Title: Difference in Green
Summary: Sometimes the difference in teaching and learning is just a matter of degree. Pips/Zak slash.
Disclaimer: I make no profit from writing this. The characters and the movie they belong to are not any creation, nor property therein of mine.
Warning: There is slash, there is teasing fluff, there is the giant umbrella of thought that Ferngully 2 never happened.
Dedication: To RXMFanReaderFics, who requested this. Me, I didn't really like writing it as there is only so much slash you can make between two guys that are really similar in personality, but hey, I've filled my good deed quota before I have to get onto another requested fic that I really don't want to write, but promised I would.

-:-
I got to thinking about relationships and partial lobotomies: two seemingly different ideas that might just be perfect together—like chocolate and peanut butter.
-Sex and the City.

It was actually more comfortable to be around the human (former, really; he had wings now, and never mind that even after months he didn't quite know how to use them) once he'd settled into being the same size of the fairies and had made up his mind about staying in Ferngully.

It had not been easy of course. Zak had been gone for two years (doing as he promised, remembering everything and doing what he could for the Rain Forest in what he had told Crysta was the Conservation Effort that made it illegal for anyone to do anything detrimental to the environment in or seven hundred miles outside of designated Safe Zones for the protection of wildlife and parks… The fairies still didn't get what that meant, but were pleased to know that their forest was now under the protection of humans rather than in dangerfrom) and when he had come back had made quite the unusual request to be shrunk again. Crysta had asked if he was sure (it had been two years, feelings change, and Pips still remembered the light look of hurt when Crysta had told Zak she was now entirely devoted to her work in doing everything in her power to protect Ferngully and she couldn't be the human's to love anymore), and when he'd said he wasn't changing his mind anytime soon, ("Aye, sticking to your guns, human!" Batty had rejoiced raucously, flapping about the open canopy) the ebony haired fairy had smiled and done as asked, shrinking the blonde like an expert (the wings had been an after-thought, she'd whispered to Pips during that evening's festivities, smiling at how endearing it was to see Batty trying to show Zak how to flap about, with little success).

It had been made a little easier for Pips and Zak to get along by the fact that now neither of them had a shot at Crysta one way or another as anything at all besides as friends, so any rivalry between both ginger and blond was shut down cold. Plus, Zak had brought "batteries" and new "recordings" to put into the—still very much used, and well taken care of—stereo set before he'd been shrunk and given a pair of wings. They were sort of friends now, though it was awkward as Pips had been given the job by Crysta to teach Zak the way of Faerie in an attempt to keep them out of trouble.

Life wasn't easy in this endeavor.

First had come clothing the man-fairy, which was…troubling. Pips had fun teasing Zak about it ("Yellow and black would go with that skin—" "No, thank you," Zak had grumbled, pushing back the almost identical cloth that generally went around Pips own waist. The slightly older of the two males chuckled with a beat of his own wings to flit back over to the pile of other choices he'd wrangled out of the forest just recently that would have to be stitched up to fit Zak once he actually found one that he liked and didn't blush so very easily at over the size or something that kept Pips laughing for twenty moments at a time) but had ultimately given the guy a break in just taking the "jeans" Zak had been shrunk in at the time, tearing them to the length of the knees and had dragged them through mud and leaves until it could pass a camouflage test. This was followed by Zak requiring some similar treatment with mud in designs about his torso (Pips had been hesitant to do that, for reasons he still hadn't understood while running careful fingers over tanned skin to paint figures of leaves and branches out of river clay and leaf juice he'd ground against rock and bark) so when in flight he could avoid predators like hawks and the like.

Then came the flying lessons that left much to be desired. Zak hated these quite a lot.

Pips couldn't imagine ever having to spend such as long a time as Zak had when being human, without being able to fly; feel the air in every muscle and the hover of magic through his veins. Pips had tried to do without his wings for a few days (see things from the blonde's perspective, experience the role of a student in a class of just one) and found himself feeling empathy for Zak in just how difficult it must be to experience anything after having previously been six feet tall rather than the three inches he was now. At six feet, Pips estimated that it was an easy walk from the heart of Fergully to the river about half a mile away where the fairies spent a collection of their time looking after the animals and making sure fresh seeds and water was getting to the plant life. Flying made it twice as easy and quick as fifteen minutes to fly, but when Pips had gone with Zak via narrowly climbing low branches or walking terrain where the trees were too spaced out and iguanas tended to harass everything that could be considered a free meal, it had taken so long that the sun had moved from its position in the morning to just above their heads.

This had coaxed Pips into trying a little harder to teach Zak to fly better so he could keep up and actually eat something fresh like the sweet, soft berries and river vegetation more than once a day, rather than the tough berries and nuts he more often had to get back at his own tree in Ferngully. The fact that he would be less likely to be taken up as a meal himself helped as well...

Pips took in a deep breath and hefted Zak about a foot into the air, Zak's own wings (thick as a dragonfly's, soft to the touch, had more veins in them than any other fairy; blood circulated through them so they glowed a faint red when in use) flapping twice as fast than they should when Pips finally let the blonde go so he could practice simply hovering for the moment.

Batty observed the two while hanging from a low branch just a few yards away, a look full of pity on his face as Zak tumbled in the air in a summersault before regaining an unsteady balance as his own magic (Magi had given it to him in her death, as she had given some to every fairy in Ferngully who had listened in on her final words to Crysta and the forest itself) kicked in from his panic. A deep green Pips had never seen flowed from the former human, circling his hips and trailing around his toes. When Pips leveled beside Zak to hold both of his tanned hands, balancing him, there was a little thought that compared his own green glow to the leaves above the canopy that were just in bloom, and Zak's glow to some of the fish that circled in the dark tents underwater that larger trees made with their roots.

"That's it," Pips nodded, Zak keeping his wings in a mimicking rhythm to the older fairy's wing beats, taking in breath to steady his heart beat, continually thinking 'I'm not going to fall this time,' as Pips let go and flew back a little to allow Zak more room. "Just like that, dude. Just like that."

"Just like this," Zak repeated, steadying himself and just swaying above the particular tree Pips had chosen for that day's lesson—a sort of tree from that of Cyprus that according to Pips had been there for long over a hundred years, large mushrooms growing outwards around its trunk that the ginger fairy at present took a seat along to watch Zak flit just above the thickest branch.

Another five minutes…ten… Zak didn't fall and Pips smiled in a way that wasn't sarcastic as he lifted up and hovered above the other's head, red hair falling in such a position to take on the visage of some of the leaves in the city of New York (Zak often spoke of this place, interesting all the fairies at any given time) during a season called autumn that never came to Ferngully.

"Now let's see," Pips clucked, still in an upturned position that was starting to freak Zak out as the blonde tried to hover a little higher (preferably so he could not the other down with surprise and a light prod), "You can hover, but can you fly?"

The confidence Zak had gained in the last few moments gave out swiftly and in a terrifying breath as Pips spun in three circles, causing an air current that lead Zak in an updraft; too far at the edge of the tree to be comfortable, let alone funny in any sort of way. The blonde's wings went back to flapping like some fledgling bird's and his glow was on full blast as he ascended so high that Pips was no longer causing air currents that could keep Zak aloft for very long.

"Come on!" Pips coaxes, a little too much for such little progress in such little time, but he always finds himself pushing the former human even farther than he'd every pushed anyone before. He never even pushed the Beetle Boys this hard when he felt it was for their own benefit. "If you can hover, it's not that big a leap from flying high. Even infant fairies can fly right after learning to hover!"

"I'm not a natural fairy!" Zak chuffs, and then, not so surprisingly, his energy gives out and he is falling through open air. It's not an over-exaggerated fall, but Batty ends up being the one to fly swiftly, carefully under Zak and keep him from enduring any sort of damage, while Pips remains where he is; hovering atop a mushroom, arms folded in disappointment.

"…I went to swim until I sank—but that's not the same thing," Batty buzzed a quote from the vestiges of radio waves on his mind, setting Zak down on a separate mushroom from Pips.

"Batty," Pips called downwards from his own station, looking along Zak's face as the blonde looked like he was likely to scream his lungs out or cry at the unfairness of all this. Pips didn't want Batty to be in the crossfire, since as Zak's teacher (and friend, still, he hoped) Pips was supposed to be the one to face such consequences of actions brought on from this sort of stress, "Go and eat some berries. Zak and I have to have a private conversation."

The fruit bat looked ready and willing to argue with the older fairy, but was brought away from such antics as Zak patted him on the shoulder and gave him a look as if to say, It's fine, I can handle myself.

When still it seemed as though Batty was to say something almost threatening, or just sarcastic towards the redhead, Zak sighed and flicked the wire sticking out of Batty's head. There was a moment of electrifying change in the bat's brainwaves; it sent a shock through his figure as it always did before he got a contented smile on his face and flew off far more gracefully than usual, his big ears down and voice taking on a sort of Spanish accent as he found a different channel and sang out, "…Father, oh father, It's the King of the Elves…"

When the bat was fully and completely out of eyesight or hearing range, Zak turned back to Pips as the fairy was, once more and again (a favorite pass-time he'd taken up when teaching the young man) floating upside-down, above his head. He looked like he was looking for the right thing to say, and couldn't find it.

Zak had no doubt that Pips was hard on him because, perhaps, he wanted the blonde to be safe and to learn to take care of himself again, but sometimes he said the wrong thing and they ended up like this… Silent and unsure in the face of an attempt at understanding that made them both so tremendously helpless and at a loss.

Pips sighed aloud and held out both hands, "Come on, let's get some food and re-think this thing again…"

"For the hundredth time," Zak corrected, doing as Pips asked, hand in hand so he could hover and float along on Pips's own steam. It was always easier trying to move through the air when linked with another, Zak found; he just didn't do it often because he often felt uncomfortable and he didn't think it was appropriate. Though, what was inappropriate to Zak was not necessarily inappropriate to the fairies; their definition of the word was very loose in all its forms. This included physical contact.

But, with Pips, it wasn't really that bad.

Hands clinging together, sweaty and calloused (very different from what Zak remembered when he'd first been shrunk years ago and had been feeling his way through emotion with Crysta; his hands soft then, unused to any sort of physical labor outside of marking trees for death and destruction at the impact of the leveler), the fairy and the man-fairy fluttered very carefully to the second story of the tree they had chosen for that day. It was a swift glide through some branches and then soft, glazed leaves that tickled Zak when his back grazed them, but were no bother to Pips as they found the right level of the tree that had seeds sprouting. The seeds would serve as a meal for them and a calming exercise in just sitting near another being, and trying for a better understanding that could reach heights into evolution of change in personal relationship.

Getting some of the seeds (round and striped, the color of Zaks hair, the sun, the sand surrounding Mount Warning) and taking a perch that almost allowed their feet to touch, the tension from the flying lesson almost left completely, but there was always residue in such occasions that made it difficult to talk until each had had some of the food, first. Such a pause could be deemed unhelpful to humans, but between these two young men, it was not so.

"It's not your fault I can't get it," Zak finally spoke up, peeling the skin from his own seed before he dared bite into it. The things tasted so awful if taken with the flaky skin which tasted like cedars.

Pips spat some of his seed out, a bit of rot gracing his tongue, "That doesn't mean I shouldn't feel a little guilty for yelling so much. I don't like yelling at you, even if, you know, you deserve it most times."

Zak leaned into his position on the tree, feet uncurling and coming to rest against Pips's own feet, the toes entwining so that the both of them paused to enjoy the feel of calloused skin on that which was a bit more smooth and so different in texture and design. It was not unpleasant and Pips admittedly would have liked to explore more than that on the human (it was a fairy thing, to try and understand something in its entirety; especially among each other). But he resigned himself some time ago (a private resignation when he found himself a little attracted to the other male some weeks ago during a morning swim of all places and times, when they had decided to forgo the flying lessons and just try to stand through the scorching heat of the day) to let Zak decide boundaries.

Zak rolled his eyes and squeezed onto Pips's toes with a lot more dexterity than most would think the human would have, "Hey, I really think you're a better teacher when you don't take my failings as your own. Like this right here; if I could stay this comfortable during a lesson—if I could have fun, I bet I could get this thing right."

"…Really?"

A frightening look appeared over the majority of Pips's own face and Zak nearly choked on the bite of seed he had been swallowing when he made a mental link between that particular look and a seminar he'd been to in school where the boys were required to sit in a dark room, watching a film about date rape. The look Pips had was almost identical to the (very poor, horribly chosen) actor on that film right before he slipped a drug into his victim's drink.

Setting his food behind him, very careful because it was one of his favorite foods and he didn't want to waste it despite this fantastic, spur of the moment idea, Pips launched from his seat and flew through the treetops until he was out of sight from Zak. And then it was just quiet when he didn't come back to where he'd been, which left the former human at a bit of a loss, setting his food with Pips's own before hoisting himself up into a standing position, his eyes circling overheard.

"Pips?" Zak called out anxiously, his wings twitching when a light breeze came through along the north and started to ruffle his hair. "Pips!"

And down and out, skimming his ribs like a locust in search of grain, the other fairy came swooping down and around Zak so fast the blonde nearly screamed. Then Pips came back at the same speed, just delicately slapping the other's rear before disappearing into the leaves again. Zak didn't know if the hit would bruise, but it was enough to make him give an undignified yelp before he rubbed where a handprint was forming, glaring up where the other had vanished.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"It's either tag," Pips called out, flying up from below that time, slipping in-between the other's legs and then poking him in the ribs, "Or hide and seek. Depends on whether or not you want to participate."

Ah, so that meant that he wouldn't apologize later for the impact marks left on the tan skin of the younger man.

"Come on man, we're not ten—pfft!"

Zak, in his try to make the other knock it off, was interrupted as water was poured down from above and onto his head, dousing him totally and making his hair and the clothing around his waist cling uncomfortably in the hot sun. He coughed and looked up to find Pips awaiting his reaction, tossing a large wet leaf over his shoulder; arms crossing and a smug look on his face.

A light pause in just a sort of stunned look, and then Zak had built up enough adrenaline to light up his own magic and took off after the cackling redhead, "You are dead meat!"

"Not at that speed!" Pips called over his shoulder, easily evading the younger's hands as they skimmed leaves upon leaves, with Zak once and a while hitting a branch and pausing for breath before continuing on in a rather quick fashion that would make Crysta proud if she were around, but would simply make the Beetle Boys scoff.

Just when Zak thought he was gaining the right momentum (Pips hoped his was too, seeing as he was right on his tail without any real help what-so-ever, using his wings fundamentally well) an unexpected visitor put a bit of a damper on their fun.

Like a shadow over a blind horizon that neither of them had noticed until it was staring them in the face, a large brown hawk shrieked out a call and was on them. They had ventured just above the canopy, where some high hanging branches gave them the illusion of safety before both cried out and changed directions—Pips flitting just out of reach and Zak stopping flight altogether to drop like a stone.

Amazingly, Zak got to the safety of a tree first in this maneuver, landing on his feet and watching with wide, terrified eyes as Pips was being closed in on by the hawk (which, oddly enough, was the exact same one that had tried to chase down Crysta two years before when she was curious and Pips was always worrying about her). His wings were flapping a mile a second, but the bird's claws were far too close and almost ripped into the redhead's skin twice.

Looking around and without thinking too hard on it (much like when he was still living in the city and was trying to avoid gang wars) Zak took the first thought in his head and ran with it. He called out to Pips with a high whistle, drawing his attention over to him to head his way.

Pips certainly wouldn't begrudge an help and immediately took a more adrenaline fueled dash toward the former human, only barely noticing that Zak was holding tight to a low hanging branch as the hawk was practically counting the lines on the fairy's wings. It was about seven seconds and Pips saw Zak make a motion for Pips to get out of the way with a quick turn low south, under the branch.

Pips had no idea what the other was doing, but he followed instruction, holding his breath as he ducked under the bough and, though he couldn't see it, he very much heard something solid connect with the hawk. It was a little sickening when he heard the sound of an object hitting the bird's skin, but he couldn't say he was sorry for the creature when he turned around and found it screaming as it made back up and out of the canopy.

Catching breath, he was almost startled out of his skin when a hand connected with his shoulder and he turned to find Zak hovering upside down, his own wings flitting perfectly in time with his heartbeat. Pips would have commented on it, if only Zak didn't have a half worried, half smug look on his face directed at the elder male.

"Don't dothat!" Pips finally got out, voice trailing away when the other righted himself and out of nowhere hugged Pips around the waist, obviously glad he was alright.

Pips was startled. Usually, he didn't much care for physical contact between the both of them, but, also, he was really glad the both of them just survived almost being eaten. Thus, tentatively, he wrapped his arms with equal force around the other's upper torso, one hand in a fist and coming to rest right between Zak's shoulders where his heart would be, glowing light green, spreading energy into warmth that the blonde apparently liked as he sighed and tightened his grip on the other.

"That was both the worst and the best lesson on flying you've ever given," Zak grinned, shaky and he leaned back to look Pips in the face, "Teacher."

They just stayed holding each other for a little, oddly at peace just to look each other in the eye, before both voted on walking back to Ferngully. Neither noticed that they ended up holding hands on the way, but they didn't mind the warmth that mingled from both the comfort in the other's presence and the mild magic that manifested as Cyprus tree green and lower river green.