Work Text:
It happens like this:
Pike is on some routine monster cleanup work in Amh Araeng. The Gigantenders have grown in number due to an unprecedented rain, and Pike was around when someone posted the notice. 140 gil for every proven kill—Pike doesn’t need the money, but he is upset enough that it makes an attractive prospect.
The Gigantenders are easy work for Pike. Their needles are easily dodged or blocked by his shield and armor, and their flesh rends easily under his blade. It’s meditative, and more relaxing than it probably should be for him, but Pike has always been most at home on a battlefield.
He’s on his fifth monster when he hears footsteps behind him. Pike glances back, but in his distraction the Gigantender lunges to the side, and he can’t get a good look at who it is. He turns back to the monster, following its lunge with a strike and taking its arm clear off. It groans and tips over, and Pike drives his sword through its heart. He twists the blade to make sure it's dead. He cuts a trophy from it, and turns to look at the person behind him.
“Hello, darling,” Thancred says, mounting the sand dune. “Having fun?”
Pike shrugs, sheathes his blade and stashes his shield on his back. He shoves the trophy into the bag he has slung over his shoulder. “It’s something to do.”
“Oh? Bumming around the markets too boring for you?”
Pike gives him a withering look, and Thancred grins. He comes up to Pike and brushes some sand off his shoulders. “How many times have you rolled through the sand, now?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Pike says. “I lost count after fifteen.”
“Well, you look a vision, as always.”
“Mm.” Pike scans the horizon. “Did you see any more on your way in? I’d like to spread some of the gil around, and the more killed, the merrier.”
“I should know not to talk to you in business mode.” Thancred shakes his head. “No, not any. I think you may have scared them off.”
“Hm. Shame. Well, other adventurers could use some work, I suppose.” Pike shoulders his bag and takes Thancred’s hand. “Okay, work mode off—”
Pike’s ear twitches at a whistling sound, and he hooks a leg around Thancred’s, dropping him to the sand. There’s a thud as a needle strikes his armor, but he shrugs it off, drawing his sword and shield in a single, fluid motion.
There’s another Gigantender summiting the dune, and Pike curses himself for not checking thoroughly. They’re hardly threatening, but it’s still sloppy. He can almost feel his instructors in Garlemald boxing him around the ears for not maintaining 100% focus.
The battle with the Gigantender goes quickly, before Thancred can even scramble back up the sand dune. Pike had apparently been a little too forceful sending him out of the way, and sent him sliding down. His hair is dark with sand, and Pike gives him a sheepish grin.
“Sorry, love,” he says, walking over to him. He brushes some of the sand out of Thancred’s hair. “It’s not as if I had very much time to react.”
He turns his attention to the needle stuck in the leather siding of his armor, ignoring Thancred’s irritated blustering, and he sighs, pulling it free. A sharp pain tells him that it stuck a bit deeper, but it’s not so bad as to constitute immediate attention, so Pike cuts another trophy from the Gigantender and motions to Thancred to follow him back down the dune.
He gets halfway down before his vision swims and he passes out.
“Nerve damage,” Thancred repeats, staring down Pike in the infirmary. “And high pain tolerance.”
Pike nods. “Part of the conditioning in the Frumentarii was to ignore any pain, so we couldn’t have information tortured out of us. They would subject us to torture over and over, and have us healed, so we could learn to deal with the pain,” he says, staring down at his hands. “It’s part of how I dealt with carrying the Light so long. But repeated... injury like that has consequences, apparently. Seren found the nerve damage during my initial physical. I told her I had a rough childhood and left it at that.”
Thancred sighs irritably. “And you’ve just...never told anyone.”
“No,” Pike agrees. “I haven’t. It wasn’t that bad before.” At Thancred’s flat look, Pike continues. “It wasn’t! Really. I still could tell when an injury was bad enough that I needed healing, and it helped that...people didn’t…”
“That nobody else noticed if you were injured greatly,” Thancred finishes. “Because then people would—rightly—worry about you. Like I am now.”
“How was I supposed to know that Gigantender needles have a slight numbing effect?” Pike asks. “My body processes painkillers too fast for them to be effective.”
“ Fifteen needles, Pike.” Thancred shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “And that’s beside the point. If you have a weakness, we need to know, so we can cover for you.”
Pike’s ears lay flat and he glares into hands.
Thancred sighs. “The only time I have been so terrified as I was today was when I carried you off of Mt. Gulg, Pike.”
Pike sighs irritably. “I just hate feeling weak. That’s been the only thing I’ve been able to hold onto, you know? That I’m strong. And I know asking for help isn't a sign of weakness. I know . But I can’t make myself believe that all the time, and I just get so used to carrying my burdens alone that I forget I’m supposed to share them.”
Thancred smooths some of the hair off Pike’s face. “What do you need from me, then? To ask?”
“Maybe,” Pike says. “I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve got a good grasp on what’s going on with me, clearly.”
“You don’t need to understand completely,” Thancred replies. “But work with me a little.”
“Okay.”
“And you should tell the others about your nerve damage.”
Pike nods. “I will.” He smirks at Thancred. “You’re taking the same tone with me that you take with Ryne.”
“Ugh.” Thancred wrinkles his nose.
“You can always turn me over your knee and spank me,” Pike continues, and Thancred gives him such a disgusted look that he can’t hold it together anymore, and bursts out laughing.
“Remind me why I love you again,” Thancred says with no heat.
“Because I’m devilishly sexy and funny.”
“I’m sure you believe that.”