The way back from Fanow was a long one this time, winding from Yx'Maja through

Slitherbough, and then dallying in every corner of the Greatwood before finally
aiming towards the Crystarium. Countless reports needed direct investigation,
preventing the shortcuts of either aetherytes or amaro. It seemed as if every glade
and cave required someone to stop by and investigate it, ensuring that some new
form of Ascian or Lightwarden had not somehow manifested and decided to set up
shop.
The Warrior had made it back. Eventually. There had been more than one scuffle with
the remnants of the Children of the Everlasting Dark, who -- if anything -- were
even angrier now that the night had returned, insisting that it belonged solely to
them and that all others should seclude themselves. He had missed, as always, a
bowl of Runar's stew. By the time he had dragged himself to the border north of
Fort Jobb, he had barely enough strength to cling to the reins of the amaro that
had taken him home, grateful for the training of his steed to follow its memorized
flight path without needing him to guide it.
There was still so much left to accomplish before the First could be set to right.
For a mercy, the Warrior was glad he had begun to neglect his studies of magic; in
their research of aetheric transference, the Exarch and the Scions had long
surpassed what he remembered from various teachers in Eorzea, and any contributions
he might have made had already been discussed. Though the awareness of how far he
had atrophied was humbling, it did free him up to apply his other skills to the
hundreds of different tasks now waiting for an adventurer to attend them -- most of
which involved traveling to places, struggling against various forces trying to
kill him, and then making it out alive.
As grueling as the work was, it was all still necessary. The diminished ranks of
Sin Eaters had opened up new travel paths along with the skies; any merchants and
explorers who sought to use them, however, rapidly discovered hungry beastkin who
had already had the same ambitions. The dwarves of Kholusia had continued to
cheerfully excavate various tunnels and had revealed unexpected technology along
the way, and the qitari had returned to the Greatwood, digging up history in a
literal sense. And then there was the business with Eden and the Empty, which was
enough to make one start doubting their own wits after the manner in which Ramuh
had manifested.
One thing was clear, at least: the sylphs would never forgive him if they found
out.
But the conflicts remaining on the shard were no less potent, regardless of if they
lay between different settlements or between man and beast. Despite the immensity
of each victory they had seized, the basic practicalities of ongoing survival had
not been erased. Life was awakening slowly across the First, but the deaths of
Emet-Selch and the Lightwardens did not fill storage sheds and dinner plates. Other
predators -- of all types -- would continue to move into the territory that the Sin
Eaters had occupied. The survivors of the First still needed to find food,
protection, medicine and shelter. That struggle would never be over.
And, wherever there was the need for one creature to live, there was inevitably the
cost of something else dying in its stead.
Even with the Lightwardens gone -- the Warrior had to admit -- the First was still
a remarkably convoluted place.
He arrived to the Pendants exhausted, dragging himself slowly up and down each
stairwell. The whole trip was made on foot; he did not dare to risk an aetheryte
transfer, lest his lack of focus end up transporting him in pieces across the
entire Crystarium. When he passed the Manager of Suites, he managed a slight nod,
and did not have the energy to answer when asked if he wished a meal sent up to his
rooms.
His quarters, at least, were already lit, the window open and taking in fresh air.
Setting his sword aside in its rack, the Warrior made it all the way to the nearest
chair -- each step slow and methodical -- and slumped gratefully into it.
Sitting down was a mistake. What little strength he had vanished instantly,
draining away as if the wood itself was a mimic in disguise, and he had just
invited it to feast. He needed to wash -- to eat, to read some of his
correspondences, make notes in his journal -- even though nothing seemed
particularly compelling. Every part of him was sore. His muscles made slow flares
of protest whenever he tried to move them, until the effort seemed futile from the
start.
Instead, the Warrior stared up blankly at the ceiling, aware of the bells ebbing
away as night slowly crept its way into his room and started to swallow him up with
it: a spare suit of armor dumped upon a chair to be forgotten, watching the moon
and stars cover the First with their presence.
He felt the whisper of Fray's arrival before the man took shape before him. Aether
coiled itself into tendrils that congealed into basic pillars of form, sculpting a
metal shell that gradually filled itself with the creature within. The gold trim on
the dark knight's armor gleamed in the light. Even with the helm obscuring the
man's features, the Warrior could sense the disapproval radiating forth; there was
no force in all of Eorzea that could hide that.
Fray barely waited until he was more than a glimmer in the air before he spoke.
"You look worse than after Hades got through with you."
The Warrior did not let the criticism humble him, true as it was. "Fray," he said
softly, his mouth curving up fondly; he had the energy for that much at least,
though little more.
The figure paused and then noted, patiently, "You know I'm not that man."
"You never seem to like it when I call you Esteem." It was still a good choice of a
moniker, as the Warrior thought about it: esteem, self-esteem, his Esteem. A fond
bit of wordplay. He'd been proud of it.
But Fray caught that thought -- along with the possessiveness of the phrase -- and
the Warrior could feel the strength of the eyeroll that it evoked. Rather than
bother to argue, the man reached up and yanked off his helm rather deliberately,
revealing the lack of humor in his expression even as the contours of his shoulders
were reshaping themselves, growing taller, broader. The shaggy cloud of his hair
was equally askew, looking as if he had just tumbled out of bed: a reflection of
the Warrior himself, though with eyes which shone like a pair of coins laid upon a
burial shroud, sending the dead to their rest.
They were narrowed now, in open irritation; the Warrior felt the emotion sting his
senses. "You should bathe first. Those fools in Eulmore were right about one thing:
you stink."
The Warrior made a limpid kick of his foot, scraping the floor. "Will you
disapprove if I fall asleep here in my armor?"
"If you mean, do I disapprove of you having as poor hygiene as that prat Estinien?
Then, yes." Tossing the helm aside -- where it dissolved back into nothingness,
unbidden from both their attention -- Fray continued to glare. "A thousand times,
yes."
As much as the Warrior wanted to protest, he had to agree. He could smell the
remains of Rak'tika on him like a tangible mass, rotting leaves and methane
perfuming every ilm of his gear. "Pour some water over me. Enough can probably get
in through my armor, and then I can drip the dirt out."
Fray snorted, turning his head aside; contempt prickled through the motion, needle-
sharp, but then a soft burst of affection washed past, thrumming underneath the
first like fingers running over the Warrior's heart. "Do you even have enough
aether spare to continue granting me a form?" the dark knight asked -- but
rhetorically, for he was already heading for the side door to the washroom, shoving
it carelessly open with his heel before striding inside.
They had nearly missed the washroom altogether upon first arriving to the Pendants;
the door had been cunningly designed to fit in with the paneling, so much so that
someone had accidentally placed a table in front of it while setting up the room,
leading the Warrior to rather nervously check under the bed for any sign of a
chamber pot before eventually heading out to plead with the Manager of Suites. But
-- in the end -- they'd had no lack of conveniences. The Exarch had set him up with
quarters that had a separate bathing area, and even heated water in the pipes which
supplied it, which meant not waiting for it to boil first over a fire. Luxury,
really; the Warrior was lucky to not have to haul his own water from the nearest
stream, laboriously filling up and then emptying a tub afterwards. It was folly not
to take advantage of it while he still could, before it was time for the next
fight.
He tilted his head back against the chair, half-drifting towards sleep as he heard
Fray clatter around in the washroom. It did cost a certain amount of energy for
Fray to manifest physically; the Warrior could feel the pull of it like hourglass
sand leaving his body, hollowing him out further with each grain lost. There wasn't
much excuse he could make -- it would have been less physically draining if he just
staggered towards the washtub himself, dumping himself headfirst into the water to
soak.
But every time he tried to rally himself to stand, he failed. The reason was there.
The willpower wasn't. The days since Emet-Selch's demise had already melted
together into one long, identical blur. Every ilm of his spirit wanted to simply
lie down on the floor and not move again, even if it meant lying there until the
centuries rolled on and the Crystarium decayed into ruins to entomb him.
If he simply shut his eyes here -- surrendering to unconsciousness -- then the next
morning would inevitably arrive. Time itself would make his choices for him,
demanding for him to get up once more and fight. All the Warrior needed to concern
himself with was finding the strength to keep repeating it. Just a little rest
would help. A few bells more of sitting there, that was all he needed. Another
moment as he let his energy slowly recover, fully aware that the next day would be
the same, and the next after that: a perpetual ache settling into his body, for it
knew that even if it departed, he would simply invite it back again.
There would only be sleep and his duty, and nothing else.
Luckily enough, Fray had more than enough opinions for the both of them. The man
emerged from the washroom only a few minutes later with a tub of water in his arms,
and towels flung over his shoulders. He dumped them all gracelessly on the ground
beside the Warrior, and then halved the pile of towels, spreading several
underneath the chair, and the Warrior realized that Fray was serious: he was
intending to bathe him right then and there, even if it meant dripping all over the
floor.
After fetching a second tub for rinsing, Fray hauled up a short bench, planting
himself on it and draping another towel across his lap. He had changed as well,
stripped down to a basic shirt and slops -- thankfully enough, for continuing to
manifest a full set of plate would have likely drained the rest of their aether
completely -- and hadn't bothered with the formality of footwear. Both tubs of
water were left to merrily steam beside them both, fire crystals dunked inside to
keep the temperatures hot. Between them and the heat of the nearby stove, the air
was already warm.
"Gloves first," Fray ordered sternly, holding out a hand in demand.
The Warrior grimaced, screwing up his face reluctantly -- but Fray only made an
impatient twitch of his fingers, and finally the Warrior had no other choice but to
yield. It felt as if his armor had trebled in weight since he first sat down;
lifting his arm towards Fray was like trying to upend a mountain, and he relaxed
gratefully into the support of Fray's hands as the man began to work the lacings.
The buckles for the right glove and bracer went easily, even despite how the
leather had bloated from moisture. Fray moved quickly to undo them, and then paused
at the first tug on the gauntlet itself, feeling it resist him. He made a face,
screwing up his expression in dismay. "You're still wearing rings under your
gauntlets. You know how terrible that is for the fit."
It was -- both for the fingers and for the rings themselves. Even plain bands were
dangerous. If a finger was too badly injured and began to swell, the metal could
block off necessary bloodflow and be impossible to remove without cutting the ring
off. The intricate bracelet wrapped around his right wrist earned a similar scoff
as Fray uncovered it, though more for its potential for irritating the skin from
trapped sweat or by sliding around during combat. The man checked the Warrior's arm
for signs of reddening, and then tossed both pieces of jewelry idly onto the table
like a set of worthless trinkets: a pointed gesture of disdain, as if their true
destinations should have been a goldsmith's smelting pile.
Right hand naked now, the Warrior flexed it gingerly, feeling the cooler air pass
over his skin. The motion was easy enough to perform without concern. But he winced
when Fray went for the left side of his body, and Fray -- pausing long enough to
give him a stern look -- freed that gauntlet more carefully, exposing the mottled,
purpling bruise that spanned across the entire spread of the Warrior's fingers,
sparing only the thumb with the livid swelling.
"It would have been worse without the gauntlet," the Warrior supplied helpfully.
Fray bared his teeth in disgust; like a thick stew burbling in protest, an
mirroring bubble of sentiment rose inside the man, bursting in a wordless, half-
formed insult before ebbing away into mere disapproval. "Is that meant to be any
comfort?"
The ring on the Warrior's left hand was, thankfully, a jointed shell of metal,
rather than a band with jewels or other decorations; the second layer of armor had
protected the knuckle somewhat, and though the flesh had been pinched inside it,
the circulation had not been choked. Still, it took several careful minutes for
Fray to remove it, wiggling it carefully around the knuckle as the Warrior groaned
against what felt like a dislocation in the making.
Then both hands were bare, freed of rings and gauntlets, the latter of which had
already been lined up on the table. The Warrior stretched his fingers out gingerly,
appreciating the freedom to move. Each joint felt stiff, the flesh swollen and
clumsy. Rak'tika's swamps had completely saturated the leather of his armor,
soaking in layers of humidity and mud; most of it would have to be replaced, unless
he wanted to stink like a bog and attract every vilekin from malms around. The
artisans of the Crystalline Mean would surely weep once he managed to bring
everything to them this time to get cleaned, seeing what a mess he'd made of their
newly-cut leather and stitching.
Fray's hands were still busy, as methodical as if he were a leatherworker himself,
bent to dismantle the Warrior's armor instead of reconstruct it. He reached up to
slide the heavy weight of the Warrior's earring free, careful not to tug on the
lobe too hard, and then set the adornment down on the table. "What poor condition
you're in. You should have called for my aid. I would have done a far better job of
protecting you than this flimsy metal."
The Warrior had just enough strength to arch a defensive eyebrow at the ceiling.
"My armor does an adequate job."
Fray glanced down pointedly, his eyes skimming the tapestry of injuries already
visible, each bruise offering fresh dyes for the threads. "Does it. I suppose we'll
find out soon enough. Arms up."
The buckles and joints of the chestpiece were next. Fray pulled his bench closer,
arms going around the Warrior's body as he worked on the catches, and the Warrior
leaned forward, briefly tipping his head against the solid support of the other
man's shoulder. They were both fortunate that Fray already knew how the suit of
Edengrace worked; the more complex that suits of armor became, the more buried
their hazards. With one set of armaments, the Warrior had discovered that if he
rotated his hand the wrong way while trying to get the gauntlet to automatically
shutter closed into a sleek, form-fitting shape, it would instead try to fold up
around the elbow and attempt to crush the joint. He had -- more than once -- nearly
had his fingers severed by his own gloves.
"Arms forward now," Fray ordered tersely. His mind provided the slightest shove for
emphasis, like a hand in the small of one's back, as if he didn't expect the
Warrior to follow common sense on his own. Buckles clicked open in staccato. The
chestpiece loosened and then came free from the Warrior's body like a dislodged
carapace, a layer of clay being prised away from a buried artifact; then Fray
promptly peeled off the leather padding and undershirt, leaving the Warrior's skin
naked to the light.
Half-stripped, the Warrior slouched back against the chair, free to relax without a
shell of metal to keep him upright like a brace. The air was colder without the
insulation of armor trapping his body heat; the temperature difference was enough
that he wasn't certain if he should be prepared to shiver, or if he must have been
sweating all along. He felt even more boneless now, helpless to merely watch as
Fray slid to the floor, and began work on removing his boots next.
This one was harder. The left side came off easily enough. But when Fray gripped
his right foot by the ankle, the Warrior made a hissing sound despite himself, his
back arching in a startled spasm that was hard enough to knock his shoulderblades
against the wooden chair.
Fray instantly shot him a withering look; the Warrior felt the press of the man's
mind begin to dig insistently at him for information. He tried a token deflection,
dismissing the injury as a stubbed toe. It was swatted away immediately beneath the
pressure of Fray's focus, like a lump of flan set to ineffectively barricade
against a landslide.
Thankfully, Fray eased up quickly enough. As soon as he had learned enough of the
nature of the injury, he shifted position, bracing the back of the Warrior's leg so
that he could use both hands to pull the greave off, and then the rest of the boot.
Pain hit like a queasy, hot jolt as the Warrior tried to ride it out, aware of how
carefully Fray was trying to work around the joints of the ankle, and the blunt
bend of the heel. He swallowed his groan; it rolled in the back of his mouth,
fighting to get out again, and he thought desperately of the stark snows of
Coerthas instead, pristine and empty and cold.
He was on the verge of panting when Fray finally slid the rest of the boot free,
revealing the ugly blotch that had seeped across the Warrior's skin: a bruise that
coiled around his leg all the way up the calf, the ankle itself puffed with
swelling.
"I'm impressed," Fray drolled, sounding anything but. He studied the discoloration
as if it were a new form of vilekin, one with parasitic traits. "You need ice for
both your foot and your hand, not heat. I'll get cold towels for you after this and
stoke the stove so you don't catch a chill, and then you can be liberated to drip
all over the floor some more."
The Warrior attempted an airy wave that felt as convincing as a drunkard's kiss. "A
few bells of rest and some more elixirs will do the trick well enough. At least the
swelling isn't severe enough for you to have to cut the boot off this time."
Fray did not miss the comment -- this time -- and picked up the boot again
studiously. Then he reared up and flung it, hard, into the furthest corner of the
room where it promptly smashed against a cabinet and clattered behind one of the
dressers, far enough out of reach that the Warrior would have to work to fish it
out again. "Stop by the Spagyrics. You'll need real healing, you moonbrained fool."
"And they have real patients." Dropping his head back against the chair, the
Warrior resigned himself to his fate of being shoeless for the rest of the evening.
Not that he needed the excuse. He didn't have the energy to leave again, even if he
wanted to; all he could do was stare up at the ceiling, and wait for the morning to
come.
He felt Fray prodding both the bruise and his mind carefully, searching for any
indication of a broken bone. "You cannot keep dosing yourself with medicines in
hopes that your life will be sustained through a never-ending supply of potions."
"Not everyone has the same advantages we possess." The brickwork of his quarters
seemed dark and dizzying, like the walls of a prison that had been twisted out of
shape in a gravity spell. The Warrior wondered, suddenly, if it would fall in upon
him; it seemed like a remarkably simple way to go. "'Twould be selfish not to allow
them to aid first."
Setting his hands on the cuff of the Warrior's pant leg, Fray ran his finger along
the inside of the fabric, loosening the fit. "No," he snorted, "they have their own
advantages, ones you do not share. You would do well to let them exercise their own
strengths upon occasion. Else, the only thing they will learn is how to best beg
another for succor."
The leggings were inconvenient enough to try and wrestle off while remaining half-
seated; several times, the Warrior thought about just giving up and telling Fray to
leave them in place, hygiene notwithstanding. But the man was right. They had to
go, or else they would simply get soaked, and the long process of leather drying on
you -- clasped heavily around your legs, cold and sodden -- was a horrible feeling,
one that reminded the Warrior of too many nights spent huddled by a fire, or
crouched in a stream hoping for voidkin to slither past. It would be far more
costly on repairs if he got them needlessly wet -- and Fray, he suspected, would be
only too happy to simply cut them off the Warrior's body if given half an excuse.
He wriggled as best he could, leaning his weight from one hip to the other while
Fray yanked them indecorously off. Then the other man got hold of his smallclothes
before the Warrior could protest, and wrenched them away too, dumping them on top
of the rest of the pile to be sorted for washing and repairs.
And then he was bare, naked down to every ilm of his skin, and Fray was sitting
back on the bench, eyeing him sternly. After a moment of deliberation, the other
man scooped up the cloth rag from the water basin, squeezing out the excess
moisture before holding out his hand imperiously, palm upturned.
"Very well," he announced, waiting until the Warrior tamely placed his injured left
hand in his, and then angling it critically towards the light. The swollen knuckles
were lined up in a purpling row like rejected jewels at a goldsmith's table, each
deemed too flawed for further polish. "Let's begin here. Tell me: what did this
protect?"
It was not a question about the gauntlets. Those pieces of armor had already been
set aside. Skin and flesh -- a simpler form of defense -- had kept the Warrior's
bones from shattering, but neither of those were what Fray addressed either.
The Warrior's armor had safeguarded him. But his wounds had shielded something
else.
"North of Fanow," he began, watching Fray start on his smallest finger first,
wiping it down carefully. Drops of water spattered on his knee, and past that onto
the towels on the floor. "A viis was training her apprentice on a herd of deer.
Both of them were archers, aye? But the apprentice fought with a pugilist's
sensibilities. She was confident -- so confident," he laughed, ruefully,
remembering the horrified disbelief that had gripped him upon watching the woman
leap forward recklessly into the herd. "Rather than hang back, she charged right
into the whole lot. Three stags had already set upon her before she had even set an
arrow to string. I had to race simply to keep up with her and ward off their fury."
Fray snorted. The cloth moved over the Warrior's knuckles, gently daubing away the
sweat and grime. "Deer."
The Warrior allowed himself a smile at Fray's derision. "Anything can be ferocious
in the right circumstances." The deathmice of the Twelveswood had their name for a
reason; he had underestimated them once early on in his journeys. Never again.
"Scarce had we slain one of the herd before she was off to pick at another, rather
than finish off the ones she had already aggravated. It seemed as if they were
endless. I had to use every technique I knew simply to stay alive. Near the end,"
he admitted, as lightly as possible, as though nonchalance alone was enough to turn
the entire tale into an innocent child's romp, "one managed to charge inside my
guard."
It was a good thing that Fray had already switched to his right hand; the Warrior
lifted his left one, mimicking the same instinctive block that had saved his skull
from being bashed open. He could still remember those hooves coming down, sharp as
a mugger's knives, driven by a pair of muscular legs that could splinter bone. The
strike had been a crushing one. It had nearly broken him. "I didn't have any tricks
left at that point, save desperation," he admitted. "Thankfully, I managed to
deflect it in time. The results are as you see them, but the viis herself was
unwounded."
The cloth was working its way down to the Warrior's right wrist, leaking hot
droplets along his skin, and the Warrior wanted badly to pretend that it was a
magickal balm that could erase all forms of damage that it touched. But Fray was
right: the heat felt both soothing and aggravating, and the pain was moving
steadily towards an angry inflammation. He would have to ice most of his body at
this rate, not just his ankle. He would have to care enough to do so at all.
"Was it worth it?"
The Warrior did not answer immediately. Fray would have caught an arbitrary verdict
if he had. Instead, he allowed his thoughts to wander to the way that Salmet
Quickhunt had stopped once the rest of the herd had fled, and then -- turning back
belatedly -- finally realized just how much danger she had invited. A ring of
corpses had decorated the grass around them. In the center, the Warrior had gone to
one knee, leaning against his greatsword as he had struggled to catch his breath, a
stray trickle of blood painting the side of his face where the hoof had kissed
along his scalp, only an ilm away from smashing his skull in.
He had witnessed the look of horror that had frozen her as she finally realized how
many adversaries had taken up her challenge, coming in from her flanks even as she
had only focused gleefully on the target directly before her.
Best recover your fletching, the Warrior had said, offering a weary smile as he had
jerked his head towards the nearest carcass.
Salmut had stammered panicked apologies, and then equally-agitated thanks -- but it
hadn't been her contrition that he'd been looking for. As the viis had gathered her
courage back, she had made an abrupt, determined nod, her eyes still fixed upon
him: acknowledging the awareness of where she had gone wrong, and the drive to
improve upon it.
"Yes," the Warrior said aloud to Fray. "It was worth it."
Fray watched him for a moment, and then rewet the cloth, working up the Warrior's
wrist. There was only a fistfull of space between the bruises on his hand and a
second set that painted his forearm; the width of them coated the Warrior's skin as
if he had dipped his hand into a dye vat and then had done a poor job of scrubbing
afterwards. Blotches of angry violet mapped the aftermath of each blow, refusing to
fade into yellows and greens. "And what is the rest of this nonsense from?
Challenged the viis herself, did you?"
This one, at least, was easier. While the damage looked widespread, the impacts
themselves had been made with a blunt object, and not the point of a hoof. The
Warrior stretched out his arm to let it rest on the table, grateful not to have to
hold it out extended and dripping. They were vivid marks, true -- but still only
bruises. He wouldn't have even considered them worth noticing.
"Do you mean to take the measure of my sincerity through the proportion of my
suffering?" he asked, bemused that Fray thought it worth investigating at all.
Rotating the Warrior's arm carefully to test for strain, Fray made a thoughtful
grunt and then began the work of scrubbing down the skin from shoulder to wrist.
"'Tis not the arrow wound itself which kills a hero. It is the infection which sets
in, the blood loss that makes them dizzy later, dulling their reflexes so that they
are too slow to block a blade. It is," he added sharply, flicking the washcloth
hard enough to scatter water at the Warrior's face, "the effects of eating five
Lightwardens and then imagining they do not somehow poison your belly later."
The Warrior winced, recoiling automatically from the spatter; he would likely never
escape Fray's reminder of that, and for good reason. "Point taken. 'Twas only a
treant, massive and enraged. Chantico, the Night's Blessed called it. When I came
across it, it was engaged with two of their sentries -- they had only a spear and a
bow between them, and naught else to shield from its blows. The seedkin itself held
no surprises. Merely its vast strength, and its anger."
Fray looked unimpressed, soaking the washcloth once more before pressing it against
the meat of the Warrior's arm. The temperature of it was hotter than before; the
fire crystals were heating the basins unevenly, and the sensation was closer to
pain than relief. But Fray took note, stirring the water up with a few swirls of
the cloth, and then letting it cool for a moment before reapplying it to the
Warrior's skin, holding it there to allow the heat to loosen the muscle rather than
sear it.
"And the sentries?" he encouraged. "Were they safe?"
It was gratifying to turn back towards the conclusion of the fight, rather than
continue to brood over the details of it. The Warrior watched as Fray checked how
well his elbow could flex, bruises still smudged violently across the skin.
"They were," he said, a faint trickle of pride working through him, settling into
his chest.
Fray did not bother to praise him. Instead, the dark knight shoved his small
sitting bench just far enough away to give them both more room, and considered what
still needed washing before taking the Warrior's left leg and stretching it out
like a beam between them, braced upon his thigh. Dozens of scrapes and gashs
covered the skin. Flecks of dried blood -- clinging stubbornly to the hairs of his
legs -- decorated the Warrior's leg like a handful of cinnamon tossed over a cake,
clumped into still-forming scabs. "What about these wounds? Give me the story
here."
The Warrior bit back a grimace of embarrassment -- a useless endeavor, since Fray
would have felt it regardless of what he displayed on his face. "You already know,"
he pointed out matter-of-factly. "Do you truly wish me to describe the whole tale?"
It was Fray's turn to lift an eyebrow this time in concession; he dabbed at a few
of the scabs carefully with the washcloth, taking care not to scrub them away.
"What happened is different from how you feel about it. By all means -- tell me,
with your own tongue, why you bothered with what amounts to little more than pest
extermination."
Helpfully, the Warrior tried to shift his feet to allow Fray a better reach with
the cloth, and only earned himself a sharp mental prod: hold still. "The Warrior of
Darkness, slain by a rampaging herd of atrociraptors no larger than half-grown
chocobos," he agreed. "What sort of fate would that be?"
He had hoped for levity to lighten the mood, but the look Fray gave him was
unamused, eyes lidded as he reached forward to work the washcloth along the
Warrior's thighs, spreading them further open with his hand as he wiped down the
inner hollows of the hips. The rag was gentle as it ran down the Warrior's cock,
his balls cupped in Fray's palm as they were sponged clean next. "The same sort of
fate as if you'd died to Hades, I expect. The how of it hardly matters. People
don't care what makes someone break -- only if it happens or not. Even then, it's
only so they know to dig out the spare. They wouldn't criticize the manner in which
you died. Merely that you had the rudeness to do so at all."
As painful as the atrociraptors had been, the wounds they had left behind were at
least relatively straightforward: all cuts and nips, the flesh torn but without any
risk of something broken deep within his body that would bloom into a lethal rot.
The leggings had done an adequate job of keeping any of the beastkin from getting a
full mouthful, which had also kept them from ripping chunks out of him -- far
harder to heal parts of the body that were simply no longer there -- and they
hadn't been able to hit a major artery. Conjury had done well to stem the bleeding.
Even though the skin needed healing, there was not any sign of major infection.
Still, the fight had not been one worth putting to any ballad. Using a greatsword
to swat down the tiny creatures had been like trying to use someone's front door to
crush a fly: devastating when he could make each strike connect, but just as likely
to miss with each swing. By the end of it, he'd had to flail wildly, and hope.
Fray only smirked as the Warrior finished mulling over the battle, and the Warrior
realized that the man had simply pulled his thoughts out of him as during the
recollection. He offered a lopsided smile back. "Naught to be done about it," was
his verdict. "Greatswords are powerful, but get within their reach, and they're as
vulnerable as any other long weapon."
"You have aether to shield you in close quarters for such moments."
"I do." The Warrior watched Fray chase a drip of water along his thigh, patting the
moisture dry. "But it was bad timing."
The excuse was only half a lie. He'd already been injured by then, not even halfway
back to the Crystarium.
He'd already been tired.
Fray said nothing to that, rinsing out the cloth and soaking it in fresh water
again. "At least you've one good foot remaining." Despite the caustic edge to his
words, the dark knight's hands were careful as they lifted the Warrior's right
ankle, shifting his wooden bench closer so that he could brace the weight of it on
his knees. "Which manner of beast was it that caused you to limp all the way back
here?"
Like the shriek of a compressed nerve, reluctance suddenly reared in the Warrior's
soul with all the ferocity of an inferno, flinging a wall high in his mind. It
could not hold; he was as helpless to reinforce it as he was to attempt dismantling
it himself, stone by stone. It was as if -- despite all of Fray's care -- the man
had torn open one of the many scabs on his body, and now the Warrior was bleeding
everywhere, all over the table, all over the rags. All over the floor. He'd been so
weary fighting the raptors. He was so weary still, and he didn't want to think
about the rest of his battles, not when he'd already been trying so hard to forget
about how many of them had happened at all.
He'd fooled everyone else he'd met along the road back to the Crystarium. None of
the sentries had tried to probe deeper into his health. He had smiled and deflected
any questions as to his well-being, and they had all believed him when he had
claimed that he was fine enough.
But he couldn't deceive Fray.
He opened and closed his hands once, painfully aware of how the dark knight was
conscious of every stray emotion that coursed through him, no matter how stubborn
or petty. "One of those vined plants in the swamp," he began. His voice felt thick.
"Grown to absolutely massive proportions. I was doing a fair job of hacking it
down, and then it snuck one of its vines in low, and snatched my leg. It pulled me
straight off the ground -- I nearly lost my grip on our greatsword at that point,
which would have likely been the end of me. It swung me around a bit. I suppose I'm
lucky it didn't think to smash me against the dirt, or else I might be short a
working leg, too."
Hanging upside-down, it had been a miracle that he'd managed to get enough
leverage; even then, it had been for a hasty stab, and not a proper swing. Plate
armor was well and good, save when its entire weight was being suspended from a
single limb. He'd been lucky to escape without a dislocation.
Fray's scorn, at least, was reserved for his injury, and not his battle techniques.
"Any medic would keep you off that foot completely until it heals. Knowing you, at
least give yourself time to restore your aether before you try to mend it yourself,
or ask for enough of a curative that you can get the swelling down. Else, you'll
simply keep making it worse with every step you take."
The Warrior arched an eyebrow, trying to shrug it away with a witty reply -- but
Fray, likely sensing the attempt, simply pressed his fingers lightly into the joint
to check the swelling, and the Warrior's feigned nonchalance dissolved into a
pained groan. "Was this worth it? Was this worth the injury?"
This one was harder to answer, as the Warrior had known it would be. The response
everyone would have expected was simple: that it was vital to take care of threats
in advance, before they grew out of control and claimed lives. The Warrior had
intervened in such ways in the past. Adventurers were paid in coin for far less.
But no one had bid the Warrior to fight this time. It had been his choice to
confront the seedkin -- and, in the end, it was his frustration as well. Mere
belief in the rightness of his cause had been his sole justification. Removing the
seedkin might have merely paved the way for another predator to rise in its wake.
His actions might have even made matters worse in the long run.
"I don't know," he confessed. It felt awful to say out loud, admitting to what
sounded like resentment -- but he had to, before it became rancor in truth,
festering like a thousand cuts until it all broke out in a wave that darkened every
action around him. Until Fray intervened again like a sword drawn at Whitebrim,
screaming his anger at both the world and at the Warrior for allowing all of it to
happen. "I don't know if it was worth it. I don't know."
He bowed his head gracelessly against his palm, feeling the ugliness of the
confession tighten his chest, creeping along the back of his throat. The words were
no easier to admit to now than any of his anger had been back when Fray had first
given him a greatsword and said, listen to the darkness. None of the thoughts he
strung together gave the emotions themselves any nobility. To be a hero was to
fight without the desire for accolades -- but fighting alone, without any thanks,
meant that you might only be fooling yourself into thinking the fight was necessary
to begin with.
A false knight, crafting enemies out of pretenses simply so they could feel needed
in the world.
Yet to follow that course of logic only spiraled further downwards: that to feel
unappreciated at all was a sign of hidden selfishness, an unworthiness of the title
of Warrior of Light. To serve mindlessly in silence was equally futile; doing so
fostered entitlement in the same way as the merchant he had confronted long ago.
And battles which went unobserved rarely had the chance to change the minds of
others. If it only counted to fight where others saw it -- if it only mattered if
others were able to observe, and understand -- then all the dozens, hundreds,
thousands of fights that went unacknowledged in the world needed to be seen.
To fight alone, some might say, was a fruitless endeavor: the only battles that
counted were the ones that gave others cause to appreciate the labors being
performed on their behalf.
By that logic, the only battles that counted were the ones that people were
grateful for.
It was a knot of contradictions, arguments that the Warrior could not defend
without perverting his own beliefs into something self-serving, twisted further and
further down until all of his actions were suspect -- and even as the Warrior tried
to deny even the slightest hint of vanity, he felt Fray's fingers reach out to
settle against his skin.
"That's enough." The man's hand was a firm pressure on the back of his head,
covering the fragility of his spine. The force of his will in the Warrior's mind
was the same: a heavy grip that refused every impulse towards self-recrimination,
saying no again and again. "We're almost done. Turn around, and let me finish your
back. Don't bother to move the chair," he ordered, already standing up. "Use the
table to lean on instead."
Granted the welcome reprieve, the Warrior started to move without thinking -- but
as he twisted around, focused solely on guiding his sprained ankle safely
underneath the furniture -- a fresh pain shot through his body, radiating all the
way from the base of his spine to the top as the muscles spasmed in protest.
He dropped back against the chair, all interest absent in ever moving again. "I'm
clean enough," he claimed, attempting to catch his breath. "We can skip that part."
But it was far too late. If Fray had been quick to notice the Warrior's pain
before, he was even faster now. Like fingers pressing at a bruise that had gone
deeper than flesh, deeper than bone, the dark knight's mind dug into him, catching
at each wisp of memory, no matter how small. The Warrior tried to wave him off,
obfuscating it all beneath a cloud of indifference, but without any luck: Fray was
already glowering at him, the man's suspicions confirmed.
"Your back," the dark knight repeated, each word a soft, slow command. "And then,
you will tell me all about it."
Scooping up one of the pillows from the bed, Fray laid it on the table for padding
and then flicked a towel across it, shoving everything else aside in a clatter of
empty bottles and trinkets. "Here," he announced, adding another layer of towels
for the Warrior's arms to rest upon. "That will help. Keep the pressure off your
hand."
There was no excuse not to move; even so, the Warrior took more care this time as
he turned around, shifting in place on the chair to keep from bumping any of the
other injuries. He felt Fray's hands brush his back for support -- and then stop as
the rest of his back was revealed to the light. Slowly, the other man's fingers
traced downwards, pausing just to the left of the spine where an inferno ache was
simmering, dangerously close to the kidneys. It felt like a bruise, though the
Warrior hadn't seen it yet in a mirror directly. Even though Fray's fingers barely
applied any pressure, it still felt as if the skin was alert to the slightest
points of contact, ready to scream.
Fray considered the damage, circling the pad of his thumb over the mark even as his
attention pressed into the Warrior's mind. "This one. Here. Speak."
Even though there was no purpose in it, the Warrior tried to push back -- but there
was nothing to resist. Fray's mind had already slipped away, shuttering itself back
into the abyss where the Warrior could not easily reach. "Take it from my
thoughts," he replied, letting the cowardice of it twist around him as he lowered
his head against the table. "'Twould be faster that way."
But Fray ignored the attempt at deflection, as pathetic as it was. "You have
managed to share the story of everything else. Now it's this one's turn. What did
this protect?" he insisted softly, cupping his hand over the bruise like a warning.
"Not enough." Staring bleakly at the cotton towels piled beneath his arms, the
Warrior made a limp shake of his head. "It did not protect enough."
He fell silent again, but not out of aversion this time. It was difficult to gather
his words in order, dredging them out of the muck he had shoved them relentlessly
into in the back of his mind. He hadn't wanted to remember any of this fight. He'd
shoved it all aside to consider later, he'd told himself -- which had meant,
secretly, never.
Except that Fray was here, and Fray knew exactly what the Warrior was intending: to
try and contain the entire blame of it as his own, a pearl of sin hoarded away
where no one else could see it, distending his innards like the sullen lump of a
tumor.
He could not lie, either. Not to someone who was already entrenched within his
soul, reading the memory back as easily as a picture book penned for children.
The Warrior buried his face into the cloth wrapped over the pillow. Even with his
voice muffled, he knew Fray could understand him, picking each syllable out of his
mind before he even finished forming it aloud. "There was a skirmish between the
Night's Blessed and a few of the remaining Children of the Everlasting Dark. It
was... worse than the deer." An understatement. Even saying it felt like swallowing
mouthfuls of grit, bog-silt settling into the crevices of his teeth and the bed of
his tongue. "We were fighting in the water, all the way up past my knees. It made
everyone sluggish, impossible to move through -- and the Children knew it. Nearly
every one of them was an archer or mage, with lancers otherwise for reach. Trying
to fight in that was like wading through snow. Every time I tried to close the
distance, it always seemed as if I was too late."
He didn't want to say any more. It bordered on insult to try and explain away the
dead. Like his earlier reluctance, it seemed better to abandon the conversation
entirely than to allow it even a single sentence more -- but there was no place to
flee to that Fray could not follow.
He twisted his fingers into the towels. "That wasn't the whole of the problem. The
bog was not too deep, but it was deep enough. Whether it was a Night's Blessed or
Child, each person fell into the water when they were struck down. They fell," he
repeated, "and then, they began to drown."
It hadn't been obvious at first. The battle had been chaotic enough to take up all
the Warrior's attention, but then one of the Blessed had pitched face-first into
the waters beside him and hadn't come up again, even though part of his mind had
kept telling him they were fine, they would surface any moment now. When he had
gone to his knees to drag the woman up, she had already seemed pale with death. The
water she had vomited out when he had thumped her hard on the back had been
brackish, laced with mud and decaying weeds.
"When I realized what was happening, I tried to haul those who were already
unconscious upright, to shallower waters." Their robes had been heavy in his hands.
Waterlogged, the fabric had pulled the wounded down like a set of manacles chained
around their entire body, even as they had struggled to stay upright, choking on
the swamp. "But we were so far in and -- I tried to pull all of them out, no matter
which side they were on. At that point, it was madness for either side to continue
fighting. But the Children set their arrows on me, and one of their lancers came up
behind me while I was carrying one of the fallen out and I -- they caught me by
surprise."
He was speaking faster now, flat and emotionless, plowing through each memory
mindlessly like following flags on a race course, flinging himself towards the
final goal in hopes of respite. "Their spear hit me while my arms were still full.
It hit the joints and was deflected into the muscles instead of away." Edengrace
looked impressive; the cunningly jointed scales which ran along the spine offered
superior flexibility, at the tradeoff of creating other vulnerabilities. Thanks to
how the metal curved into itself, the weapon had driven that much deeper, its full
impact funneled directly into the Warrior's body. "It knocked me off-balance. The
lancer tried to drown me -- she got me into the water, lodged her spear in my
chestplate to hold me down. By the time I managed to drive her away, the fight was
already over."
He stopped there, abruptly, hitting the end of the facts themselves and finding
nothing else save his own guilt to plunge back into, as if he were also a half-
asphyxiated, dying thing being dragged out of the mud and forced back into life
again. "I don't know who won. No one did. The waters were so murky. I couldn't...
find all the bodies."
"You weren't responsible for them." It was the first time Fray had spoken up in
protest of any of the efforts. The dark knight was a formless voice at his back; he
wasn't touching the Warrior anymore, standing just out of sight. "You saved what
you could. They must be willing to take action for themselves."
The Warrior took in a shaky breath; it tasted like bile in the back of his throat.
"I could have saved more." He knew how much like Myste he sounded. There were
reasons that the child had been compelled to take form: this was one of them. This
was the same path that led there. "I could have -- "
"Stop."
The pressure of Fray's hand settling against his neck was as molten as one of the
washcloths might have been against the bruise staining the Warrior's back: a
presence that invited the very flesh itself to burn, incited further by every
broken blood vessel seeping beneath the skin. "You saved enough."
Immediately, the Warrior drew breath to protest -- and then shut his mouth again,
shuddering underneath the grace of those words. It was a forgiveness that Fray had
offered him before, to him and to Myste, and that the Warrior had offered back to
them both. He had given it to others on countless occasions. It had always felt too
selfish to grant it to himself.
He remembered -- remembered or felt, or both -- an echo from Fray's heart that
reached into the center of that ache, and stripped away the debris of a dozen half-
formed excuses, a hundred castigations.
It weighs as it should.
The Warrior hunched his shoulders. His back bent in a curve over the table as the
span of Fray's palm rested upon him, pressing firmly against his spine like an
anchor. The barrier of Fray's body dulled the light between him and the glow of the
lamps above: a living shadow that coated the Warrior as Fray regarded his turmoil
quietly, refusing to look away.
"Breathe," was all he said.
The Warrior listened. The abyss rose beneath him like a sunless ocean as Fray
pinned him there above it, neither submerged nor escaping its reach. Without any
care for mercy, the dark knight dredged up every scrap of memory he could find,
starting with the swamp and working all the way back to the viis and her herd of
deer. Piece by piece, blow by blow, Fray methodically laid out and acknowledged
each of those failures for what they were: bearing witness to everything the
Warrior did, everything the Warrior thought and felt, even when no one else had
seen it.
You could have been faster against that treant, the Warrior heard: a methodical
litany reviewing and agreeing with his own self-condemnations. Your form there was
careless. That was a swing you could have easily blocked. Yes -- you could have
done a better job of it. That choice of opponent was a mistake.
Yet at the same time, after a memory had been reviewed, Fray set it aside. Each
verdict was passed. Each matter was done. They were merely facts after the making
of them, and the Warrior -- tentatively, with the same fearful unwinding of a
muscle being coaxed to untense -- exhaled out a long, shaky breath, feeling the
poison of it slowly drip out of him. Thorn by thorn, he let each of his own
damnations go before they could bury their infections deep enough to fester,
leaving new cysts in his heart that would rupture and spread their poisons freely.
He could recite words of redemption a thousand times to himself, trite phrases that
could have their veneer stripped away to reveal only cheap justifications -- but it
was different coming from Fray. Another person might err on the side of kindness,
believing the Warrior if he claimed he had been too tired, too distracted. Fray
could tell exactly how much of that might have been merely an excuse. The dark
knight was not someone the Warrior could lie to, even by omission. Fray would
simply pick through those very same memories like a culinarian at market, turning
over each glossy fruit and exposing the blight on the other side.
And that meant that Fray's forgiveness of it was equally absolute.
With one final, slow exhalation, the Warrior felt his shoulders begin to relax.
This time, he let it happen. He was even more tired than before, but this time in a
good way: the festering murk of guilt and sorrow was beginning to seep away without
the threat of an immediate return. He sighed into his arms, wordlessly grateful as
Fray took the palm away from his back, only for the dark knight to replace it with
the warmth of his mouth as he laid a kiss against the exposed skin.
"I should be the armor that you bear," Fray murmured, pausing long enough for a
second kiss, and then a third. Words alternated with wet heat. "You should dress
yourself in me, let my skills protect you. You would never get this wounded to
begin with if I was always with you. If you had me as the shield between you and
the world, then there would be naught which could ever harm you so."
The sensation of Fray's mouth was making it hard to think. Each time that Fray's
lips touched him, the Warrior felt his nerves skip in a sudden twitch of arousal:
an unfortunate side effect of calming down enough to respond to the comfort of
Fray's presence. His body was already starting to wake up sleepily to the concept
of something other than exhaustion. Now, it wanted more.
"You're not a suit of mythril that I can just pick up and buckle on," he tried to
laugh, but then a stray note slipped free like a bird escaping its flock, making
the noise short and brittle with longing.
If anyone else had been tending to him, he might even have been able to hide his
own interest. As it was, Fray flicked his eyes up from where he was gathering the
wet towels off the floor, slinging them over his bench in a sodden pile. "You
shouldn't exert yourself."
"Does that mean you'll do the exerting for me?"
The slyness in his voice came out sounding more wistful than the confident
seduction he would have liked -- but the hopefulness in his mind would have
betrayed him anyway. Fray regarded him diffidently as the man fetched another
towel; then he tossed it aside, the corner of his mouth crooking in a smirk.
"If that's the case," he whispered, the purr of his voice dropping deliberately
low, even as his fingertips reached out to walk themselves along the Warrior's
neck, "shall we see how well you can wear my weight upon your back?"
Without bothering to wait for confirmation, Fray's hand skimmed lower. His wrist
brushed the Warrior's ribs and then slid around, palm flatting upon the Warrior's
stomach, fingers just brushing the curls of hair leading further down. Then -- as
brightly as a flame dancing in the abyss itself -- the Warrior saw the mental image
of that hand moving lower, a clear vision of Fray wrapping his fingers around his
cock and beginning a long, confident stroke, teasing every ilm along the way.
The Warrior made a strangled noise before he could stifle his own interest, but it
was too late: Fray had already noticed the reaction on more levels than one.
"Well," the dark knight said dryly, lifting his hand back up again so that he could
tap the back of his knuckle against the Warrior's cheek. "Look who suddenly has
energy now."
The Warrior swallowed hard, trying not to curse the fact that Fray's fingers were
nowhere near where he wanted them to be instead. And he did want it, the feel of
someone's hand on him as more than a passing accident or the clinical care of a
chirurgeon -- he felt starved for it suddenly, for the simplicity of someone else
being with him simply for the enjoyment of being there. To have someone touch him
as a person instead of as a duty, part of a task they had to fulfill or enemy to
defeat. As himself, and not the Warrior of Light, whose every desire and interest
revolved around the salvation of the star -- and nothing else.
It hurt him the longer he thought about it, taking shape in ugly ways that he
didn't want to put a definition around, for enough of them were already being made
on his behalf. He'd hoped that the emotions alone would be enough to communicate
his intent -- but Fray was unmoved. The man had gone quiet in his listening; his
thoughts were still, obscured within the darkness.
It was hard to catch his breath. The Warrior swallowed, mouth dry. "Fray," he
began, even as the flicker of a dozen impulses began to glimmer in his mind: embers
to a greater hunger, each one inviting a different combination of options to pick
and choose from, a feast of invitations for Fray to sup upon.
"Say it out loud." At last, Fray lifted his gaze from the table, turning those
golden, mirthless eyes towards him: mirror to his own in every way, save in nature.
"Else your words will remain bottled up forever, and hold none of them accountable
for it."
The Warrior's protest lost its teeth even before he could make it bite. "It's not
that," he clarified hastily, fumbling through the jumbled slurry of his own
thoughts. "After all of that, I simply want..."
He stopped again, grimacing, the wave of embarrassment milder now that he had
already bared so much of his guilt to be scraped off as thoroughly as the grime he
had carried back from the swamps. He had to say it. He knew he had to; Fray
wouldn't let him rest until he did. Their arrangement allowed for nothing less, if
only to prevent a similar fiasco as Whitebrim, where Fray had truly thought that
the only way to stop the Warrior's own self-destruction was to seize his life by
force.
Fray was still watching him. The man did not bother to voice the sentiment aloud,
but the Warrior felt the moth-quiet whisper flutter between their hearts: You know
I won't judge.
"To feel good again." The Warrior's hands moved on the table, folding themselves
closed in denial of his own request, even as he felt the corner of his mouth pull
into a rueful curve. "Only for a little while."
At last, Fray stirred. Through the distance between them, the Warrior could feel a
faint warmth returning once more, trickling through the abyss. "There's no shame in
asking me for help when you need it. I thought we had both come to that
understanding long ago."
They had. The Warrior had made the decision not to accept Fray's offer back in
Whitebrim, but he had never forgotten it. It would be easy to simply let go.
But this was different. This was simpler and far more daunting all at the same
time, like trying to voice a mountain into existence. It seemed too foolish of a
request for anyone to bother with. A little, laughable thing.
"Fray," he asked, taking a deep breath as he struggled forward through the
question. "Could you... be here for me, right now?"
Despite the intimacy of their bond, he still didn't know if the other man would
refuse or accept. He could sense a rustle of interest in the abyss, like a beast
slinking through the night -- but that was all it was. Unlike Fray, he was a novice
when it came to reading the connection between them. The dark knight had always
kept his own counsel. Nothing the Warrior had ever done had changed that.
Then Fray stirred at last, coming to his own, private decision. "The world brings
you such pains, and you give yourself to it so freely," he remarked. His fingers
were moving down at last, his weight sliding onto the chair behind the Warrior as
he bent a knee against the Warrior's thigh, pressing close against the damp skin.
"I should be jealous of that -- save that I am the one who can grant you some
pleasure when no one else is able."
The Warrior started to try and answer, but Fray's hand had reached his cock,
fingers wrapping around the soft shape of it affectionately before beginning a few
firm, lazy pulls to bring it to attention. Each stroke finished with the pad of his
thumb rubbing across the head, the folds of the foreskin not yet pulled back
completely, and the Warrior felt it begin to respond with small jerks as it woke in
response to Fray's knowledge of how to handle it.
"Keep going," he pleaded, tilting his hips up to try and give Fray a better angle,
his knees spreading further apart. "It's not nearly enough."
He felt Fray's other thumb run down his spine, and then press into the curve of his
ass. "How much?"
"As much as I can manage." Fray's fingers felt good holding him like that; leaning
forward precariously on his forearms, the Warrior tried to shift more of his weight
onto his good leg, giving him the leverage to try and straighten up into an easier
position. Even then, his body hated having to pause for that long; his hips kept
trying to push forward, fucking the ring of Fray's fingers clumsily. "Enough to
forget all else, save you."
Fray slowed, starting to make an answer -- the Warrior could hear him draw breath
for it, gathering a similar sternness together in his thoughts -- but then the
Warrior made another push, allowing the burst of pleasure to wash over him as the
head of his cock rubbed along Fray's palm, and Fray finally made a strangled grunt
and let go.
He pulled away from the Warrior as he grabbed for the few remaining dry towels.
"Lean on these," he urged, wadding them up so that the Warrior could brace his arms
against the extra support, adding to the pillow pushed into his chest.
As he adjusted himself on the impromptu padding, he could hear the clatter behind
him as Fray searched through the supplies -- likely for an oil that would not
inadvertently do more harm than good. Thankfully, the medicinal supplies had their
liniments clearly labeled. The pillow wasn't exactly the best height; he tried to
wedge the towels partially beneath it, groaning when he accidentally leaned on his
swollen wrist.
"You'll have to be careful with me," he warned, only to hear Fray's snort.
"Did you think we were about to put Eulmore's brothels to shame?" Leaning forward
over the Warrior's shoulder, Fray slid one of his hands back into view, glistening
with oil. Teasing a fingertip across the slit of the Warrior's cock -- smearing the
fluid that was already beginning to leak out -- the dark knight glanced
meaningfully at the Warrior's swollen knuckles. "You're injured. That's the whole
point of this. So relax, and let me take care of you."
There was a brief moment where the Warrior tried to figure out what to do about his
ankle, but Fray solved that problem too by turning the chair around -- a practical
enough solution -- with the back of it still angled to the side so that the Warrior
could use it for support. He braced his shin against it, concentrating on the task
of simply finding a decent balance; he felt humorously like a table with two of its
legs cut short so that it wobbled every time a cup was placed upon it.
Just as he managed to prop himself up successfully without straining either his
ankle or wrist, he felt one of Fray's hands settling on his ass -- thumb parting
him open -- and then a fingertip gently massaging his entrance, working a coating
of oil around the puckered flesh before beginning its slide inside.
His brain stopped mid-thought. Fray was slow and methodical as he worked, coaxing
the tight muscles to loosen in a steady rhythm, filling the Warrior by patient ilms
with no signs of rushing. A second fingertip pushed forward alongside the first,
seamlessly joining in the motion. The dark knight left the Warrior's cock alone
this time -- too difficult to try and reach them both at that angle, not without
accidentally toppling them off the chair -- but his other hand moved up to brace
against the Warrior's hip, another point of contact for him to lean into, and the
Warrior pressed gratefully against its support.
He shifted his weight before Fray could feel compelled to manage both tasks,
bracing himself as best he could on his elbow, and dropped his good hand down to
jerk his cock in the same rhythm that Fray was using on his body. He heard himself
groan as Fray's fingers skimmed against his prostate; his eyes drifted closed of
their own accord as he relaxed into each thrust, the force as steady as a
metronome. Familiar fingers were inside his body, safe and experienced with where
they knew his limits were. Fray's hands were on the reins now, dictating what came
next. Fray was taking care of him.
Yet somehow, it wasn't enough. That synchronicity of that stimulation was happening
to him alone; he could come like this, he knew he could, Fray had brought him off
countless times in this fashion. But even as the Warrior bent against his own arm,
panting into it, he could feel that same tension taking on a different urgency. He
wanted the sight of Fray flushed with arousal, the taste of the man filling his
mouth; he wanted to feel the strain of his muscles as Fray's sharp, harsh cries
rasped against his ears, as helpless as the Warrior to resist his own pleasure. He
could not stop thinking about any of it, and with each added urge, his own relief
seemed that much further away.
He squirmed against Fray, suddenly frustrated with how carefully the dark knight
was moving inside him, refusing to go any rougher than a lazy, rocking pace. "Let
me have you," he begged, bold in his admission; he'd already come this far, and
there was no need for secrecy with someone who could read your very heart. "I want
your cock in me, Fray, the whole godsdamned thing."
Fray paused; the Warrior could hear him snort derisively. The man's free hand
reached out to trace the perimeter of the bruise upon his back -- before swatting
the Warrior's ass so lightly that it didn't even sting. "That would aggravate your
injuries," he warned. "How do you imagine I'm to perform such a feat without
repeatedly jostling your muscles?"
The Warrior made a breathless laugh, shoving back deliberately against Fray's
fingers as he felt them slide inwards even deeper. The knuckles of the man's hand
were bunched against his skin, slick with oil. "Good. If I am to hurt, then at
least give me cause for it."
His pulse felt too rapid as he waited for Fray's decision, feeling the man silently
trace the fingers of his other hand down the Warrior's thigh. It felt as if his
appetite had already bucked completely free of its reins: he needed to have the
feel of Fray's body underneath him, the sturdy wall of the man's hips slapping
against him, their groans intermingling along with their seed as the Warrior
stroked both of them off at once with their cocks tight in his fist. His legs
hooked over Fray's shoulders as the other man gave as deep as he could, both of
them frantic with the drumbeat of the other's need. Fray's weight coming down hard
with every thrust, fingers digging fiercely enough into his legs to bruise, even as
the Warrior tried to spread himself wider for more, more.
He let his imagination paint every piece of it in as vivid detail as he could
manage -- and then he pushed those images back towards the other man, crowding his
own thoughts with lust until there was no room to breathe without moaning.
Fray cursed once: an exasperated objection with no words to it, but which already
had gone ragged in an equal hunger.
"Hold steady," he ordered, placing his hand on the Warrior's hip as he slid his own
knee on the chair behind him, taking care to check the placement of their bodies as
he lined them up, hips to legs to hands. The Warrior felt the blunt head of the
other man's cock rubbing against his entrance as Fray splayed him with his fingers,
holding him exposed to the light -- and then, wonderfully, the thick mass of it as
Fray finally pushed inside.
It was a little too fast after all; he could feel the burn of it as Fray's cock
stretched him out further, widening the ring of his muscles beyond what his fingers
had prepared. But it was a manageable pain, one he had the measure of -- and one
that did not matter, for no one lived or died by it. No great consequences would be
left scarred in the earth if either one of them made a misstep here. There was only
the presence of Fray working his way into his body, and the Warrior reminding
himself to relax, to enjoy it.
To breathe.
Which was getting hard enough as Fray got further into him; the Warrior made a
choked gasp of appreciation as Fray made another small shove, and rubbed directly
up against his prostate. He barely had enough time to finish shuddering before the
dark knight rocked into him again, laying the simmer of a smirk across the
Warrior's soul with the same warmth as the man's hand.
"And how good does that feel?" he asked -- insolently and unnecessarily, for it
felt like the Warrior was dissolving into a pool of raw sensation, which was proof
enough.
Fray was already so deep that the Warrior could feel the man's thighs brushing
against the backs of his own. Despite that, the dark knight was still handling him
with painstaking care, moving no faster than his fingers had. "I think there's
still a ways to go," the Warrior replied, just to be contrary, and then impatiently
leaned forward before trying to jerk his hips back: a short, awkward jolt as he
tried to fuck his own body harder on Fray's cock, straining for the friction being
stubbornly denied him.
Both of Fray's hands immediately tightened on his hips. "Slow," he warned in
reminder.
"Gods," the Warrior gasped back, and clenched as hard as he could while reaching
back to claw for Fray's waist, trying to pull him even deeper, even though it meant
half-rising off the table in order to do so.
He caught Fray off-guard, which was a delight in of itself; the man drew in a gasp
of air, and his next thrust was rougher after all, the calculated rhythm beginning
to fall apart. There was just enough room for the Warrior to be able to reach for
his own cock again, fishing one hand down around the edge of the table -- and oh,
it was good like this, his own stimulation being fed in a loop to Fray, who
repeated it back with each thrust forward. The slide of the Warrior's hand around
himself was a mirror to how his body was tight upon Fray, hot ripples of sensation
echoing back and forth like a shout cast between canyon walls, reverberating until
every noise they made blended in together with no distinction at all.
The bliss of it washed him clean. The Warrior arched his back, his knee sliding
raggedly on the chair as he tried to keep that perfect angle between them. Fray was
moving faster despite himself, panting open-mouthed as he struggled not to forget
self-control. Each careful thrust sent an uncomfortable jolt into the muscles of
the Warrior's back, but the other sensations that rolled through him were good
enough to make it worthwhile. Aggravated twinges pulsed in both his hand and ankle,
tightening his shoulders -- but they were merely pain now, and not emblems of
efforts and failures.
He could forget them. He could let them heal.
After another thrust that scraped the chair across the floor, Fray paused long
enough to correct his footing, leaning harder on his knee. "I'll send you to the
Spagyrics after all, and you can say you fractured your ankle the rest of the way,"
another thrust, "by swiving," a deeper stroke this time, holding it inside the
Warrior for emphasis, "your inner darkness."
"Yes, excellent, that sounds quite reasonable to me," the Warrior agreed, a little
breathlessly; it was getting harder to think at all, let alone speak. In his mind,
he could feel Fray's spark-bright arousal from seeing him like this, sprawled out
and succumbing willingly to his own desires, sweat trickling over his back. Each
gasp that he made aloud was a prize for the dark knight to savor, a treasure as the
Warrior allowed himself to think only of the bliss rolling through his body instead
of any of its agonies. He was spread open so completely like this, with Fray
touching him from every side -- working him over relentlessly with his hands on his
body, the heavy weight of his cock spearing him, his fingers spreading over the
Warrior's soul, whispering you did enough, you did enough -- and underneath the
flood of stimulation, the Warrior had no choice but to surrender to it, losing his
grasp on anything beyond the immediate moment and all the ecstasies it offered.
Through it all, the Warrior barely caught himself in time as his fingers began to
speed up, automatically mirroring the same pace that Fray was following; he
couldn't stop jerking his cock as Fray rutted up into him, both of them drowning
together willingly in the shared pleasure that suffused them. Like a distant
thunderstorm, he could feel the dark knight's climax building -- but lagging
noticeably behind, struggling to get all the way there. The delay was no surprise:
each of Fray's thrusts was restrained, moving more shallowly than the man would
have preferred. It would be difficult for him to come like this; too much of Fray's
attention remained bent upon protecting the Warrior's injuries.
Fighting back a curse, the Warrior gripped his cock hard around the base,
struggling to clamp down on the orgasm trying to rush its way to completion even as
he longed to bring himself over the rest of the way.
"Fray," he managed to gasp, both a protest and a warning, in case the other man had
somehow missed all the signs. "I'm close, I'm almost there. How can I help?"
He felt Fray stop, going rigid all over as the man fought against an equally fierce
desire to continue. The dark knight held himself in place, trembling against the
roar of their twinned need; the only action he allowed himself was a brutal
tightening of his fingers on the Warrior's body, keeping them both from any stray
movements.
"My name," he growled, voice rasping in desperation, betraying just how much he
needed to spill over too. "Say it again. Call for me. Call out my name."
The harsh roar of it sounded angry, vengeful in its demand -- but underneath, the
Warrior could hear the honest wish that empowered it, a desire no less in need than
his own.
"Fray," he panted back, offering the honest begging of it freely, like another
piece of armor peeled away to free him from its burden. "Fray. Gods, yes, Fray.
Fray."
He lost all words there as Fray's hands tightened on his hips, the dark knight
resuming his thrusts more erratically as they both lost control; the Warrior's hand
slid frantically over his cock, unable to keep himself from completion any longer.
Fray was there beside him -- in his heart, his soul, their bodies pressed together
so tightly that there was no room for anything else. The other man's thoughts were
beginning to scatter too, forming like fractals of color before melting away again:
a kaleidoscope of impulses that were all intent on driving the Warrior's nerves
into a frenzy, heightening that stimulation well past the breaking point, and
utterly unwilling to stop.
And then it was the Warrior's own body that was shaking apart, all restraint
falling away as if it never mattered to begin with. He was distantly aware that his
voice was crashing into a formless, staccato cry -- like waves shattering on the
shore, his coherency shattering with them -- but his soul had no such limitations.
I need you, Fray, it continued for him. I have always needed you.
He felt Fray climax only moments before he did; it was impossible to tell which of
them finally pushed the other one over, too caught up in the gratification they
were bringing to the other to bother with patience any longer. He came as well with
a moan of relief, his mind still crying out the man's name even as Fray made one
final push and held himself there, giving a hard grunt as he finished spending
himself. His thoughts flooded into the Warrior as well, a hot wave of love and
hunger -- but also everything else that he refused to show up front so readily: a
vulnerability of longing that was deep enough to break him, and the distant,
baffled confusion that he could feel that way at all.
The Warrior reached for that devotion as if it were honey being poured across his
soul, even as he shuddered with the force of both their orgasms, pleasure spiking
one last time as it teetered on the edge of overstimulation. Fray's cock was still
thick and full inside him, as deep as he could get, even as each twitch of friction
seemed to draw the final seconds of it out even longer, pleasure looping endlessly
between them with no sign of burning out.
Then it passed, and they were both panting in the aftermath, reminded of the
boundaries between their bodies once more. Fray slid out of him -- but only to
promptly sprawl back against the Warrior's body, huffing soft breaths against his
hair. He splayed his hands upon the table, arms awkwardly wide to keep from leaning
on any of the Warrior's injuries, forehead pressed against the Warrior's temple.
They lay together for a bit, still half-kneeling on the chair as they caught their
breath. The air of the room felt cooler against the Warrior's bare skin; a
regrettable side-effect of so much exertion as the sweat began to dry on him, along
with other fluids.
Shifting his weight to one arm, he reached out to trace his thumb along the back of
Fray's hand. Their bodies were tangled gracelessly together, their minds still soft
with exhilaration. His heart was open, wide and welcoming, satiated by the presence
of Fray filling him there, too: the other man's thoughts were unguarded, pooling
through him like the heavy weight of a pile of furs being laid over him, the
furnace of his soul no longer searing to the touch. In those moments, the Warrior
could always catch a glimpse of the feeling which always simmered there at the core
of those flames, no matter how the dark knight tried to hide it: a faint, perpetual
frustration that he could value something so naive, so vulnerable, so infinitely
irreplaceable that he could not imagine a world without that creature in it, for no
other world could ever hold meaning again.
It was unfolding now, still faintly disgruntled by its own existence, like a bird
spreading wings it had forgotten it possessed; Fray was frowning at it peevishly.
I love you too, the Warrior thought as he let his eyes slip shut drowsily.
In the darkness, he felt the soft, startled jerk of Fray's heart -- so hungry for
those words each and every time they came -- before the man bent down and kissed
him.
Before they could get lost in it a second time, however, Fray hauled himself
upright and pulled away, refusing to become distracted. "Now you truly need a
bath," he groused -- but his hand was tender as he stroked it across the Warrior's
hair. "A real one, with proper soap. Get moving. After that display of energy, I
won't tolerate your excuses a second time."
The Warrior bit back a laugh, which rapidly became tinged with chagrin: he'd have
to remember to clean off the floor, and likely the underside of the table. Possibly
more. He had no desire for the staff of the Pendants to discover that mess. "You're
just as filthy," he grinned. "Aether or no, you'll simply have to join me in the
tub. Otherwise, the next time you manifest, you might still be coated in sweat."
The look Fray gave him was scathing. He scooped up one of the last few wet towels
from the floor, squeezing it out over the basin as it dripped. "And if you fall
asleep there? I suppose the Champion of Eorzea no longer has any fears of drowning
in the bath, but assassins tend to prefer a state of undress in their victims."
Pushing himself up from the table, the Warrior finally tried to test his limbs
again. His right knee was stiff now; both sides of his body ached when he tried to
stand up properly, negotiating his injured hand and ankle around the chair. He
stifled a groan as he gingerly set his left foot against the ground, seeing how
willing it was to bear his weight. "How can I be worried? You'll be right there
beside me, after all. What better protection could there be?"
It was more the sentiment behind the argument than the rationale itself that might
have convinced Fray; either way, the dark knight's frown lessened fractionally,
fading into mere disapproval. Mollified, the dark knight slung the damp towel over
the pile on the bench and came back to the Warrior's side, steadying him. "How much
does it still hurt?"
The Warrior laughed as he leaned heavily against the table, resting between both it
and Fray's support. Deftly, he caught one of Fray's hands up and brought it to his
mouth, pressing it briefly against his lips in gratitude.
"Far less," he promised, his smile feeling warm all the way through: reaching soul
as well as body. "Thanks to your good care of me."