Work Text:
“I think something’s wrong with me.”
Words that were whispered into the wind, to be carried away on the breeze. Clancy didn’t know if he intended for Torch to hear him – in fact he wasn’t even sure if he intended to hear himself. There was something about the cliff’s edge, the sheer drop below onto jagged rocks, the foam of the frosty tide making them sparkle tauntingly in the evening sun. Clancy revelled in the danger of seeing his feet dangle over the edge, the waves calling his name in haunting lullabies against the backdrop of the coming night. There was so much space out there, like an infinite horizon for his thoughts to dissipate into, and no one to hold him to account for the words he spoke.
Apart from the man beside him.
“What makes you think that?” Torch asked, cautiously settling next to Clancy, legs crossed in front of him. His eyes focused on a blade of grass, sun-bleached and ragged from being tossed in the wind. The yellowish-green reminded Torch of the camp, and of the similar shades adorning each bandito he led. Every single one of them had been battered by the routine of Dema, experienced suffering at the hands of those in red cloaks who had eradicated every other trace of colour from their sanctuary. Torch kept his voice calm; the same steady tone that gave away so little emotion, but hinted at a curiosity that let Clancy know that he cared.
Clancy sighed. He let the sea breeze burn his cheeks, salt hardening on his skin, as the scent of the Paladin Strait buried itself in his clothes. He thought that maybe if he stayed there, the crystals would turn him into a statue, a lone figure on the cliff side who kept watch over the bay. A cautionary tale to young Banditos about the man who had been handed a miraculous power and had begun to let it consume him. Something in his soul was rotting, and Clancy needed Torch to help carve it out.
“Why are you nice to me?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You got me out of that place despite everyone saying it was a bad idea. You guided me all the way back to the camp after I got taken again. Don’t you get tired of it? What is it that you see in me that I can’t see in myself?”
A moment of silence hung in the air, refusing to be washed away by the tide or whisked away by the wind. Clancy’s question felt like a punch to the gut, uttered in a voice so full of doubt that Torch wondered what more he could’ve done to make Clancy see just how much he meant to him.
“You were lost.” Torch began, cautious in his delivery of each word. “I could see it so clearly on your face. Your tunnel-vision didn’t have a light at the end. I wanted to be that for you.” He stopped for a moment, and leant into Clancy’s line of vision. “I still want to be that for you.”
“But why?” Clancy asked, tone laced with a sour mix of confusion and despair and complete disbelief. “After everything. Every time that I thought I’d gotten out only for them to snatch me right back. You keep putting so much on the line for me. I don’t think that I'm worth that effort.”
The setting sun wrapped a warm orange light over the landscape, ripples twinkling on the surface of the strait like molten gold. Torch had always thought that this was when Trench was at its most beautiful. A fading light so fragile. The only hint of warmth that could grace the outside walls of the city. In the dying light of the day, Torch thought it was also the most beautiful that Clancy had ever looked.
“You are to me.”
“Because I’m a means to an end?”
“No.” Torch noted each shadow cast by Clancy’s eyelashes, the weariness in his eyes, the pink flush of his wind-bitten cheeks. He took Clancy’s hand in his own, turned his soft palm over and traced every crease still darkened by traces of ash-paste that now seemed to be near permanent stains on tanned skin. Pushing their palms together, Torch held their hands up to the light, and watched as the final rays of sun filtered through their joined fingers. “You’ve always been more than that. So much more than what anyone expected you to be. You’ve beaten the odds, even if you ended up back in the city, you always got out. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
Clancy pulled his hand away, balling his fists into the oversized sleeves of his black jacket as though he was trying to keep the cold out, rather than shying away from Torch’s tender words. Something burned within him. Years of harsh words and degrading taunts from Bishops leaving his self-esteem in tatters. The few words that were kinder in comparison always came with an expectation. Write us this song. Perform on this TV show. Sing at the annual assemblage. Do this favour, and you can have a glimpse of what we call freedom.
“You say that you think something is wrong with you, broken, rotten – whatever,” Torch continued, “but all I see is something that can be rebuilt in the wreckage of the past.”
Clancy risked the opportunity to look right into Torch’s eyes, searching gold-flecked irises for any sign of deception or dishonesty. No matter how hard he tried, how desperately he wanted to be proven right, he couldn’t find anything. All that was reflected back at him was the hopeful look that begged Clancy to listen.
It cracked Clancy open, a look so raw that the walls he’d been rebuilding for six years came tumbling down. “Sometimes,” he began, “when you’re so kind to me, I wish I could feel something about it. I want to feel warm, safe, or even embarrassed. But all I’m left with is this fucking numbness inside. It’s like if I let you love me, then I have to admit that I might not be able to give that back.”
“I’m that obvious, huh?” a small smile crept into Torch’s lips, tinged in sadness.
“You have a giant yellow target right over your heart.” Clancy smiled, before his voice turned serious again. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and you’ve already given me so much…”
“I’d give you everything, Clancy. You know that.”
“Help me learn to love you. I want to. I just need reminding how.”
“I can do that.”
“You were right. You are my light, Torch. Can you keep me warm until I can kindle the flame myself?”
A gentle nod was offered in return.
Clancy tentatively released his hold on his jacket sleeve, the fabric crumpled and damp with sweat from clammy palms. Shaking, he offered his hand to Torch once more; the quietest of peace offerings, a sign that Clancy was willing to take that step forward rather than running like he had so many times before. At the feeling of a warm hand encompassing his own, Clancy felt his eyes fill with tears, the line of the horizon growing unsteady as he tried to blink them back. He felt the first tear fall, a wet trail left behind on his skin as it descended, mixing with the sea air as it burnt a path onto Clancy’s cheek.
He tried to turn away. Something shameful twisted inside, like there was a voice in the back of his head telling him that Torch didn’t need to see this side of him, this ugly display of raw emotion that shattered the façade Clancy had been hiding behind for so long.
A hand turning his face back into Torch’s sight finally silenced those thoughts.
As a sob wrenched itself free of Clancy’s soul, his body was scooped into an embrace that was secure with warmth and light. The grounding smell of pine and earth filled his senses, a security blanket that he had denied himself for too long. Clancy let himself cry. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d allowed the pressure behind his eyes to escape so freely, his rare tears usually muffled by his pillow in the dead of night. Something about Torch made him feel safe, like he could hand his heart over without feeling like he was putting his life on the line. Torch was holding him together in every sense of the word; lips pressed into Clancy’s hair as the hand clasped in the younger man’s rubbed circles over the rough fabric of his black jacket.
“You’ll get there in time, Clancy. Soon enough you’ll be able to accept my reassurance without it feeling like a knife to your chest.”
“You think?” Clancy asked, eyes gazing into Torch’s through wet eyelashes.
“I know.”
Clancy moved his own free hand to Torch’s cheek; letting the heat of his skin thaw his fingertips and send shivers racing up his spine. Pulling him in felt natural, as if it was the breeze that had prompted them to press their lips together.
The kiss was simple, something soft and tender as Clancy let himself give in to the feeling. Kissing Torch for the first time was less like fireworks and more like the roots of a plant digging into Clancy’s soul, anchored to brave the inevitable storms the two would face together. No matter what sat beyond the horizon, this moment felt like a new beginning – a promise of devotion and communication and honesty.
Neither of them pushed the kiss beyond anything sweet, the two men simply revelling in the feeling of knowing each other in this way at long last. When Torch nipped at Clancy’s lower lip, it felt more like exploration than raging desire, as though it was the kind of push and pull that rowed a boat across the strait, something purposeful and intentional. The taste of salt bloomed across their tongues, though its origins were unclear. Whether it was from tears or the salt-air of the bay, the taste felt like a reminder of everything they fought for; the natural landscape that had stood proud for centuries before the skyline was blemished by towers of cement.
Clancy deepened the kiss slightly, taking the hint that Torch was stepping back in order to allow him to progress things on his own terms. His still-shaky hand freed itself from Torch’s own, grasping dark curls and tugging slightly to draw a gasp out of the other man. Clancy swallowed the sound, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as his chest bloomed with pride.
Pulling back, Torch let his lips kiss trails up the tear-tracks on Clancy’s face, the barely-there caresses of his mouth that were left against flushed skin. He seemed determined in his pursuit, as if he was trying to banish them back to where they came from, a message being sent that said ‘I can take it from here.’
The feeling of wanting to crawl inside the cavity of Torch’s chest was overwhelming; Clancy desired nothing more than to be kept snug against him, existing solely in the marrow of Torch’s bones or in the depths of his soul. The best he could do however, was to drop his hands to Torch’s waist before sliding them under his green hoodie to feel across the surface of his stomach. Clancy raked his nails across the skin, causing Torch to shiver under the attention.
“Tease.”
“What can I say,” Clancy’s earlier frowns had now turned into a big dopey grin. “I like how warm you are.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. My own personal heater.”
Torch chuckled, and Clancy felt the rumble from where his hands were placed. “You asked me why I’m nice to you. The truth is, I love you.” Words spoken so casually, as if they were simply a fact of life rather than a revelation. “Being nice is not something I try to do with you, you make it so easy for me to give you that kindness. I just hope I can help you accept it easier.”
“In time.” Clancy said, tone teetering between something solemn and hopeful. “I’ll work on it. For you. To show you that I know inside that I love you back, I just don’t know how to externalise that feeling.”
Torch swept Clancy up in one final kiss, a firm meeting of their lips that did its best to convey every ounce of dedication Torch felt towards him.
“You’ll always be enough for me, Clancy.”
“And you’ll always be more than I ever let myself dream of.”
Clancy tucked his head against Torch’s shoulder, his legs tucked underneath him – away from the cliff’s edge at last. The two leaders cast their eyes over the Paladin Strait, the orange of the setting sun now almost fully absorbed by the blue of the night sky, scatterings of stars beginning to shine bright above them. The world was peaceful, even if it was just for the slightest of moments.
Clancy turned to watch how the stars reflected in the brown of Torch’s eyes.
“Cover me?”
Torch looked back, seeing the overwhelming adoration in Clancy’s matching set.
“Covering you. Always.”