Chapter Text
As time stretched out, the darkness and silence pressed in. Dorian’s head was swimming, the constant ache from his injured head threatening to pull him under as he fought to stay awake.
His fingers skimmed over the bruises on his stomach, finally finding uninjured skin on his left thigh. He waited until he felt his shoulders sag and senses soften, then pinched the skin with a vicious twist, leaving a welt behind. Tears filled his eyes at the sting of pain, but he’d long lost track of that. He wasn’t quite sure the tears had ever stopped since he was sealed in the darkness.
Dorian’s other hand kept the sending stone close to his chest, letting the smoothness of the rock soothe his mind. It was one last connection to the world. If the worst happened…if he gave up…he could at least say goodbye.
His mind drifted, and he brought it back with another bruising pinch to his leg. He couldn’t risk losing focus, letting his unending breath lapse. He might never regain control, and it wouldn’t take long to suffocate in this box so far underground.
There were odd sounds around him now. Distant scratches in the dark, like burrowing animals. They would carry on for a few minutes then stop, then begin again at another spot. Sometimes they sounded nearly right above his head, sometimes they seemed too far away.
A prickle of tiny legs crawled across his face, and he raised a shaking hand to brush it away. The box was far from airtight, and as dirt had trickled in through the cracks so had the insects. Dorian tried to tell himself it was no big deal. There were bugs everywhere in the world. He’d slept in worse places than this. That didn’t stop the shudder of revulsion when another beetle found his face in the darkness.
Don’t panic.
Sometimes he thought he could hear them crawling through the dirt. Into the box. Over his body. More and more of them wormed their way in, under his clothes. Tiny, stabbing legs traced an itching path up his calves, and he couldn’t reach down to swat them away. They would kill him before starvation or suffocation. Their tiny jaws would bite, would poison, would leech his life from his body.
He pinched himself, nearly hard enough to draw blood, and the hallucination faded away. He didn’t know if it was the darkness and isolation or the injury to his head, but he was suffering from waking dreams now. His mind was amplifying every sensation, and the mere touch of a beetle could send him spiraling down into a nightmare.
Something touched his face again. When he reached up to brush it off, he felt a small, soft body. Not the hard shell of a beetle. As he touched it, he thought he could sense legs reaching out of the darkness to envelop him. Long and jointed, glistening with an unholy light. She was behind him, laughing into his broken mind, her long limbs tangling around him to draw him into her.
Dorian batted the spider away in blind panic, then fumbled with an unsteady hand to press his fingers against his bruised stomach. The pain shot through his senses with the sharpness of an icy gale, but the laughter didn’t stop.
How many spiders? Would they fill the box like the beetles had?
That was a dream.
He pinched his leg, twisting the skin until fresh tears streamed from his eyes, but the skittering remained. Dorian jerked his other hand up to cover his ear, dropping the sending stone as he did.
“No!” He shouted the word without thinking, sucking in a breath of stale air to compensate. He tried to find the stone, but his fingers just brushed the smooth rock and sent it sliding further away.
He couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t escape the skittering.
Don’t panic.
Something scraped through the dirt above his head.
Dorian panicked.
…
Cyrus set his weight against the shovel, levering another heavy clot of dirt out. The stars were shining above, the moon low on the horizon, but he didn’t dare stop. They’d been digging out these damned graves for nearly twelve hours now, with no sign of Dorian.
“This is it,” Opal said again, her own shovel biting into the soil. “Has to be.”
“You’re sure?” Cyrus panted.
She looked up at him, her eyes nearly glowing in the darkness as the ichor seeped down from the crown. “It took her a while to find the right box, but Ted always comes through in the end. We found him.”
He didn’t question it, just bent down to focus on his digging. His shovel struck something, and he couldn’t quite smother the flare of hope in his chest. This was the eighth one they’d found, and despite Opal’s reassurances he couldn’t help but fear this was another victim. Another poor soul left to die in this hellish graveyard.
Dariax had his pickaxe in hand, carving up chunks of earth as the others dug down. “Hey, this one’s newer,” he called up, brushing away the dirt to reveal the pale wood of the box.
Then Cyrus heard the scream.
He hurled his shovel away as Dariax attacked the box, breaking the wood away to reveal the darkness within. “Dorian!”
There wasn’t much of a hole, but he shoved his hand through. His nails were broken, his fingers bloody from the hours of digging, but none of that mattered at that moment when he touched warm, living flesh.
“He’s here!” he shouted up at Opal as trembling fingers touched his. “We’re here, Dorian. We’ve got you.”
Dariax and Opal tore at the earth around him, widening the hole. Cyrus tore at the wood with his free hand, unwilling to release his brother’s weak grasp. “I’m here, little zephyr,” he called as the wood splintered. His own skin tore, but that hardly mattered. “I’m here. We’ve got you.”
Dariax gently shouldered him back and set the tip of the pickaxe inside the hole in the crate, using it to lever away a chunk of broken board. Then another hand was reaching out and Cyrus grabbed it, held both hands against his chest, lowering himself nearly prone in the mud to get as close to his brother as he could.
“I’m here,” he promised, reaching into the box to wipe a tear off Dorian’s cheek. “You’re safe, little zephyr. I’m here.”
The others were tearing at the box, widening the hole to pull Dorian out, but Cyrus couldn’t take his eyes off his brother. There was a bruise on his cheek and blood in his hair. His eyes were wild, and he pulled a hand away from Cyrus to pinch himself on the arm.
“No, no, don’t do that,” Cyrus said, grabbing his brother’s hand. “You’re okay. I’m here, Dorian.”
“Cy?”
“It’s really me,” he promised, resting a palm against the side of his brother’s face. “You look awful.”
Dorian snorted. “Fuck you.”
And burst into tears.
…
The hole finally broke open, and Cyrus leaned down to pull Dorian out. He wrapped his arms around his big brother’s shoulders and held on, burying his face in the older man’s neck as he was pulled out of his prison.
They collapsed back in the mud, Cyrus still holding him close, Dorian openly sobbing into his shoulder. The world around him was spinning, warping. There was too much.
“Wait,” he gasped in his brother’s ear when Cyrus began to move.
“Yeah, okay,” Cyrus replied, rubbing a hand up and down his back. “We got the time, Dorian. We can wait.”
“N-no,” he shook his head, twisting away just enough to see the yawning pit of the grave behind him. “In the…in the hole. I dropped it. I-I need it.”
He couldn’t find the words to explain further, but Opal was already squirming in. Dariax caught hold of her boots, and when she let out a triumphant cry, he easily pulled her back out of the hole. She pressed the smooth, blue stone into Dorian’s hand and gently ran her fingers through his hair.
“Yeah, definitely can’t forget this,” she said, kissing his forehead. A little black ooze got stuck in his hair, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. He clutched the stone close and sagged into his brother’s hold.
“You okay, buddy?” Dariax asked. He pressed a gentle hand to Dorian’s back, and the soft warmth of his healing magic soothed the worst of his aches. “I mean you probably, definitely, aren’t…but aside from not being okay, are you okay?”
He nodded, head still pillowed on his brother’s shoulder. Cyrus shifted awkwardly.
“I’ve gotta stand up, okay?” Cyrus murmured. He tucked a lock of hair behind Dorian’s ear, leaning up to look him in the eye. “I have to put you down to stand up, but I’ll be right back, okay?”
“’m not a baby,” Dorian protested. His mind felt fragile, like a single blow would scatter him to pieces. He wanted to grab onto his brother as his hands were gently pried away but forced himself to stay still.
This was real. Cyrus was here.
Wasn’t he?
A hand strayed to his stomach, and he pinched the skin there, right on top of another bruise.
“Whoa, hey, don’t do that,” Cyrus grabbed his hand, crouching down to look him in the eye. “You’re safe now, all right?”
He nodded dully. It was all the same. The roar of the stars above might as well be the silence of the grave below. It was too much and too little, all at once.
Cyrus sighed. “Come on, little zephyr,” he murmured, scooping Dorian up into his arms in a princess carry as though his brother weighed as little as Laudna. “Let’s get out of here.”
…
They didn’t go very far. They set up camp in what shelter they could find off the road, out of sight of the nightmarish graveyard. While Dariax and Opal split the watch for what little remained of the night, Cyrus sat in the corner made by their cart and the swell of the hill behind him. His arms were wrapped around Dorian, who leaned against him in a feverish doze as the night spun on until morning.
His brother was exhausted, mind and body, but he only slept in fitful bursts. He kept trying to hurt himself, reaching to pinch the sensitive skin of his stomach or arms, even his thighs. Cyrus could only hold him through it, talk him back around, remind him he was safe.
Dorian stirred, and Cyrus gently caught his hand when he started to move. “You’re safe. It’s okay.”
“Cyrus?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” He hugged Dorian a little closer, resting his cheek on top of his head. They hadn’t been this close in a while, ever since they’d had to focus on their duties.
The headwind of the squall, destined to take his place and lead their people. And the second sun, destined to take the blame so his brother could take the credit.
Well, fuck that. When they went back—if Dorian went back—things wouldn’t be like that. His brother deserved more than second place.
Opal was watching them, and he gave her a sad smile as Dorian dozed off again. They needed time. A long rest somewhere safe, with plenty of sunlight and open air.
“Think that witch is still around?” Opal suddenly asked.
He made a face. “No idea. Why?”
She shrugged. “She said she knew where the guys who did this were.”
Cyrus swallowed, raising one hand to trace his fingers through Dorian’s hair. His brother hadn’t been badly injured by his encounter, but he’d been buried alive for nearly two days. From his time with the Corsairs, Cyrus knew a little of how badly sensory deprivation could affect a person’s mind. They’d never used such techniques, but many of their members had come from troubled backgrounds.
“I think I’d like to know,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level and quiet as Dorian flinched awake from another nightmare.
“And we can always kill her, even if she doesn’t tell us.”
“Yeah,” Cyrus agreed. “Think she’ll see it coming?”
A devious grin spread across Opal’s face. “We can always ask her.” She pushed herself up to her feet and walked around the fire, nudging Dariax with the toe of her boot to wake him for his shift.
Cyrus watched her get settled, watched Dariax take up his position as the night settled around them again.
“You’re all right,” he whispered when Dorian jolted awake again. “You can sleep, little zephyr. I’m right here.”
“You haven’t called me that in a while.”
He laughed, relieved to hear his brother’s voice, even if it was a little raspy. “Sorry. Guess I’m feeling nostalgic.”
“Yeah.” Dorian sighed. “Guess I’m feeling a little….”
“Vulnerable?”
“Hmm. Yeah.” He shuddered, one hand tightening in the front of his brother’s shirt. “Sorry.”
“No, man, don’t be,” Cyrus rested a hand on top of Dorian’s, hugged him a little closer. “You went through hell. You’re not supposed to be okay.”
“I just wish I could sleep,” Dorian whispered, his voice breaking.
Cyrus closed his eyes. Now that they were here, now that Dorian was safe, he felt so helpless. “Do your best, okay?” he murmured. “I’ll be right here. I promise.”
Dorian nodded. “You’ll be here?”
“Always, little zephyr.” He leaned back against the cart wheel and tucked Dorian’s head under his chin, so his brother could hear his heartbeat. “I’m here.”