Title: Masquerade
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: Teen maybe
Length: 1400ish words
Content notes: None save canon-typical grief?
Author notes: Ferio/Clef (pre-relationship, post-canon) - Ferio pov to go along with previous ficlets here (reflections of the past) and here (mezzanine). Half of this has been written for probably-years but I'd never finished it off so flung it together to finally post...
Summary: When Clef finally gave in to Ferio's prodding, Ferio hadn't expected him to change so - suddenly.


oOo

When Clef finally gave in to Ferio's prodding, Ferio hadn't expected him to change so - suddenly.

Or right in front of him.

But that was precisely what happened, without much warning beyond Clef taking half his outfit off, a sharp light flaring up about Clef painfully bright and expanding. And - wavering, like it was fighting against some barrier until it burst, light spilling everywhere, and he moved before he consciously registered that the figure in the light was slumping forwards.

Clef grabbed hold of him, and Ferio had enough time to think huh. Didn't expect him to be cute, before Clef was blinking up at him in confusion. Then Clef tried to breath in, and was immediately racked with coughs.

Ferio winced hard and held on tight, trying to keep Clef upright as he shook, until eventually the coughing slacked off and Clef relaxed further against him, his forehead pressed into the side of Ferio's neck.

"Ouch," Clef muttered.

"Are you okay, Clef?" he asked, keeping still. Maybe pushing him to try this had been a bad idea.

"Maybe," was the unconvincing response. Made even less convincing still by the way he started coughing again.

But the second round of coughing slackened swifter than the first, and Clef shifted slightly in his grasp, staying a little more upright.

"I think I can stand up now?" he said, trying to step back and almost falling, making Ferio grab to catch him again.

"Let's try sitting first, okay?" Ferio said, wryly, and helped him into his chair.

"Good idea."

As Ferio let go and stepped back, flopping down to sit on the floor, he was faced with actually looking at Clef again - at him actually looking like an adult, hair curling about his face, eyes very clear, and yes. This might not have been the most well-thought-through thing he'd ever done.

Not that he would have expected to be attracted to a grown-up Clef. And not that it actually made any kind of a difference, logically - he could be attracted to people and do nothing about it. It didn't stop them being friends.

He just... hadn't expected it.

Clef was still trembling, and if he didn't start to get better soon, Ferio was going to have to try calling a healer - and that was probably going to be harder than persuading Clef to grow had been in the first place. As that had taken calling on the memory of both his sister and the Knights, he didn't want to do anything like that again anytime soon - it wasn't easy on either of them. He'd just.... really believed that Clef needed something to snap him out of the hole he was burying himself in, and that this would be startling enough it might manage it.

"I don't suppose you could get me a drink?" Clef asked, and Ferio pushed himself up.

"Sure. Water, or tea?"

"Both?"

There was a kitchenette the other side of the room, and doing something with his hands calmed Ferio down enough that when he came back with the drinks, he wasn't panicking quite so much, and could see that Clef didn't actually look ill, and the shaking was stopping. The drinks seemed to help with that, and Ferio was confident enough by the time the tea was mostly gone to leave and find some clothes for him.

That was easier than he'd thought it might be - he'd planned on raiding the apprentice's wardrobes if Clef turned out to be too far off his own size, but they were close enough in height that his own clothes would work well enough, though Ferio was somewhat broader across the shoulders. For one night, it would be fine, and he at least knew the contents of his own wardrobe - and what he had which was unlikely to be noted as his.

Fortunately, by the time he was back, Clef was steady enough he didn't need help changing, though he did need an arm to walk about the room and get his feet under him. But after a few turns, he was good, and he agreed to put the mask on and head out to the ball.

---

Before they arrived, Ferio wasn't so certain this was going to work - Clef might be a good bit taller, but he wasn’t that much changed. At least, Ferio didn’t think so – but as they headed into the ballroom, a number of people nodded to him in obvious recognition – but Clef got nothing more than a curious head-tilt.

Well. If you weren’t expecting Clef to turn up more than two foot taller than he had been, without any of the normal markers of his status – his hair flipping in all directions and doing a pretty good job of hiding his face… maybe he wasn’t quite so recognisable?

“Is there anywhere in here that’s safe from people bumping into me?” Clef murmured, shoulder pressing against Ferio’s arm as he avoided a collision in the crowded entrance. “I don’t think I’m stable enough for that.”

“The balcony should have some out-of-the-way corners,” Ferio said, and frowned at the amount of people between them and the stairs up. “Here-“ he caught Clef’s hand in his and pulled him along, breaking his way through the crowd of people, Clef close enough behind that he could move along in Ferio’s wake without anyone walking into him.

The crowd was happy, at least – there was a lot of laughter, people recognising each other or failing to, a lot of them using blatantly false names with a giddy level of glee. He just wished that they could do that without being in the way.

Across the crowd, he could see Lantis pause, watching them – Lantis was too tall to be incognito, and unlike the rest of the room, he was watching Clef closely enough that Ferio was pretty certain he knew exactly who Ferio had brought along. But he didn’t start towards them, at least not yet – though Ferio wouldn’t be surprised if he came over by the end of the evening.

But they reached the balcony stairs, and turned slightly to let Clef go up first, on the theory that if Clef slipped on unfamiliarly long legs at least he would fall on Ferio and not down half a flight of steps. Clef’s lips twitched up as he went past Ferio, obviously having the same thought, but they made it up okay and there was a quiet corner they could slip into, watching over the dance floor below.

It was… only a little like a date, and Ferio tried very hard to push that thought aside. He was pretty certain both people needed to be interested in that – in each other – for that particular label to apply. At least Clef (probably wisely) declined any invitation to dance.

…Ending the evening with a starlight walk in the gardens, just the two of them, didn’t precisely help with the ‘date’ feeling, not when Clef seemed entirely amused at the idea people might think he was here as Ferio’s lover, and kept hold of his arm the whole time. It was only sensible – he’d been this height for all of three hours, and the grass wasn’t as even as the floors inside, and had nothing to do with the hint of a shiver which kept trying to run down Ferio’s spine.

He saw Clef back to his door, got a grin and a slightly-bemused thank you for the evening in return, and headed away to his own room with the strong need for some quiet to put those feelings away. Clef was, in all likelihood, about to reset his form to normal, and not at all interested in Ferio for anything more than friendship. Certainly not on the basis of one evening’s confused attraction!

“I think,” Ferio said, to the bare ceiling in his bedroom, “this might all be my own fault.” If he hadn’t talked Clef into changing forms for the night…

Ferio would just have to set it all aside – and before next month, when Clef had promised to actually dance with him at the next ball.

Well.

No matter what happened next, he had to admit he had no real regrets, not after seeing Clef relaxed and smiling for an evening.