Work Text:
This entire battle had been one long downhill swerve.
They’d only been hunting a small herd of anaks; easy marks, especially for a party of five. Such a low-tier hunt had been chosen carefully to give them a chance to improve upon their team synergy—and, despite understanding the reason for it, Cor had rankled at it.
He understood that his sudden inclusion in the Prince’s established group of retainers was throwing all five of them off. The others had years of experience together which he simply lacked. A quick, low-stakes hunt was a good way to start chipping away at their mutual uncertainty of one another, so that they could work together more efficiently.
He knew all of that. Hell, after that disastrous skirmish last night—the one where he, Regis, and Clarus had all tripped over one another and nearly gotten Weskham mauled in the process of saving their asses—Cor would’ve picked an easy hunt for them himself if Cid hadn’t beaten him to the punch.
Didn’t mean he liked the glances he kept getting from Weskham and Clarus. The glances that said they were reassessing their opinion of him. That, potentially, all his progress towards gaining their respect had been lost in an instant—as if Regis and Clarus hadn’t also fucked up last night.
Whatever. If that was the case, he would just have to earn that respect back. Tenfold. And getting all twisted up in knots over a tactically sound decision would hardly accomplish that. He’d perform well, hit their softballs out of the park, and work his way up in their esteem from there, the same way he’d gotten into King Mors’s good graces in the first place.
So they’d departed in the early morning to track down the anaks, then engaged them basically as soon as they found them. Within about a minute of the fight, Cor, Cid, and Weskham had taken down the first two anaks, smooth as oil; Regis and Clarus were mostly hanging back, watching their six.
‘They’re trying to give us a chance to get in sync without two more people to crash into,’ Cor’s rational brain knew. ‘They don’t trust me near the oh-so-precious Prince anymore,’ his lingering paranoia sneered.
Whatever. Whatever. If they thought that way, he’d prove them wrong.
To that end, Cor was almost happy when the pack of sabertusks set upon them. It gave him more time with which to show his mettle. And, during the ensuing fight, that was precisely what he did. When an anak lunged at Weskham while his rapier was sheathed, Cor intercepted the blow; when Cid overextended to drive his lance deeper into another anak, Cor kept the opportunistic sabertusks off his back. In the distance, Regis and Clarus picked off stragglers, but Cor kept only half an eye on them. They were apparently content to leave the majority of the work to the commoners.
The cacophony of overlapping noises—sabertusk growls, anak neighs, Weskham’s gunshots, Cid’s grunts, metal against flesh—masked the approaching thunderous footsteps almost entirely.
By the time the steps were close enough to catch their attention, it was too late. All five of them whirled around just as a massive, literally fuming bandersnatch rounded the corner, plumes of the steam it produced shooting up into the air like factory smokestacks.
And, due to the way Weskham, Cid, and Cor were all clumped up on the other side of the battlefield, with Clarus halfway between them and the Prince, the only one standing between the hulking beast and the rest of its prey was Regis.
Fuck.
Cor came running right away, but Clarus got there first. Between the mighty swing of his greatsword and Regis’s hasty bolt of thunder, the bandersnatch staggered away with a roar.
Every ounce of Cor screamed at him to keep going, right past the sabertusks that Clarus had been fending off, and join them again the bandersnatch—but the sabertusks would become a threat if left unchecked, and besides, if the three of them tripped over one another again, in this situation, they were all dead meat. So, growling low in his throat, Cor pushed down his pride and turned his attention to the small fries.
There were only a handful. Cor cut through them like so many stalks of wheat, the Genji blade humming cleanly through their necks. With that accomplished, he spared a quick glance to Wesk and Cid and found that they were keeping the rest of the sabertusks and anaks busy and holding up just fine. Finally, he was free to—
Clarus’s echoing shout would’ve been cause for concern. The sickening crack which followed made Cor’s blood run cold.
He whirled and saw them immediately. Clarus, sprawled in the sand, a smear of blood on the rocky cliff beside him marking the place the bandersnatch had hurled him. Barely conscious, if he was conscious at all. Regis frantically warping over to him, turning his back on the snarling beast.
Cor put his head down and sprinted.
Weskham’s gunfire must’ve kept the bandersnatch at bay, because neither Clarus nor Regis got mauled in the time it took Cor to reach them, even though the former was out of it and the latter was too busy fretting to fight. When Cor skidded up to them, Regis was hauling Clarus’s limp body off the ground, darting frantic glances over his shoulder at the bandersnatch.
“Is he—” Cor started.
“Get him clear!” Regis barked, shoving his insensate Shield onto Cor’s shoulder. Staggered by the sheer dead weight of him, it was all Cor could do to keep his feet; he had no time to protest before Regis whirled and charged the beast again, lightning crackling at his fingertips. “Cid, Wesk—cover!”
“Hell d’you think we’ve been doin’?!” Cid roared from nearby, his voice nearly drowned out by the yowls of angry sabertusks. Weskham made no response, but a series of gunshots heralded the dying cry and loud collapse of the final anak.
Cor grit his teeth, heaved Clarus further over his shoulder, and tried to drag him along towards the relative safety of the nearby rock formations. Couldn’t disobey the Prince’s order, even if it was a stupid fucking order—couldn’t protect the Prince and leave his Shield for dead, even if that was what Clarus would want, would insist upon, if he were conscious.
He wasn’t conscious, and the sound his body had made when he hit the rock was still reverberating through Cor’s ears, so—if he took issue with Cor’s actions, he’d just have to wake up and voice them. Or else deal.
For now, Cor would just dump Clarus under cover of some rocks and then return to the battle. They had a goddamn bandersnatch on their asses, and Weskham and Cid were completely surrounded, the sabertusks clearly taking advantage of the ruckus Regis was raising. Tucking Clarus out of sight was the best he could do with what time he had.
Gods, why was this asshole so heavy? Carting him along shouldn’t take so much of Cor’s energy; shouldn’t take so damn long. He had to get back to the others—back to Regis. The rocks he was headed towards were still ten, fifteen feet away.
Just focus—just focus, Leonis. Another step. Another. Keep going. Don’t turn back. Don’t get distract—
“Reggie!”
Weskham’s voice had Cor whipping around so fast his neck protested.
With a breathless rattle as the air was punched out of him, Regis sprawled onto his back, his sword splintering into motes of blue light. Above him, the bandersnatch lowered its clawed foot back to the ground and lumbered after him. Cor couldn’t hear its growl past the chorus of panicked shouts from Cid and Weskham—could barely hear those past the guttural cry which tore free of his own throat.
Clarus flopped limp to the ground; without his weight, Cor crossed the distance he’d just spent thirty seconds surmounting in the blink of an eye. The Genji blade sung as it slid free, cutting a clean arc just above the bandersnatch’s jutting tusks. He didn’t actually scratch it—because even with a meter-long katana, its tusks were too massive to reach any part of its face—but the swing made it flinch. There was a hitch in its steps; a slight stumble before it could trample right over Regis.
That bought him just enough time. At the last possible second, he flung himself atop of the supine Prince, thrusting his weapon up blindly with one hand.
He caught it on the chin, the sheer weight of its head nearly wrenching his sword from his grip altogether. Only sheer discipline kept his arm raised, holding the sword between the beast and their fragile bodies as if to keep it at arm’s length. As if Cor had the ability to hold steady against the forty tons of weight that were about to bear down on him.
A bang cut across the clearing—Weskham’s pistol, Cor registered distantly—and the bandersnatch reared; shrieked. Staggered a half-step back.
The force pressing inexorably down on his sword-arm vanished, but there was no time to catch his breath; no time to massage the burn from his wrist. Cor pressed forward, trying to broaden the gap; this time, he didn’t strike until he was so close that its tusks were brushing his sleeves. He was rewarded for his daring with a thin line scored across the bandersnatch’s snout.
It responded with a snarl, spraying a fine mist of hot spit too close to Cor’s face for comfort. The heat dragged a pained hiss from him, his eyes squeezing shut reflexively for a split second.
Stupid. Even though he caught his mistake immediately and ripped his eyes back open, he’d lost the advantage he should’ve pressed. The bandersnatch’s head lifted high in the air, then swung viciously back down; Cor had to leap back to avoid being torn asunder by its tusks, ceding all the ground Wesk had bought him. Yet again, he found himself frantically bracing his sword over his head. The Genji blade trembled when the monster’s tusks collided with it. His sword arm began to go numb.
Then the bandersnatch’s mouth split open vertically—two hideous flaps of flesh coated in rows of massive white teeth—and just that motion of unhinging its jaw dislodged the Genji blade with enough force to send Cor crashing helplessly to his knees.
His shoe jammed into Regis’s knee—he’d managed to stay between the beast and the Prince, at least. But it might not matter. Mouth gaping, the bandersnatch scuffed a claw against the ground and flung its entire weight towards them. Cor heard another bang, but either Wesk’s shot went wide, or the bandersnatch was too furious to feel it; there was nary a hitch in its lurch. Its slavering maw was splayed wide enough now to swallow him and his sword whole, but Cor dug his knees into the dirt and stood, knelt, his ground, because there was nothing else left in his arsenal, but like hell was he backing down—
Beneath, Regis let out a breathless, “No!”
With a blinding flash and a deafening clang, spectral weapons materialized in the air above Cor’s head in a messy circle, their blades barred defensively over him. The bandersnatch’s tusks slammed into them, stopping its charge short. It snarled, mouth-flaps writhing unhappily over them, spraying flecks of searing spittle into Cor’s face.
This time, he didn’t close his eyes. In another instant, it would rear back and strike again, and Regis couldn’t hold his royal arms steady beneath another assault of that strength. Not exhausted as he was. He’d need to catch his breath before he could possibly manage a genuine shield, much less an offensive.
Before he could think twice, Cor surged back upright, shoulders scraping through the gap between the hovering royal arms, one hand braced against the bow of the bandersnatch’s tusk so he could thrust himself halfway into its jaws—and he drove his sword deep into the raw pink roof of its mouth.
With his head practically crammed down its throat like this, its howl of pain made Cor’s ears ring. The bandersnatch pitched forward, blood gushing out of its wound and pouring onto Cor’s arm and face—Ow! Hot!—
And then there was a hiss, and its body erupted into geysers of boiling-hot steam.
Cor screamed.
It burned, it burned, Gods, it fucking burned so bad, he’d gotten his eyes shut in time, but every inch of his face was searing, melting, he was dying he had to be dying, and his legs tried to crumble beneath him, even as his body writhed wildly, yanking at his sword, lodged too firmly to be pulled free—get away get away get away—!
Regis surged up beneath him, shouting something Cor couldn’t parse, throwing an arm around Cor’s waist and trying to yank him back out of the jaws of hell—
But if he fell back—if he got away—if he let go of the sword clutched desperately in his blistering hands—then the bandersnatch would be able to get closer, and its open maw would engulf them.
Would snap shut on Cor and Regis both.
Blindly, still gasping for breath—crying out weakly when the steam poured down his throat, cooking him from within—Cor tried to kick Regis away. He didn’t let go of the Genji blade; his hands only tightened, even as the sword itself began to heat beneath his palms. Knees weak, body shaking violently, he could only cling all the more fiercely as the bandersnatch’s weight bore down on them. Try to push up with what strength he still had, even though his back and arms seemed liable to snap under the pressure.
Distantly, he heard voices crying his name. Distantly, he heard his own cries reach a fever pitch; then they withered away, no breath to sustain them.
His hands were slick with blood—his or its, he didn’t know—but he could take it; he could stand his ground; for as long as it took for Regis to escape, he would not falter.
A hoarse noise, not strong enough to be heard past his own ears, clawed its way out of his throat. He threw all his strength behind the Genji blade, refusing to let the bandersnatch sink closer—not even a centimeter, not even a millimeter.
He was Cor fucking Leonis, gods dammit!
He held out. He held out, and held out, and held out—
Until—
At first, he thought he was hallucinating Clarus’s familiar war cry. But it was followed by the vicious ripping of a greatsword tearing apart scale and flesh, and for a moment the weight above him seemed to double, oh Six, he couldn’t—but then the bandersnatch tipped sideways, dragging him down at a sharp angle—and, just as his feet left the ground, a set of arms wrapped around his chest and his stomach lurched—
With the characteristic ear-pop of a warp, Cor felt his blade slide free of the monster’s mouth. Reality contorted around him. He gagged.
The unbearable heat, the inescapable press of steam—vanished all at once, replaced by the humid Hammerhead air.
He hit the sand shoulder-first.
That, too, jarred a noise from him, and he reflexively gasped for breath—only to choke when it actually scraped down his burnt throat. What had been a single gag turned into a vicious dry heave. That involuntary movement set every raw inch of his chest and neck alight with pain, turning his heave into a moan—his moan into another desperate gag, every noise torture on his throat.
His bloodied hands still clutched the Genji blade, whose hilt burned white-hot against his palms. He couldn’t let go. Couldn’t bring himself to, without knowing for certain that the battle was over—and he probably physically couldn’t if he tried. Not without reigniting every individual nerve ending from his wrists to the tips of his fingers.
Get up, his mind snapped, and he shakily tried to roll into a sit.
Of course, he had neither the strength nor breath to get more than halfway upright, but it didn’t matter either way. As his core muscles went slack on him, dropping him down again, a familiar arm braced against his back and kept him off the ground.
“Cor,” Regis breathed, and then there were hands clutching at his forearms, stopping his instinctive attempt to brandish the Genji blade in the direction of the unexpected touch. “Cor, gods. Let me see.”
Cor’s arms were forced back down, trembling still where they clutched the hilt of his sword, and he tried to open his eyes, but they were swollen completely shut, his face still dripping with scalding-hot bandersnatch blood, and he tried to say, Your Highness, but what came out of his mouth was a humiliating, pleading keen, like a dog with its leg caught in a trap.
Regis made a wounded noise of his own. “Shit—Wesk, we need elixirs!”
Footsteps pounded towards them. “I have them here,” Weskham barked, and Cor heard glass vials clinking against each other; heard the scuff of Wesk’s shoes as he skidded to a stop beside them. “Astrals, Cor—where are you hurt worst? Can you gesture?”
Gesture—right, he could—but Cor’s attempt to move his arms in the direction of his throat, or at least his chest, bore no fruit. He was shaking too hard.
“Are you stupid?! What’re you waiting for?!” Cid snarled as he, too, approached, and Cor flinched, head pounding with panic and pain and lack of oxygen, mouth gaping around words that wouldn’t come. “Get his eyes!”
Something frightened reared up in Cor’s chest. No—they only had a few elixirs, and there were more important people to be prioritized than Cor. Most of their curatives should surely be going to Clarus. Maybe Regis, as well—it was hard to say how bad he’d been hurt.
Assuming there was only one elixir to spare for him, it needed to go to his lungs. Throat. Windpipe. Whatever hurt so fucking bad whenever he tried to suck in another breath, causing all the oxygen he fought for to instantly punch back out of him in a body-racking wheeze.
Unable to voice this, he could only frantically shake his head back and forth. His arms tried to jerk up to shield his eyes, prevent them from wasting the elixir there—but he couldn’t manage it. The Genji blade was leaden in his hands, keeping them pinned in his lap, and he couldn’t let go of it any more than he could lift it.
“Cor,” That was—Weskham, his voice low and urgent. “Reggie, wait, he’s trying to tell us something. Cor?”
All he could do was shake his head more. He mouthed the words desperately, ragged noises clamoring up his throat in an incomprehensible moan. Almost inaudible, without air to give it form. Then, with a burst of inspiration, Cor tried to suck in another breath—demonstrating for them how this only made a horrible rattling noise and then sent him into another gagging fit.
Can’t—breathe—!
It got through. There was vicious cursing all around, and then gloved fingers were clamping down on his chin, prying his mouth open—his lips cracked and popped, fuck, that hurt!—and then he heard a cork slide free and it was all he could do not to sob as the cold, bitter relief of an elixir splashed onto his tongue.
No dice. As soon as the elixir touched him, it sunk in, all its magic vanishing into Cor’s mouth before it could make it into his throat. That really did make him sob, though it still came up as a rough cough. Gods, he knew they probably couldn’t spare another; not while saving enough for Clarus—the crack he’d made against the rocks echoed through Cor’s memory—but he kept his mouth open, craning his head back frantically, because, fuck, he couldn’t fucking breathe—
Thank the fucking Six, someone poured another elixir in right after the first. Stupidly, Cor swallowed the first half-a-mouthful, even though he really ought to be inhaling it instead. Luckily, swallowing while laying almost flat in Regis’s arms accomplished that for him. He spluttered helplessly for a moment as the liquid sloshed unbidden into his lungs, briefly intensifying the pain rather than soothing it.
Then—yes, yes, Gods, his damaged insides absorbed the magic greedily, the liquid vanished, and the pain eased. The relief which followed in its wake was so overwhelming that, mortifyingly, he felt tears sting at his eyes. His only solace was that, with his face still so badly burnt, his eyes were swollen shut, preventing anyone from seeing the wetness there.
Rationally, he realized that the burns should concern him more than the tears. But, right now, he could hear no further noises from the bandersnatch or sabertusks, and Regis was alive and well, cradling Cor tenderly in his arms as if he mattered for shit, and—sue him, but Cor wanted to revel in a job well done for a fucking minute before he had to face reality.
The reality that he’d jumped into a bandersnatch’s mouth and almost gotten himself killed, which the others were sure to have opinions on, or the reality that—that his sight would be affected, might be lost, unless they could get another elixir quickly enough, which wasn’t exactly realisti—
“Fuck’s sake! Quit dithering!” Cid’s furious voice was his only warning before a third elixir was upended directly into Cor’s face.
Still sucking in desperate breaths, Cor spluttered yet again, cringing away. Still, the drops he inhaled simply vanished a moment later, and then—and then the blisters on his face were gone, and the skin didn’t burn, and—gods—yes, YES, the lack of pain was almost startling, as if Cor had managed to forget what it felt like to have skin which didn’t scream in agony.
“Prioritizing,” Wesk corrected sharply, “not dithering; we have a limited supply of—”
“How the holy hell was his damn face not your first priority?”
“Cid—”
Cor couldn’t help himself. He pried his eyes open, even though now there were even more tears brimming. Just to see for himself that the arguing figures hovering over him were as clear as they had been before. He blinked the spots from his vision just in time to see Cid snatch yet another elixir from Wesk’s stash and pour it over Cor’s blistered arms.
“I was getting to that,” Weskham sighed.
“Get to it faster!”
The volume of their squabbling made Cor cringe, even after all the magical help his head had been given already. “Fuck,” he coughed, arms twitching, though his hands remained locked around the Genji blade. “Cid—”
Immediately, Cid abandoned his spat with Wesk and leaned closer, his eyes uncharacteristically intent. “Right here, kid.”
“—you—shouldn’t’ve,” Cor managed before having to stop again to gasp for breath. “Elixir—save ‘em. For Clarus.”
In the span of a heartbeat, Cid’s expression went from serious to aggravated. “Brat, I swear to Shiva, you’ll wish I’d just left you half-dead when I’m done with—”
“Be reasonable, please,” Regis began, speaking right over Cid despite the glare it earned him. His arm around Cor’s back spasmed uncertainly, as if he was resisting the urge to move it. “Cor, don’t downplay this. I thought you were—you could have died.”
Even as Regis spoke, Weskham was looming ominously closer, their very last elixir held in his hand. Cor leveled him with a glare. “Clarus,” he repeated firmly.
At least Weskham trusted Cor’s instinct enough to dart a glance over his shoulder, presumably in Clarus’s direction (though, with these three morons clustered around him, Cor couldn’t see for himself).
Given that he hadn’t joined their impromptu little huddle, Cor had half-expected Clarus to be unconscious again, having used up all his energy felling the bandersnatch. But, after a moment, Wesk dutifully reported, “Clarus is on his feet,” and he turned his stern gaze back to Cor. “You, on the other hand—”
“M’fine,” Cor interrupted.
He was rewarded with three equally disgruntled expressions. “Fine?” Weskham parroted disbelievingly as Cid spat, “Like hell—!”
“Cor,” Regis cut through them both, squeezing Cor’s shoulder to get his attention, “be honest. Where are you still hurt? Burns are nothing to mess with.”
Nose wrinkling, Cor twisted his head in the opposite direction, which was the only way he could possibly break eye contact when he was laying in the Prince’s arms like a damsel. “Don’t need it,” he mumbled, hoping none of them realized that, while the elixirs had healed his arms and the backs of his hands, his palms were still bleeding sluggishly where they were locked around the hilt of his sword. Potions and time would take care of that.
“Cor,” Weskham said exasperatedly.
But, now able to breathe, swallow, and even see, Cor was no longer going to put up with their mollycoddling. Tipping his head back, and taking as deep a breath as he could manage, he hollered, “Clarus! C’mere!”
“Should’ve let that damn thing swallow you,” Cid growled, but Cor paid him no mind. His eyes were fixed on Clarus’s approaching figure; he’d discarded his greatsword back into the armiger, but he was still hobbling slowly, as if burdened by its weight. Cor was reminded, perhaps stupidly, of his own overburdened shuffle across this stretch while Clarus was unconscious on his shoulder.
“What is it?” Clarus asked urgently as he approached, eyes fixed on Cor. “What’s—?”
Mere steps away, his legs seemed to simply go out on him.
Instinctively, Regis lurched halfway up, jostling Cor in his arms, but he fell still again when Cor winced. It was Cid, instead, who caught Clarus, slowing his descent enough to set him down on his ass rather than letting him eat shit. Even once he was safely seated, though, Clarus’s face was drawn, his eyes squeezed shut and his lips tight with suppressed pain.
“Six,” Weskham hissed, and, gratifyingly, he fumbled the last elixir in Clarus’s direction without even another glance at Cor. “Clarus, here, drink—”
“Don’t be stupid,” Clarus rasped, peeling his eyes back open with some effort. He reached out with an undeniably shaky hand, caught Wesk’s wrist, and tried to press it down to crush the elixir onto Cor’s chest instead.
Regis intercepted with his free hand, pushing Wesk’s firmly back up in Clarus’s direction. “Clarus, drink. Don’t make me make it an order.”
“You heard him screaming, Reggie,” was Clarus’s reply, and Cor’s stomach dropped at the reminder. Stubbornly, Clarus tried to push Wesk’s hand back down. “I already had two potions. And I just knocked my head a little, anyway. I don’t need—”
“Both of you, kindly stop manhandling me,” Weskham snapped, sharply enough that Clarus and Regis both yanked their hands back with twin winces. As they murmured hasty apologies, he uncapped the final elixir and pressed it to Clarus’s lip. “I am not taking medical opinions from a man who can hardly walk twenty paces. Drink.”
Clarus’s mouth didn’t open.
“Drink,” Weskham said, “so I can get back to treating Cor.”
Clarus snatched the elixir and threw it back like a shot.
“What the hell,” Cor complained, but he didn’t have time for much else. True to his word, Weskham turned his attention back to Cor as soon as Clarus complied. It only took him a brief scan to realize what Cor had been trying not to let on.
“Cor. Can you let go of your sword?”
The feeling of eight eyes snapping onto him all at once made Cor’s skin crawl. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they’d all heard him screaming like a baby, as if he wasn’t already plummeting in their estimations, now he had to admit— “No. S’kinda… fused.”
He’d scarcely finished speaking before Regis suddenly levered him the rest of the way up, hissing something Cor couldn’t make out under his breath. Weskham and Cid each took a wrist and hefted the Genji blade up from his lap, then each of them grabbed the hilt as well, ready to pry them apart.
“Count of three,” Weskham said grimly, and Cor jerked a nod, closing his eyes just in case they watered a little too much for his ego to handle. “One, two—” Cor braced; only choked a little when the sword peeled free on “Three!”
Before he could survey the damage, or even really process the pain, Clarus shouldered into his personal space, holding two of the last curatives they had: regular old potions. Rather than waste time uncorking the vials, he just smashed them both against Cor’s wrists, making him jump with a startled curse.
“Shiva, Clarus—would a little tact kill you—”
“Quiet,” Clarus practically growled, and then his much larger hands swallowed both of Cor’s, calloused fingertips pressing at his joints and forcing his fingers to flex one-by-one. “You’ll need another if you broke any of these.”
“I didn’t break any. How would I have even—?”
But, despite the fact that Clarus’s own hands were purpling and certainly sore, he continued inspecting Cor’s hands with utmost focus, as if his very life depended on Cor playing the piano again. Honestly, even with how careful he was being, every touch hurt just enough to make Cor want to rip his hands free and stuff them in his pockets. But he looked plenty pathetic enough right now, so he submitted to the thorough check-up with minimal grumbling.
Eventually, Clarus seemed… relatively satisfied, though his eyes kept returning, almost guiltily, to the palm of Cor’s sword hand, which hurt a lot worse than the rest. Must look worse, too, given how Clarus kept glancing at it like it might explode. Or start bleeding again. At the angle Clarus was holding his hand, Cor couldn’t see the bit he was looking at at all, but the others could. He could tell by their expressions.
After letting Clarus fuss for far too long, Weskham gingerly pushed his hands aside—though, before Cor could feel truly grateful, he then went on to take Cor’s sword hand in both of his own, rolling it to test his range of motion the same way Clarus had.
“Without any more curatives at our disposal… you’ll keep this scar, I’m afraid,” Weskham said softly, pressing his thumb against Cor’s palm to test the new skin’s integrity. Cor could feel the pressure, could feel a deep ache beneath the gentle weight of Wesk’s touch, but it was almost more like a bruise than a burn. Potions mostly healed the surface, after all; what remained of the damage lingered beneath.
If he was lucky, that would only mean a few weeks of nagging pain. If he was unlucky…
Well, he could deal with nerve damage. Worst came to worst, he’d just learn to fight with his off hand. Couldn’t be too hard.
Not that the others seemed to agree. The instant Weskham released him, Regis’s hands replaced his, and he began to fuss over Cor’s apparently oh-so-awful scar, still keeping it angled away from Cor himself. Huffing, Cor shot Cid an irritated look, which Cid returned with a commiserating eye-roll. These damn rich kids. Always so dramatic.
“Not like I don’t have scars already,” Cor said, just in case they needed the reminder.
He was unable to parse the look he got from Weskham in response. “…As you say.”
Regis was quiet. Still, he cradled Cor’s throbbing hand, brushing his thumbs over his palm rhythmically as if he could soothe the pain with the world’s most tentative massage. At last, he bent his head, lowering it until his forehead was nearly pressed to Cor’s palm. His lips moved in some silent prayer which Cor was not privy to.
“Thank you, Crownsguard Leonis,” he said once he was done, and then he let Cor’s hand slip from his grasp and back down into his lap. Finally, Cor got a good look at the scar they’d all been ogling.
The Crownsguard badge that Cor had strapped to the hilt of the Genji blade—not for ornamentation, but because whenever he didn’t have the badge directly on display, everyone acted like he was just there for bring-your-kid-to-work-day—must’ve gotten hotter than the rest of the hilt. Made sense, he supposed. It was metal.
Its insignia, the crest of the Crownsguard, the symbol of the oath he’d taken, was now branded into Cor’s flesh, covering about half of his palm at a sharp angle. The finer details of the insignia were lost to mottled red skin, but the main motif, Bahamut and the Crown and the swords surrounding them, was clear as day.
“Oh,” Cor said.
Their uncertain glances and incessant staring suddenly fit into place in his head.
“I’m sorry,” Clarus said quietly as Cor examined his new mark—and, abruptly, something hot and irritated began to boil in Cor’s chest. “This wasn’t your burden to bear—”
Leaning sharply forward, he grabbed a fistful of Clarus’s collar and yanked him closer, ignoring Regis’s aborted noise of protest and the way Weskham’s hand clamped down on his shoulder to keep him still.
“You think I wasn’t prepared for this?” he demanded. “You think I regret anything?”
His voice was still hoarse, and he doubted he was intimidating anyone when he was laying half-limp with only Regis’s arms to keep him off the ground, but the others all fell silent. Clarus’s eyes were wide.
“Whether I wear this symbol as a badge or a brand, it doesn’t change a damn thing. I am a Crownsguard. I thought I’d at least proven that much to you by now!”
Mortifyingly, his voice wavered on that last sentence. Not just a little, either. Swallowing thickly to compose himself, Cor let go of Clarus’s shirt and jerked his head sharply away.
Whatever. It didn’t matter. King Mors had ordered them to take Cor along on this trip; regardless of what they thought of him, he would have plenty of time to prove himself. To prove them wrong. To prove—to prove—
How long would he have to keep proving it?
Cid’s snort cut through the heavy silence as cleanly as a hot knife through butter. Then, before Cor could fix his expression enough to safely turn back around, Cid’s trucker cap was being tucked onto his head and pulled down over his eyes in the same swift motion.
“Relax, brat,” Cid said, completely ignoring Cor’s indignant squawk and unsuccessful attempt to swipe at his face in retaliation. “Crest or no, ain’t nobody here gonna mistake you for anything but a Crownsguard.”
Wesk’s hand gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze, then cut distressingly close to the heart of the issue with a casual, “Certainly. You’ve nothing left to prove to us, Cor.”
“My father’s never made a better decision than to send you along with us,” Regis put in, his expression disgustingly earnest.
Finally, as Cor’s wide eyes darted between the three of them, stunned, Clarus himself spoke up. “I’m sorry.” When Cor’s gaze landed on him, his face was just as serious as before—but, after a moment, a strained smile broke his facade. “I’m sorry for saying I was sorry. Guess what I meant was… thanks. And good work out there, Crownsguard.”
Cor blinked as rapidly as he could manage until the tears threatening to rise finally gave up and subsided. Even then, he had no recourse but to twist aside again, hiding his face, which was reddening now for a much less deadly, much more embarrassing reason. “As… as long as you get it,” he said, trying not to sound choked up and not really managing it.
Cid didn’t even bother mocking him for his strangled voice; he just huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Loud and clear, kid.”
“But you’re still not driving until your hands are fully healed,” Weskham said.
With something like a scoff, Cor rolled his eyes. “Like I didn’t know that.”
As the others began to rise to their feet, Cor let Regis ease him up onto his knees. Cid’s cap tipped sideways on his head, too big for him, and Cor frowned with sudden realization as he fingered the brim. Too big or not, this shouldn’t have fit on his head at all. His own hat must’ve been displaced during the battle. “Anyone see where my—?”
Without even letting him finish, Clarus summoned Cor’s hat from the Armiger. It was covered in sand, but Clarus carefully dusted it off with his hand, leaving only a few stubborn grains clinging to the top, before pressing it carefully back into Cor’s hands.
Oh. “Thanks,” Cor said, a bit gruffly.
To show the depths of his gratitude, he only growled a little bit when Clarus and Regis insisted on helping him to his feet. But he straight-up snarled when Clarus offered to carry him. Had to nip that one in the bud.