Work Text:
Soren didn't even feel the pain. Not the sudden sting, not the jolt of agony. Until the corrupted Sunfire elf was dead on the ground before him.
He inhaled raggedly, fully believing it was the extensive energy he had been fighting with that was rendering him shaky.
But as he looked down at the blood-soaked blade he'd just plunged into the elf's heart, he noticed a not-before-there patch of red on his stomach. It was expanding, slowly, but not subtly.
Reality clicked. And when it did, Soren finally felt the pain.
With his brain now having registered his situation, he scanned the half-acre of debris and rubble. No, it wasn't there anymore...
He placed a tremorous hand on the spreading blood, grimacing at the sticky sound it made when he applied whatever pressure he could muster.
The protruding nail. The one that had almost impaled him through the eye in the prior fight. That corrupted elf had pushed him back into a mouldy wooden pillar, driving the nail through his spinal cord.
The name was reflex. "Corvus..."
It didn't take a hearing-enhanced mage to pick up on the strain in Soren's voice, and Corvus was in front of him in seconds, eyes fixed on the former's bloodied hand. Soren could only hiccup-gag, and it hurt Corvus more than he would overtly admit. "Soren, where is it? What's hurt?"
Soren laughed. "I think it's- ngh- I think it's in my back. I didn't, heh, feel it before." He wheezed, a grin plastered on his face. What Corvus would give to fix the crack that nearly cheerful grin splintered right through his heart. "This isn't how I thought...thought I'd go out. But it's okay."
"Soren, this is...no, this is not okay! You're bleeding out!" Corvus gently gripped Soren's shoulder's, trying to pull him off the nail, only to be stopped by an urgent hand on his chest. "Soren, you need help-"
"No."
"What?" Corvus blinked, as if he hadn't heard right.
"No, Corvus." Soren's grin softened to a pained smile. "No. This is...this is okay."
He had a seven-inch rusted nail lodged in his spinal cord, and he was almost at peace with the fact.
For as long as he remembered, Corvus didn't cry. But now, he couldn't care less for the sudden sting of tears, and not the way they wet his cheeks as they absently dropped. "Soren, please, don't- don't deny help. We can save you, I can-"
"I don't want you to."
"Soren, don't do this! Don't say that! Please!" The crack in Corvus' voice made Soren close his eyes. He coughed sharply, hacking blood. "Please."
"Hey, look at me."
Corvus' glazed hazel eyes fixed on Soren's bloodied mouth, then his own tear-filled blue eyes.
"I'm okay." He reached his free hand up to rest on Corvus' cheek. "I'm okay. This is okay. I'll be alright."
"Not if you don't get help!" Corvus countered desperately. "Please, Soren!"
But Soren shook his head. "There's nothing you can do for me. You take me off this nail, I'll bleed out before anyone arrives. And you can't keep it dormant until then." He wheezed, blood spraying onto his lips and down his chin. "I've had so many near-death experiences. It's just..." He swallowed a noise of agony. He didn't want to hurt Corvus more than he already had, and it wasn't even his fault. "It's just my time."
"No, don't say that, that's not true. Soren, that's not true! Please! Don't say things like that!" Corvus shook Soren by the shoulders, and he didn't notice the warm palm on his face until Soren tilted his chin up when he dropped his head. "Soren, I care about you too much to let you die! To watch you die!"
Soren just ignored him. Ignored his pleas, his begging, his desperation, the way his voice had risen in sheer panic. "I'm happy."
Happy.
Happy with a nail through his spine.
Happy on the verge of death.
Happy nigh dead.
"I was born sick, with a breathing condition similar to Callum's dad's. And I finally got to see my mother after over a decade." Soren coughed a laugh, trailing off into a wheezed whimper. "And I got to be a part of the journey. Maybe not the whole journey, and maybe on the wrong side, but I was there. I lived through all of that, I experienced all of that. The Castle's desolation was just a minor setback for this journey. Yeah? We still have Katolis. We have our people, Corvus. This is what we stand for. We stand for loyalty, and peace."
"No." Corvus interjected weakly.
Soren nodded in kind. "Yes."
"No, don't make this sound like a goodbye."
"It is a goodbye."
Corvus felt like he was the one that died now. His heart snapped in two, and shattered as it hit the black ground of the void. The look in Soren's eyes, his expression...he was as he said.
Happy.
Soren touched his forehead to Corvus', his breathing turning staccato and laboured. "I've accepted it. I've accepted whatever Death wants from me. I've dodged it time and time again, even been forcefully dragged away from it, and it's only ever brought me closer to it. I chose to come to Lux Aurea because I wanted to help, and now look where it got me. I should've known better." He huffed a laugh through his nose, letting his eyelids gradually flutter closed. "Thank you for just being you. For being willing to put up with my idiocy and my stupidness. Thank you for staying with me and choosing to come with me to find Zubeia. Most people would have crashed out and hit me on the shoulder, but you didn't. Sure, you probably thought about it, but you didn't. You stayed. And that's what I admire about you; your courage and your will."
The tears were just flowing freely, and Corvus let them. His mind was too blocked by grief and partial guilt, even though he hadn't done anything to contribute to Soren's impending death, to care about how vulnerable he looked. "Stop talking. It'll make it worse." He pleaded softly.
"I'm okay." Soren nodded vaguely. "I'm happy."
"Why." It wasn't a harsh ask, or even an ask, but Corvus' desperation broke through the stoic veil he'd worked so hard to put up many years ago.
When Soren didn't speak for a moment, Corvus' panic rose, but then he felt gentle fingerpads twitch against his cheek. "Because you're the last person I get to see, get to talk to. I couldn't have asked for anyone else. I love you, Corvus."
And Corvus knew it. He'd picked up on it in the past two years, as everyone had. But how was he supposed to address that? How did one confess their love to someone who openly loved them already?
"Soren, I know. I know, I do." He went for it. He'd get no other chance. "And I want you to know that I love you."
Soren tilted his head back just enough to lock their eyes. A silent tear fell from the Crownguard's bright eyes. "You're horrible at hiding it."
Corvus did something he never thought he would while holding a literal dying person. He laughed, faint and cracked.
"I love you. So much." Soren traced his thumb over Corvus' jaw, and drew him in until their lips touched, slotting together perfectly. Corvus melted, everything he'd kept hidden for who knows how long pouring into the soft embrace.
And then Soren stopped responding.
Corvus didn't get to pull away. Soren's head lolled, dropping onto his shoulder.
"Soren." Corvus shook him. "Soren."
Nothing.
How long Corvus stood there, holding Soren's body, feeling as the warmth evaporated from his skin, sobbing into the crook of his neck, he didn't know. But what he did know, was that Soren was gone.
His newfound home.
Gone.