis was just going to summon a creature and tell it to obey Eagle for the day, he thought, with a sigh.

He woke up to the sun already fairly high, falling across the room from the half-open curtains, and Lantis setting out clothes for him – more layers than Eagle had been wearing in here.

“Did the Healers agree to your plan, then?” Eagle asked, yawning as he pushed the covers back and headed for the breakfast laid out on the table. “Thank you for this.”

“They agreed, so long as you promise to be sensible and not tire yourself out. I thought breakfast would be a good first step.”

“So, what is the plan?”

“Breakfast first,” Lantis insisted and sat down to eat, smiling but otherwise ignoring all Eagle’s needling.

But after they’d eaten and Lantis had sent the plates away, he stood, and Eagle rose with him, heart beating a little faster at how serious Lantis looked.

“You promise you won’t push yourself?” Lantis asked again, the laughter gone from his voice.

Eagle looked up at him, and nodded slowly. “I promise you. I’ll take care of myself. After all, you’ll worry otherwise, won’t you?”

“Has that ever stopped you before?”

“Yes,” Eagle told him, and for a moment – just a moment – he was back in the FTO, a sharp pain in his shoulder where he’d injured himself to keep conscious, Hikaru telling him that if he was doing this for Lantis he needed to think about what his doing this would do to Lantis.

He’d thought it was a better option than fading away without stopping him. Neither of them had expected Hikaru – expected hope and second chances, and to be standing here on a quiet morning in the warm sunlight.

“Yes,” he said again, stepping in, pushing aside that memory for every frustrated painful moment of the last few months, when Lantis had been his anchor and his reminder that they had time, now. “It has.”

He turned his face up, and thankfully Lantis didn’t make him try to balance on tip-toe; he leaned down to Eagle, kissing him softly and slowly, like this one touch could go on forever and it would be no bad thing.

When they pulled away, Eagle had to hold onto Lantis’s arms for balance, and he couldn’t help smiling. “So what's this surprise of yours?” he asked, and Lantis laughed at his persistence, and held a hand up between them.

A moment later a very familiar keycard appeared in it, and Eagle blinked.

“…You still have it?” he said, staring from the card for his hoverbike to Lantis.

“There isn’t a large market for them here,” Lantis said, voice dry as sand. “But as I only ever borrowed it – I thought you might like it back.” He offered the card over.

Eagle took it, a lump in his throat, and the weight was so familiar in his hand; familiar like nothing else was, here in Cephiro. “Where-“

“Open the curtains,” Lantis said, and Eagle almost tripped as he got himself across the room, throwing the curtains over the balcony fully open – and there it was, waiting for him, gleaming like new and fitting perfectly into the space. Like the balcony had been designed for it. He wouldn’t have to take any stairs – he could take himself anywhere he wanted, with this – it didn’t even take much energy to control, it was almost entirely mechanical, and powered by a battery that called on more chemical sources.

“Zazu gave it a check, the last time they were here, and topped the batteries up,” Lantis said, coming up behind him as Eagle fumbled the door open. “I had to demonstrate it for the Healers, but they’re in agreement that trips under an hour should be fine, and it can live here safely.”

Spinning, Eagle pulled Lantis in and kissed him again, harder this time, grinning against his lips until he had to pull back and breathe. He settled himself on the hoverbike, then turned back, reaching out a hand to Lantis in invitation.

“Want to come for a ride?” he said, laughter bubbling up through the words, and Lantis took his hand, smiling back at him.

“Always,” he said, and leaned in to kiss Eagle again before settling onto the back of the hoverbike, arms wrapping around Eagle’s waist.

There were handles either side of the seat for passengers to use – holding on to someone else wasn’t recommended. But Lantis knew all about the handles, and could surely keep them safe with some magic if they fell off – and nothing in any world was going to make Eagle suggest he moved away.

He turned the bike on, the controls so achingly familiar under his hands, and headed for the clear open sky.