Archive of Our Own ^beta

Now lift thine heavy head and vanquish thy sorrow

Lightning doth strike

Thunder doth roll

It is not hope he feels, when he follows Cid across miles of blackened Deadlands to a fleeting refuge, to a safe place to catch his breath hidden betwixt the rocks and ruins.

It is not hope, for such a fragile thing has not burned at his breast in years, he does not remember it, so he will call it purpose instead. Purpose, resolve, gratitude, a debt owed for a life saved.

He goes, one step behind Cid.

It is not hope, but for the first time in so, so very long, Clive sees a path that finally leads him forward.

Cid offers him an apple and an overly friendly smile, freely given.

Clive holds back a flinch.

Denies.

Cid is made of honeyed words, of silver-tongued promises that are too good to be true. He carries himself with a confident, careless ease, all suave charisma and reassuring looks, the type that invites you to let your guard down, to trust.

Clive would be a fool to do so.

He knows better, these days. Comfort, rest, kindness — those are luxuries not afforded to one such as him. Not anymore. The brand he carries denies it of others and the rest he denies himself. Tis a lesson learned by necessity, but it has served him well, kept him safe all these years.

There is only one thing he has to accomplish with what remains of this one wretched life of his. When it is done, and only then, will he be able to close his eyes and sleep, forevermore.

Until then, Clive listens to the alluring, impossible things Cid has to say with a keen ear and hardened heart.

(It's just that the Hideaway is not something he is prepared for.

The people are not something he is prepared for.

They approach him. They make remarks as he walks by, casual ones, harmless ones, and none of them are malicious, none of them look at him like he is less than dirt at the bottom of their feet. He sees their own brands, the scars of them on some. He knows they are of a kind, and yet it is still so strange — to hear conversation, to hear laughter, playful and free and for once: unafraid. It says a lot, for Bearers to be so unburdened by fear.

He looks at them and he thinks, this is good.

He looks at the Hideaway and thinks, this place is built to be a home.

Then, he realizes his mistake and makes haste for Cid's solar instead.)

He cannot stay.

He cannot stay here, he reminds himself, for every concern that Cid soothes before Clive can even voice it. The wooden chalice in his hand is a gift, if only so that he has something to hold on to, knuckles white and grip bruising.

He has a duty to uphold first and foremost, and the moment Cid breathes word of the Dominant of Fire, Clive is nearly at his throat demanding every scrap of information he has to offer.

That he found Jill as he did was miracle enough, but to so easily catch wind of the man he's been desperately searching for for more than a decade? He is not about to refuse a gift such as this.

The Fates are being kind to him, just this once.

And so, Clive drinks.

The wine is bitter as he swallows, leaves only the barest aftertaste of something sweet in his mouth, almost as if imagined. He takes a sharp breath and reaches out towards Cid.

An accord. An alliance. Those, he can allow.

"This does not mean I'm joining you."

Cid takes the empty chalice from his hand and gives him a smirk in return, one that tells Clive he does not believe him in the slightest.

"Best make ready then."

He tries to make ready.

He really does, but then they bring in the two injured Bearers and there's shouting and a crowd forms and suddenly he's a messenger boy and a courier and fetching water and—

"Oh, and thanks, newcomer. Be seeing you," the man - Otto - says with a grateful nod after all is said and done and the wounded are taken care of.

"Not likely. I won't be staying."

"That right?" Otto raises a single, skeptical eyebrow in question, "Well, for as long as you are here, consider yourself welcome. You helped us today. We won't forget it."

Clive crosses his arms and looks away. He says nothing.

He has become unfamiliar with kindness, it would seem, with thanks.

He only wishes people would believe what he tells them though, because he is not staying.

(The soup and hot meals are an accidental detour. So is the wood and the carpenter. The scholar, too, with the books, and the botanist, and these people are relentless once they start talking to him, so—

So, the point is, Clive loses track of time amidst all the harmless requests thrown at him.

"Lord Rosfield!"

He startles at the sound of Cid's voice from somewhere above, at the title he has not been called since he was a child. In front of him, Charon scowls and takes the glass vial from his hands before he can drop it, grumbles something he does not care to hear.

Cid is leaning against the wooden railing at the top of the stairs. He pushes off it with an exaggerated movement and struts down towards Clive not unlike a great, confident parade chocobo.

"You all done?"

Clive looks back at the additional potion in Charon's hands. Thinks of the emptiness of his coin pouch. She has already provided him with enough.

"Just about," he answers curtly.

"Leaving again, are ya?"

"It's you I'll miss the most, Lady Charon. Always is."

"Doesn't stop you from going, does it?" The old woman scoffs, but it is without any real animosity. As they approach the main gate, her voice calls after them, raspy and rough.

"Make sure to come back."

Clive wonders how long it's been since anyone has been there to welcome him home. And then after that — how long it's been since he's had a home.)

Clive suggests they take the Crystal Road, because it seems reasonable.

Cid only gives him a look as if he's said the greatest joke in all the realm, pats him on the shoulder meaningfully, and says, "You leave the planning to me, lad. Come on, I know a shortcut."

He takes off in a direction towards the woods with a cheerful sway to his step and one of his hands resting on his swords, casual and relaxed as can be. The other he raises in the air to beckon Clive along. He even hums some sort of tune as he goes.

Clive stares at him for a moment longer, too bewildered by this man's idiosyncrasies for words, and then quietly falls into step.

The casual, overly tactile way Cid carries himself with, he does not think about. As much as he despises the imperial armor he wears, he is thankful for its presence now. He does not know what would become of him if such a gentle touch were to land on his skin undiluted by layers of cloth and leather and metal.

It would unmake him, maybe. Remind him of things he has long forgotten, things best left buried under so many cinders and ash.

At his feet, Torgal whines once, keening and concerned. Clive offers him a rub behind his ears for his trouble. This, at least, is a comfort he knows well. One he can indulge without harm.

"Let's go, boy."

Torgal barks in response, tail wagging happily.

His nose itches.

His entire face itches, from the top of his ears to the line of his throat, all covered in bloodfly bites. It is a small discomfort, but it grates on his nerves.

"I told you we should have taken the Crystal Road," Clive says drily, as Cid swats more flies next to him, spitting ungracefully when one of them gets in his mouth.

"And I told you that we're outlaws."

It's probably petty to feel satisfaction when he sees a particularly fat bloodfly land on Cid's neck, giving him a handsome bite. Cid splatters it with a slap and a curse. Clive hopes it itches particularly badly, just out of spite.

They make their way to Lostwing.

"Did I mention there'd be deadly beasts? There'll be deadly beasts."

Clive smothers a sigh.

Nothing can ever be easy, can it?

"Remember how I said there'd be deadly beasts? Well, the shrubs in these parts aren't much better."

The warning comes just a smidgen too late, considering the vines and what he had assumed were flowers are already approaching them with a rather thorny look about them. This time, Clive can't quite hide the irritation in his voice.

"And you only think to mention this now?"

Somewhere off to the side, Cid laughs as he charges one of the writhing plants.

"You're a big boy, aren't you, Clive? I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle."

Clive's grip on his blade tightens.

No matter how sharp his sword, how relentless his strikes, the blasted creature keeps coming at them, its great maw open and slavering, countless sharp teeth hungry for their flesh.

Clive pants, out of breath. Next to him, Torgal growls. They prepare to lunge at the beast again.

"Stand back!" Cid yells, an order that has Clive retreating a step before he even knows it, and then—

Then, lightning and levin surge, gather around Cid like an old lover come home, thundering from above and embracing him with countless bolts from the heavens. Divine power crackles in the air, sparkling and scintillating in a storm of violet aether. It swallows him in a flash, engulfs him for all of a single, blinding moment.

When Cid next rises, he is the living embodiment of it, fulmination just barely contained in the skin of a single man.

He spares Clive a glance, and there is someone else in his eyes, he thinks, something other. Something that is not just the unfamiliar tempestuous blue they are now, the color shifting and changing with every wild surge of electricity around him. He then looks to the creature still before them, wary and defensive against the appearance of this new predator.

Cid looks at it like a judge passing his verdict, final, absolute. Raises a single hand with precise, measured indifference.

He snaps his fingers once, click, and the beast is no more.

The deafening ring of thunder remains echoing in Clive's ears for a while after.

This means Cid is—

He is—

"You're a Dominant," he hears himself say, breathless and confused.

With that, the spell breaks, the aether dissipates like it was never there, and Cid coughs blood into his hand.

He is a mortal man once more.

"I am, aye." Cid rubs his hands together, for once looking uncomfortable, unsure of himself. "Though not by choice, mind. Whole bloody realm of strapping young lads and it was this sorry sack of bones Ramuh saw fit to haunt." He says it with an edge of self-deprecation Clive does not expect from him. It feels wrong, for some reason, to hear it.

Clive is intimately familiar with it, with how sharply it can cut when faced inwards, but for all it's worth, he has no helpful words to offer.

Questions, however, he has plenty of.

After what feels like too many hours to count, they finally arrive at the outskirts of Lostwing.

It is a beautiful place, nestled amidst the vineyards and rich, lush greenery. The air smells of tilled soil and blooming wildflowers, of grapes sweet on the vine and the promise of harvest. The sky above is clear, the moon a shining half-crescent surrounded by a sea of stars, casting a light along their path. The soft trill of insects is the only sound around them.

By all rights, it should be an idyllic sight.

By all rights, it should give him heart to see a corner of the world yet unblemished by the fires of war.

It should, but it only serves to make the dread pooling in Clive's gut grow heavier still. The dark of night hides many things, obfuscates what is real and what is not, and he knows this place would look different in the daylight. Much more different.

Unfortunately, his worries are proven true when they spot the first Waloeder patrol.

It only gets worse from there.

"After that…whatever happens, happens." Clive says, the words nearly a whisper.

He looks at the ale in his cup, the amber of it so much like Joshua's hair used to be before he burned. His chest aches.

It is an old pain, one that will never recede for as long as he lives, he is certain. He will carry it, an inseparable part of his heart, and when his brother's murderer finally lies dead by Clive's own sword will he be able to say he has done his duty. Anything else that follows is inconsequential, inconceivable.

Clive does not care for it, for whatever future awaits him after that.

"Fate," Cid says flatly, "you are content to be its slave then."

If that is what he wants to call it, so be it. Clive is empty. Tired. Has been for thirteen years. This changes nothing.

He drinks. The taste is as awful as he'd imagined.

When the cup is empty, Cid pats him on the shoulder twice and motions to the barkeep for another round. He doesn't say another word.

Later, Clive will not remember when exactly he dozes off sitting there, nor that Cid stays by his side the entire time. Or until Gav returns, at the very least.

Either way, he will remember only that Cid comes to wake him with a touch to his shoulder he's growing ever more familiar with. That, and news of the enemy.

Finally.

Cid has the gall to wink at him like they're thick as thieves, all the while calling Clive a clueless, bumbling fool in about thrice as many words.

"Well…s'pose I'd better scout ahead for any surprises." Gav takes a step towards him, maybe trying to look intimidating as he does, inspired by whatever Cid's confidence must have instilled in him. Clive, personally, cannot relate.

"Don't you let him down now," he says before he leaves and the challenge in his words is plain to hear. It grates.

"I won't." Clive says, perhaps a touch too terse, too irate. He's been insulted enough for one day, thank you.

Though, it doesn't seem to matter all that much, considering that Cid only shakes his head with what Clive assumes to be exasperation. He is no longer so certain of the emotions he can read on Cid's face, of what masks he chooses to wear. He has seen him without any of them, raw and bare and veiled in lightning — it is a sight he can hardly forget.

"Alright. Shall we?"

At his question, Cid huffs a breath that can almost be called a laugh. "Not so fast, " he crosses his arms and levels Clive with a look that speaks volumes, "We wait until tomorrow."

"But he's right there!" His temper flares at being denied, rising like flames and cooling just as swiftly, because Cid insists on remaining reasonable. He also has the unfortunate ability to make Clive think about what he's doing instead of simply following his instincts and forging head-on towards an almost certain, bloodied end.

Clive does not have to like it, but he sees the merit of resting the night.

"Come on. There's someone I want you to meet."

Quinten is…more perceptive than Clive feels comfortable with.

Their conversation is a brief one, but it serves more than enough to knock something loose in Clive's chest, to remind him painfully of the Brand he carries on his face and what it makes of him.

What it doesn't.

Vulnerability is a feeling he sorely mislikes. And so, as Cid has been ever kind to tell him over and over again, he goes and decides to make himself useful. The new seal he wears on his armor feels heavy like a brand.

They split up, intent on learning what the villagers have to say about their runaway Dominant. Clive spots Cid across the street, talking to a haggard looking woman. He manages to catch whispers of their conversation, but it is nothing he can make out with any clarity.

He squares his shoulders and approaches a tired looking man. Harmless enough by the looks of him, though Clive has learned to be wary of people more often than not. The people of Lostwing seem to treat their Bearers with respect, but that is not enough to dispel the unease that sits sour in his belly.

He walks up the wooden path towards the man, the old planks creaking with every step, and the man turns at the noise.

"Ah. Master Quinten has taken a liking to you, I see," he says before Clive can even open his mouth to offer greetings. He shakes his head once, almost relieved, "And there I was thinking you were in bed with Cid…"

Clive recoils as if he burned, but he knows firsthand how fire feels against his body — the mortifying embarrassment that fills him at that instant feels worse than any flame ever has. The notion alone is beyond preposterous, that they would—that he would—to earn favor, or, or—!

The man is still speaking, Clive realizes. Something about Gav, something about expressing his thanks? Clive does not follow. He asks his questions, learns nothing they didn't know before, and beats a hasty retreat in the direction he came from.

He passes by Cid and the woman he's still talking to along the way, and maybe he walks a tad bit faster than is strictly necessary. He does not meet Cid's eyes as he goes.

He has never been more thankful for the cover of night in his life, because if it were day, it would be painfully obvious to see the red at the tips of his ears and the rosy flush he is sure is spread all across his face. Maybe the hair will hide it, he thinks idly, and is then insulted by his own immaturity.

He's a grown man, for Flame's sake, he's got no business blushing like a timid maiden with a crush.

He comes to an abrupt stop midstep. Reflects on that for all of half a second before he vows to never do it again, and goes to look for another villager to question with redoubled haste.

"Well, well, well, the little lord has finally stepped out of his armor."

"No point inflicting a sore back upon myself."

"A wise decision. Try to get some sleep, eh?"

"How could I not, with a floor this comfortable?"

Cid kicks him lightly from his side of the somewhat less dusty corner of attic floor they've been so generously given by their host. Still, he's smiling, just there at the corners of his mouth.

"I knew you had it in you to be a bit of a bastard. You can't fool me with that stoic facade of yours, Your Lordship."

"Clive."

"Hm?"

"Just…Clive. I am no lord anymore."

"Your wish is my command, Clive."

For all his callous bluster and glib words, Cid is much more perceptive than he lets on. His voice is somber when he next speaks, the rough edge softened to a low rasp, "Whatever answers we find, we shall deal with upon the morrow. For now, rest. You'll need all your strength if you are to avenge your brother, won't you?"

Clive flinches where he lies; curls up involuntarily. He feels exposed in his threadbare sleep shirt and plain trousers, like an animal with its belly exposed, too open, too weak, lying there for all to see the ashen remains of all that holds his existence together. Pitiful.

He swore vengeance, made it his life's goal, clung to it with his entire being, those last few smoldering embers left to give him the strength to wake up every day since—since.

He must not waver now, cannot, will not. For Joshua, for their Father, for every soul that burned at Phoenix Gate while Clive got to live — for them, for his brother above all others, Clive will find the man responsible and drive his sword right through his rotten heart.

In the silence that follows, Torgal inches closer and Clive buries an ungloved hand in his fur before he can stop himself. He strokes the ridiculously soft fluff near Torgal's scruff absentmindedly, up and down, up and down, short repetitive motions that keep him from thinking about anything at all.

He falls asleep like that, not even realizing when his eyes have fallen shut.

He wakes up what feels like hours later, gasping for breath and chasing the fleeting remnants of a nightmare still dancing at the corners of his vision. Joshua's name remains a muted plea on his lips.

For a mercy, he is alone.

A dusty linen sheet lies thrown across his body, however, one that was decidedly not there last night. Cid's doing, if he were to guess, though it is wholly unnecessary. Clive tends to run hot by nature, always has, even before the blessing was bestowed upon him. For better or worse.

(Most times, it has been for the worse.)

It is past sunrise, judging by the slanted rays of light coming through the small attic window. He hears Torgal barking somewhere out on the street, not too far from the tavern by the sound of it. The unmistakable ring of children's laughter accompanies it shortly after, delighted and full of cheer.

It's a surprise beyond words, to wake up to this instead of—of what he knew a mere week prior, the torment he'd come to accept as his fate.

It gives him heart, to rise thus. To wake to good things, brighter things — an act of kindness, unsolicited and unnecessary, yet there all the same. Clive thumbs at the edge of the blanket, ragged and worn as it is, and finds it in himself to smile.

Tonight, they finish this.

He will finish this.

Wait just a little longer, Joshua. It won't be long now.

As it stands, things get worse before they get better.

Things get much, much worse.

Clives comes to slowly, hazily, blissfully unaware of where—when—who he is.

He only exists in a state of hurt, suspended from all else but the aches in his body, every cut and bruise burning painfully with each unsteady beat of his heart.

Then he blinks, draws in a shaky breath, lungs protesting against it, and—

Murderer. Murderer. Murderer.

He is sick with fever, he thinks. His body is trying to purge a sickness that is not there, a sickness that is him alone, that is the infernal beast dwelling in him and is him and it killed Joshua, he killed Joshua, he—he beat him bloody, bit and tore at him until there was nothing left, until he was consumed and his flames— so warm, so beautiful—they sputtered and died, gutted by the usurper hiding under Clive's skin, in his heart, he—he—

He is bound. His hands and his legs, shackled. It is torture. Agony.

Agony, because he cannot reach for a weapon, cannot do the one thing he swore on his life to do, I will show him the mercy he showed my brother.

Clive strains against the binds, the metal that holds him there. He bleeds. He is bare, his entire body a live wire of raw anguish, every breath a burning agony.

He has no right to it, no right to exist, not when—when Joshua—

He only realizes he is screaming when he stops. It hurts.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

Clive loses time.

Somewhen, at some point, Cid open the metal door—and it must be Cid, has to be, but it is so difficult to tell when his vision is spotty and blurred to near nothingness, tears clinging heavy to his lashes and all he sees is shades of black, of sputtering flames, dying, dying, dying.

"Kill me," he begs with all that is left of him, because if he cannot do the deed himself, Cid might be merciful, might exact his verdict, swift, final, might make this end.

"Kill me, please!"

He doesn't.

He punches him in the face instead.

He cries there until he is hoarse, until his sobs become whimpers become silence.

Then, after every tear he has is spent, after he is bereft of all feeling in his body, both within and without, then he rises from the filthy stone floor, clothes himself as best he can with his hands trembling like leaves, and goes to make himself useful.

On that point, Cid was crystal clear.

Clive has nothing else to offer for his existence, for every breath he draws when he knows he shouldn't.

Cid will know what to do. Will wield him as he sees fit, use him as he can until he breaks, no more than a tool to be discarded after it has served its purpose.

It is only what he deserves.

"We leave as soon as you're done," Cid commands, his tone booking no space for argument, and yet—

This is pointless, Clive wants to argue anyway. This is stupid.

The mystery has been solved, their runaway Eikon has been found, and all the blood is on Clive's hands, has been for years and years and years and he's only seeing it now. What a fool he's been, searching this entire time when all he ever needed to do was look inside, look at his reflection and see the loathsome fiend that hides there.

Gav is wasting his time. This entire thing is a waste of time.

"Clive!"

His head snaps up, instinctual. Cid's eyes are narrowed.

"Listen to me and listen well, yeah?"

He remembers, in a distant, foreign way, that it was levinlight that brought him to heel, mad with fury and a bestial rage as he was. He remembers the way it burned so unlike anything else he's known before, how it made him howl, how it felt like being undone entirely.

Clive looks at Cid, at the calculating spark in his eyes. His mouth is dry, he realizes.

"Yeah."

"Good. Come on."

"Sooo…" Cid taps a playful fist against Clive's chest, where his heart pounds in double-time beneath the armor and sinew and bone. "Find out if this man is responsible, and kill yourself if he's not."

A simple solution, when posited like that.

Simple.

Cid has this wonderful way with words, Clive is coming to realize with each moment he spends in his company. One that gets past all his meticulously built walls, past all his doubts and fears and drags them to the light, to a place where Clive can look at them and find them less daunting, less all-consuming, less—

Less everything.

"Cid, I—"

"Don't thank me," Cid interrupts, but Clive doesn't even know what it is his mouth had meant to say in the first place. He promptly shuts up nonetheless.

"Thank Gav."

So he does just that.

It is graceless and a little bit ungainly, but some part of him remembers gratitude, even now. Clive clasps a hand against Gav's shoulder, looks him straight in the eye and says with all the sincerity he can muster, "Thank you."

He hopes the sentiment comes through.

Judging by the way Gav grumbles sheepishly and drops his gaze, it might have been too personal, but Clive can't quite find it in himself to care.

Cid leans against the wet rock behind him, already reaching for another cigar. He's smiling as he does.

Clive looks up at him from where he's kneeling and realizes he is smiling too.

Clive is buoyant the entire way back.

There is an unfamiliar lightness in his steps, in each breath he takes, in each swing of his sword as he takes the front and carves a path for Cid and Gav to follow.

To his surprise, it feels a lot like relief.

Maybe it really is as simple as Cid said. Maybe it is not.

Either way, a solution lies in his hands at all times, the easiest thing in the world to amend. His life has never felt so insignificant, so trivial, so utterly worthless. It is freeing.

If he is to die, it is only what he is due after all. Nothing more, nothing less. There is peace to be found in that, he thinks.

"He looks so…cheerful," he hears Gav whisper over to Cid from somewhere behind him. "Are you sure he heard you right? You didn't see him hit his head or nothing—?"

"Shut up and worry about yourself, Gav."

There is the sound of a body being jostled, and then a faint wince of pain. Clive does not turn to look. It's almost charming, how they think he can't hear them.

"Clive will be just fine. I'll make sure of it."

They've hardly set foot in the Hideaway before Tarja descends upon them like a wild gale.

"Clive! Your friend—she's awake."

That featherlight, weightless buoyancy he felt turns to stone in the blink of an eye. Dread pools in his gut, mixed with such intense relief he's almost sick with it.

Jill.

Jill is—

He'll have to tell her, he realizes with unabashed terror — he'll have to tell her everything.

Clive tastes bile at the back of his throat. Feels shame so strong it turns asphyxiating, paralyzing. He can't move. Jill is awake. He can't move. He can't take another step, he can't, he can't—

Jill is awake and Clive wants to run the other way as badly as he wants to see her.

"Go to her, you fool." Cid's hand is on his shoulder. He squeezes once, and it is a familiar feeling by now, even with so many layers of armor and leather and everything in-between.

Clive jolts. Inhales a shaky breath.

"Right."

Home, home, home, a part of him sings, a broken bone finally set, a decade old wound stemmed, no longer left to bleed with each mournful beat of his heart.

"I've missed you so much," he says to her after he's said everything else, after she's looked him in the eyes and seen all they have to say too.

"I've missed you too," she says, crystalline tears shimmering on her lashes, and Clive knows with certainty there are matching ones on his as well.

(Tarja, at least, remains ever pragmatic, and is quick to kick Clive out as soon as she deems it necessary.

"Leave my patient in peace now, my lord. Shoo. Scurry. Go bother Cid if you lack for purpose."

So Clive grabs his sword and exits the infirmary, a ghost of a laugh on his lips as he goes. In his chest, a feeble ember sparks rekindled.

It might be called hope.)

He knocks on Cid's door, because it is only polite that he do. Then he walks in anyway, because he is restless with energy, impatient, a wild current buzzing under his skin, through his veins and down to his bones.

(In the back of his mind, he wonders if Cid's presence could amplify it, influence him by virtue of what he is. If the lightning he commands at will has the power to put people in motion, to motivate, to inspire, and maybe that's why the Hideaway is the way it is — a hive buzzing with perpetual hustle and bustle, people always moving to and fro, quickly, oh so quickly.

There is so little he knows about Eikons, about himself.

He wonders.)

"Forgotten all about manners, have we?" Cid tuts from behind his desk, pen in hand. He looks at Clive with no small amount of judgment.

Clive resists rocking on the backs of his heels — that particular habit he has outgrown since long ago. Mostly.

"Tarja thought I was overstaying my welcome. So."

Cid crosses his arms, "So you came here looking for something to do? You could've just asked Otto, you know."

"No, I—" Clive changes his mind, rearranges his words. Cid will hear it from the others most likely anyway. "We're leaving. For Rosaria."

"Figured as much."

"Not right now, I mean. But as soon as we are able."

We, he says, and it gladdens him beyond words that this now encompasses Jill too. Somewhere inside of him, a puzzle piece has clicked back into place. He will not let this joy be taken from him, not ever again. He will die first.

"Tell me then — why are you in here instead of out there? Shouldn't you be with your friend, catching up on lost time?" Cid asks with a single, artfully raised eyebrow.

Clive buzzes. His hands flex, uncertain what to do with themselves, with all the energy full to bursting in his chest. He says, "Hortense is currently preparing suitable garments for Jill before we depart, so I decided to make myself useful, as you said. I spoke with Otto, and with Kenneth, and Harpocrates and Martelle, too."

"You've been a busybody then. Good on you," Cid lays down his pen and tidies up the slew of papers on his desk rather superficially. The mess of it does not lessen after he is done, merely gets shoved to the side. Cid grabs for a cigar. He looks tired. "That's wonderful and all, but it still doesn't tell me why you're here in particular."

Without meaning to, Clive steals a quick glance at the sofa in the corner. It looks as any other sofa does, if perhaps a little too worn by time and whatever counts as dust here in the Deadlands. He remembers Cid's silent invitation the first time he was here, though by now the nature of Clive's stay has changed so much he does not know if it still stands in any way. He also does not know where else to go.

"It occurred to me I never asked you about—sleeping arrangements, exactly. Quarters. Would I be permitted to—?" He doesn't quite finish the question, his thoughts scattered like sparks, fleeting and frantic, but Cid should be able to piece it together. He's too clever by half about what Clive says and what he means anyway.

Cid stands up slowly, chair scraping against the floor, and walks around the desk with measured steps. He lights the cigar in his hands as he goes, his face shadowed in the dim candlelight. He looks up at the ceiling for a long moment. A plume of wispy smoke disperses on his next exhale and Clive focuses on the taut column of Cid's throat—inhale, exhale—

Then Cid's gaze lands back on him and the withering, scalding fury he sees there tells him he needn't have worried at all.

"Clive," Cid begins, and he rolls the vowels of his name with painstaking care, makes it a statement on its own, his voice a low rumble, like the first sign of an oncoming storm. Clive shivers involuntarily. "You realize that everything we've built here, everything we're trying to do for Bearers and Dominants both—you realize those freedoms apply to you as well, yes?"

"Well, yes, I suppose, but—"

"Clive."

It strikes him to his core, the way Cid commands his name. He does not raise his voice, does not yell, but it incapacitates him all the same, makes the hairs at the nape of his neck rise with anticipation of something. It feels like the moment right before lightning hits. It feels like it already has.

"Clive," Cid says it a third time, softer now, quiet and far too gentle to bear, "there is no but. There are no exceptions to this, no matter what you may be thinking."

He puts out the cigar with practiced ease, crosses the handful of steps separating them and places his hand on Clive's shoulder as he has done so many times before. It might grow into a habit, if he's not careful. It might grow into something he expects, something he craves, if he's not careful.

It scares him, a little bit.

"Now, I see I'm the one responsible for this glaring oversight." Cid's tone changes again, becomes light, faux playful, and only now that it has does Clive notice how charged the air had been just mere moments ago, oppressive and electrifying, a tempest on the edge of breaking. He breathes in and tastes ozone.

Cid pats him on the cheek twice, quick as can be, the touch simply perfunctory, and says, "Go down and talk to Kenneth, he should get you all sorted out—"

He cuts himself off abruptly. His eyes narrow dangerously. Clive does not meet his gaze.

"Clive?" A fourth time, he says it, now calculating, edged with something sharp. Clive doesn't know why he's counting. He swallows.

"Yes?"

"Say, when was the last time you slept? Humor me."

Clive holds very still. Tries his best not to think about it.

"When you released me from the gaol. Probably." He says it a whisper, his voice a barely there thing.

Cid curses.

"Great Greagor's tits, no wonder you—" Clive watches with wide eyes as Cid bites one of his leather gloves, pulls it off with a sharp motion and then he feels the relief of something cool against his forehead.

It's Cid's hand.

Clive almost leans into the touch now that he's registered it, almost pressed closer, almost finds it in himself to ask more, please—before it's gone as fast as it came. He bites back a wounded keen and tries to stay as still as he can, because he does not know what he would do if he moves, what he would do if he speaks.

But Cid only brushes the hair out of his eyes, removes the last pitiful curtain Clive so likes to hide behind, and he looks worried for some reason. Clive opens his mouth to ask why, because it's probably serious if Cid is worried, but all his words evaporate the moment he feels Cid's hands press against his jaw, cheeks, brow, feels them land somewhere in the vicinity of his neck. Both of them are free of their usual leather gloves, he notes with a great sense of wonder, swaying on his feet just lightly.

"You're feverish, did you know that?"

Clive shakes his head. It makes the room spin. "No, no. No, that's normal, that's—the fire. It happens, it's always like this."

"Clive, you're burning up worse than a furnace." Cid moves, moves Clive with him, and that's five, five times he's said his name now, all of them different. He makes himself remember how the syllables sound for each one, how Cid's voice curves around the shape of it.

It feels good to hear him say it. Wants to hear it more, still.

He doesn't realize Cid has led him to an entirely different room in the solar until he blinks, eyelids impossibly heavy, and nearly falls over a table that was not there a moment ago.

"Wh're are…?" he slurs, grabbing blindly at nothing. His hand lands on Cid's shoulder. The entire world blurs.

"Please tell me I don't have to take you to Tarja after all," Cid asks of him, and Clive would tell him that, wants to do as he asks, but his mouth just does not feel very cooperative at present. He makes a noise of dissent, mumbles something vaguely along the lines of no Tarja and deems it a success.

Cid pushes him down, far more gently than Clive deserves. He goes willingly, only to land on something soft.

A blanket?

No.

A bed.

"Wh't're you doing?"

Cid's hands flit all around him, a searing bolt that pierces him with every brush against his body. He hears the clasp of buckles, the creak of metal armor as it is being dismantled, and he realizes with a sudden, all-consuming mortification that Cid is undressing him.

"Help me out here, Clive, come on—stop fidgeting."

He stops fidgeting.

He loses time between each rhythmic clang of metal as Cid slowly undoes his last line of defense, as he undoes him. Before long, he sits there in his linens, threadbare and worn as they are, a peasant on poor display.

Cid lays him down then, holds a hand against his brow for nearly an entire, blissful minute before it leaves, but before he can mourn the loss, it returns — carding careful through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes so he can see better, for what it's worth. Cid sits at the edge of the bed, his expression unreadable. His eyes are so green.

Clive feels blunt nails scrape against his scalp, feels too hot and too cold all at once, so he leans into that one comfort, chases the pleasant, tingling sensation coursing through his entire body and lets it seep into him, like sweet honey seeps into tea.

He hears Cid speak, hears him mumble more to himself than anything, the words not aimed at Clive. He tries to make sense of it but he is so, so tired now that he's no longer standing, a bone-deep exhaustion, one worn down into his marrow. It all slips past him like the low rumble of thunder in the far distance, an afterthought he does not have the strength to chase after.

"—not only Kingsfall—and then he runs himself ragged with—an errand boy—godsdamned idiot."

For once, sleep takes him as soon as his eyes close.

Once that is done, Cid stays only for as long as he can reasonably allow himself, just to be sure the damn fool actually rests for a spell.

Then he rises slowly, carefully, avoids all the floorboards that creak, and closes the door with more thought than usual on his way out. He calmly walks back to his desk. Pours himself a generous amount of godawful wine and drinks until his throat burns from it. Then, he pours himself another goblet full and drinks that too, just to drive the point home.

Clive Rosfield is a damn wicked sight when out of that armor.

Looks even better when he's laid out atop Cid's bed, loose limbs and messy hair, grasping at the flimsy sheets like a lifeline, making these small, breathless gasps whenever Cid would offer him kindness, would give him the basest of comforts—and if that doesn't just break his heart into a thousand little pieces.

Feverish, he'd said, but that doesn't even come close to the truth. He'd been an inferno in his hands. A barely contained supernova.

Cid drinks again, if only to chase away the image of Clive's pupils dilated to hell and back, not a drop of lucidity held in those huge, soulful eyes of his, all base instinct, a primal creature on the verge of collapse, and still—still he'd looked to Cid for guidance. For direction. He'd looked to him like his word is absolute law, like he hung the damn moon and stars along with it, like—

He's got these dangerous eyes, you see, Clive does. The kind that strips you bare, the kind that is so utterly, painfully honest every thought is written there for all the world to see. They're permanently covered with that glossy, sorrowful sheen, gleaming in a way that puts the Mothercrystals and all their divine luster to shame.

He gives up on the goblet and goes for the entire bottle, half-empty now.

Clearly, the wine isn't helping, but it sure as shit can't hurt, because every time Cid blinks he sees Clive under him — beautiful, austere Clive, leaning into his touch like a man starved for months, for years, overeager for every scrap and yet still so afraid to even make a sound, to ask for more, as if Cid isn't already half-resolved to hand him the entire world and more besides.

Clive Rosfield is an unreasonably handsome man even with a permanent scowl on his face. That is a simple truth. Anyone with eyes can tell that much.

The problem is that now Cid knows how he looks with comfort wrapped around him instead, how he wears bliss, how he softens, becomes malleable and pliant under Cid's idle hands, his thoughtless ministrations.

It burns him worse than Ifrit's flames, that knowledge.

But even so, Cid can't quite help but wonder, between one breath and the next, how much of that was the veil of fever, was delirium and insomnia pushing him over the brink. How different would he look when unburdened by those tiring maladies? Would he yield to him just the same, open and receptive of his touch, seeking his warmth so earnestly, so eagerly?

Cid lifts the bottle, drinks until every last drop of acrid, bitter wine is dry on his lips, and lands squarely on the ratty leather sofa with a dull thud.

Idle fantasies make for a poor use of his time.

"I bet you're laughing at me, Benna. I bet you are."

As always, talking to old ghosts proves to be no better.

He resigns himself to a sore back and an aching neck come morning.

"Pardon me for the intrusion, my lord, but I was told you are the leader of this organization?"

"Lord…? There's no need for such lofty titles here, Miss Warrick, we're all equals. Just call me Cid."

She smiles. It is a brittle thing.

"Jill, then."

"Great. Nice to meet you, Jill. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I have questions, Cid."

"I hope I have decent enough answers then. Come on, let's walk. I reckon I can show you around the place while we talk."

"Of course."

Clive still sleeps.

His nose itches.

A small discomfort, negligible in the grand scheme of things, but he is so comfortable for once that it feels like the end of the world.

Slowly, that itch rouses gradual awareness through his body. He becomes aware of his legs and arms, of the too thin blanket covering him, the not quite soft pillow under his head. He is warm though, his eyelids heavy, sleep clinging fast to every part of him, tempting him back under its wing.

Clive does not resist it.

With great effort, he trails a hand across the mattress lazily, brings it up to his face and rids himself of that bothersome, itchy sensation. He sighs, content, and pulls the covers tighter around his body, unwilling to let the morning chill in just yet.

He drifts like that, lost between awareness and slumber for a long, glorious minute.

The bedsheets carry the scent of old tobacco and a pleasant, earthly tang, like petrichor and sweetmint, like a forest after a storm has passed. Clive nestles closer, nuzzles his face against the pillow and breathes in until it envelops him whole, safe and familiar. He feels at peace. He feels like he could lay here and not move for weeks.

He feels like he could stay.

(At the back of his mind, a faint warning trills, reminds him of something important, something obvious that he is forgetting.)

"Well, en't you just precious."

The voice strikes him like a bolt from the blue.

Clive startles violently, his body moving on sheer instinct before he knows it, wild, panicked, because he's let his guard down, because he's been careless, because he's going to end with a knife in his gut for it, unless he manages to—to—

There is no weapon in reach, no sword at his side nor a dagger beneath his pillow, so he calls on the only thing he has left, the only thing always a part of him — fire dances at his fingertips, spreads further, becomes tendrils of flame until a single, spectral wing forms like a shadow. It carries him forward, throws him at the intruder with incredible force, heat and sparks a whirlwind around them both, until they topple onto the floor in a mess of limbs.

The man beneath him grunts, pained.

Good.

"Gods be good—Clive, stop!" 

What?

"It's me, Cid! Clive? Clive, are you listening to me?"

Clive lowers his arm with some hesitation, unfurls his fist. He blinks the adrenaline and fog out of his eyes, then blinks again, until he can focus and look at the body currently straddled between his legs.

It is Cid.

He looks a little singed.

"Cid?"

All at once, memory rushes back to him, and Clive realizes very many things, very fast.

"By the Flames, Cid, I'm so sorry—" He reaches forward with no clear intention in mind, only feels the overwhelming need to check for injuries, to make sure he has caused no lasting damage. He traces the outline of Cid's shoulders, his exposed collarbones, then goes up, up, up—throat, jaw, temples—until his fingers rest half-buried in Cid's short cropped hair. Clive does not move, can barely force himself to breathe. In his chest, his heart beats a wildfire rhythm.

"Great Greagor's Ghost, talk about not being a morning person," Cid wheezes beneath him. Clive wants to sink into the earth and never resurface.

"Are you hurt?" His hands are trembling, he thinks. He can't tell what they want him to do — let go or hold on tighter.

"I'm no dainty daisy and you know it. Now get off me, you oaf, you're heavy even without all that armor." Cid claps Clive's thighs for emphasis, tap-tap, and it feels like electricity running straight through him.

"Yes."

He rolls off of Cid and drags himself a little ways off, until he's sat against the foot of the bed. Cid's bed. Where he must've slept the night.

Grand.

"Good to see the bit of beauty sleep has done its job," Cid says lightly as he rises to his feet. Clive looks up at him, looks for any signs of hurt in his posture, in his gait. He finds none. "Could've done without singing the sheets, though."

Heat blossoms along Clive's face, spreading all the way up to his ears. He looks away, hands in his lap, and feels chastised, like a child unable to control his flame.

Humiliation is a friend he knows well by now.

"I'm so—"

"No need for that." Cid interrupts him quietly. A moment later and he's crouching in front of Clive, once again gloveless, and Clive realizes a moment too late what he means to do, doesn't manage to brace himself in time before—

The back of Cid's palm is cool like a morning mist against his brow. He counts the seconds it stays there, makes a tally of it in his mind before the touch recedes.

"Well, well. Your fever's broken."

"Fever?"

"Unless you have a different name for the state you were in last night, yes."

"I don't know what came over me. I—"

"Clive," Cid tilts his head up, fingers on his chin, careful, commanding, "next time just tell me when you're tired, yeah?"

Clive nods mutely. Cid's eyes were forest green last night, he remembers distantly, but now they're dotted with faint specks of violet, like storm clouds roiling across a mountain landscape.

"Now come on, Sleeping Beauty, you've kept your lady waiting long enough." Cid pats him on the shoulder before he goes, and this time the static shock that bites into him is clearly intentional.

Despite his best efforts, Clive finds himself smiling.

Martha's Rest, Eastpool, Phoenix Gate, Ifrit, Ifrit, Ifrit, Ifrit—

They all coalesce inside him in a trail of blood and ash and crystalline stone, and at the end of it he finds — resolve.

When the two of them return to the Hideaway, they finally have a purpose, solid, undeniable. Cid gives them only a passing glance before he's smirking like he's won a bet and calls for a toast of celebration.

The wine they drink is as bitter as Clive remembers from his first evening so long ago, but it doesn't seem to deter Cid at all, who seemingly downs the entire goblet in a single breath. He catches Clive's wandering gaze and winks.

"Oh, this is vile," says Jill, with the expression of someone who has just bitten on a particularly zesty lemon. "Pour me another."

Cid laughs. It's a pleasant sound. Warm. Hearty. Clive should like to hear it again.

"Finally! Someone who can appreciate all the hard work we've put into our local distillery." Cid raises his cup before falling into a graceful bow. "You are a woman after my own heart, Lady Jill."

"Am I now?"

"Full of love, that's me," Cid reaches for the bottle at his desk. "Love and wine. Now, bottoms up! That includes you as well, Clive."

He drinks as he is bid. It is foul and stains his mouth and is all he can taste for hours after, but for some reason, he cannot quite find it in himself to truly mind.

"You are impossible," Cid nearly growls, trying in vain to carry a grown man to his bed for the second time, only now he happens to be inebriated instead of feverish. Lucky him.

What a catch, he'd thought! Another dominant, he'd thought, astonished by such a stroke of good fortune coming his way for once, and now—

Let it not be said there is a dull moment with Clive fucking Rosfield, he thinks now, patience waning rapidly, because Clive keeps being touchy, keeps reaching for him like an insistent, needy little devil, as though he isn't already half-hanging all along Cid's side. He keeps an arm around Clive's (slim, maddening, leather corset clad) waist and once he finally drags him close enough to the bed he lets him flop atop the mattress unceremoniously. He lands with a breathless ooph, arms raking over the unmade bedsheets with some difficulty, clearly surprised at why the world is suddenly horizontal.

It should not look as attractive as it does.

Cidolfus Telamon is not a saint. He is not a faithful man, nor is he even a good one, but dear Gods above — he swears to atone for whatever past mistakes he must've made, because to suffer this is worse than any hell he can imagine.

Once again, Clive Rosfield is a dream come true before him, beautifully spread across Cid's too small bed. His mouth is parted slightly, lips stained a delicious shade of wine-red that perfectly matches the ridiculous new garb he now sports. It accentuates all the shapely parts of his body in a manner that is wholly and entirely unnecessary, clinging to his skin so tightly it renders imagination nigh obsolete.

It is unfortunate, then, that Cid is possessed of such a brilliant mind — he imagines scenario after scenario, a thousand different ways to nudge Clive into his bed when sober, a thousand ways to see all those lovely curves laid bare and trace them with his teeth. Clive would be good for him, he knows, would fall to pieces at his mercy, would be thankful for it, gorgeous and begging so prettily, more, Cid, please—

It is unfortunate, then, that all of those scenarios lead to nothing but misery for them both. He knows how those stories end. Better to let sleeping chocobos lie.

"If you do this a third time, I'm seriously going to end up with my back thrown out. Think of what Tarja will have to say. It'll be horrible, I tell you. Horrible."

"You could 'lways j'st—" Clive shuffles over a bit, his words slurred by alcohol and drowsiness both. The covers tangle around his long, long legs as he moves and he gestures to the too small empty space next to him meaningfully, "You can—we can share."

Cid swallows around a laugh. It is not a kind one.

"I think not, sweetheart."

He courteously pretends not to see the hurt that flashes across Clive's face, brief and so honest that it cuts like a blade.

"Go to sleep, Clive." His voice comes out far more wistful than he means to let it, drips all that fondness and foolish, feeble longing he tries so hard to bury. It pools at his feet, sticky like tar and merely waiting for a spark to catch.

But he knows better than to play with fire.

(Or so he likes to tell himself.

He still sneaks one last glance behind him before he closes the door, lets it linger for longer than it needs to — he thinks, not for the first time, that this boy is a heartbreak waiting to happen.)

Otto says they take to the Hideaway like ducklings to water — there's plenty to be done and not enough hands to do it. The tasks, whether big or small, are a pleasant change from their…previous occupations, respectively.

They gladly fetch herbs, dispatch encroaching beasts, rescue stray carpenters (Bernard just seems to have a knack for finding himself in distressing situations). Clive helps Martelle with her growing orchard, lugs dirt and saplings halfway across the realm for her experiments, while Jill takes to working with Tarja at the infirmary, her hands impossibly steady and her needlework tidier than a physicker could dream of.

The wounded are many and their supplies always short, so Otto sends them out with kind regards to this trader or that, arranges meetings and tries to keep the place afloat as best he can. Charon stops overcharging Clive for the potions and Blackthorne no longer needs to be bribed with alcohol before he deigns to spare him even a glance. It is as warm a welcome as any.

They take on the more dangerous jobs, too, the soldiers and the slavers and the despicable filth that would see every Bearer in chains and worse besides. The Cursebreakers are grateful for their aid, for every life they get to bring home safe, for every death they get to honor with a proper burial.

At night, the three of them sit in Cid's solar and pour over maps and strategies, carefully conspiring the death of the Mothercrystals all the while.

Clive gets his own quarters, as does Jill, and it feels significant, feels grounding, to have a space to call all their own after so long spent living as ghosts. It takes Jill over a week to stop looking over her shoulder like she expects a sword at her back, to stop looking for exits at all times. Tarja gifts her two books and a plant, to liven up your supply closet, dear, this is downright depressing, and she places them at her table like it is a kingly treasure.

Clive knows he is no better, either.

They laugh about it one night, so late it might be called morning, sunrise peeking over the horizon somewhere — they laugh about it until they cry, relieved and resentful in equal measure. Much has been taken from them, loss after loss unfathomable, but no more.

No more, they promise.

They settle in like that, until they are rebels and outlaws proper.

"Ah, you've managed to find the little bugger, have you?" Martha greets him when he returns, a pile of sopping wet beast held gingerly in his arms. It whimpers strangely. Martha makes a face at it. "Nora is in the back. Please go to her, she's been inconsolable since she lost the damn thing."

Clive obediently goes to the back, where he finds a young girl pacing. She looks no older than fifteen summers and very, very distressed. Her head snaps to him uncannily, like a hungry hawk who has spotted fresh prey, and then she cries out very loudly, "Ruffles—!"

The pile of sopping wet beast is promptly scooped out of his arms.

"Where've you been, you little rascal, I was worried sick about you! I turned around for only a minute and you were gone! Gone!"

It makes a warbling wawaa noise in response to the bone-crushing hug the girl gives it, though it does not seem to mind overly much. Clive is unsure if it has bones to begin with.

"Thank you, oh, thank you so much, kind ser!" The girl turns to him, overjoyed, sparkling eyes and a wide, beaming smile. There will be mud and bogwater sloshing in his boots all the way back to the Hideaway, but that's a small price to pay for such heartfelt gratitude.

"It was no trouble at all," Clive smiles in turn, gladdened by her sincerity. For some reason, it makes her expression falter.

"Do make sure to keep careful watch of your friend though," he adds, voice soft, because he knows from experience the pain of losing a dear animal companion.

"O-oh, thank you…and yes. Yes, I will."

She fidgets in place and does not look him in the eye again, her face downturned. She then mumbles something unintelligible about watering her cat before she takes off like a wild coeurl is snapping at her heels. The beast stares at Clive over her shoulder with wide, unblinking eyes until both of them disappear from view.

Clive stands there, stupefied. He touches the brand on his cheek absentmindedly.

Did he say something wrong?

"Am I intimidating?" Clive asks Jill later, once they're back at the Hideaway and eating dinner at the Fat Chocobo as is routine by now. He's still mulling over that girl's strange behavior.

"Only to our enemies," Jill says neutrally, dipping a piece of bread into her soup with great care. Her manners have not changed a bit. "Why? What's brought this on?"

Clive frowns at his own bowl. "Am I offensive to look at, then, with the—you know—" he gestures at his face broadly. It is not a topic they tend to discuss usually, because deep down he knows the answer already, but he'd thought—

The people at Martha's Rest had been so kind, is all. Mark or no mark. Maybe he'd thought wrong.

When no answer is forthcoming from Jill, he looks up. She's dropped her bread. It floats in her soup, slowly sinking. It'll get soggy, he thinks. Jill dislikes soggy bread.

"Clive," she finally says after a long pause, sounding almost pained, "of course you're not."

"Then why did that girl—" he cuts himself off, upset over nothing.

It's nothing. He tells himself it's nothing.

Jill laughs suddenly, a sound like the tinkle of bells, quiet and reserved and so rare nowadays. Clive stares at her, uncomprehending.

"You can always ask Cid if you don't believe me," she says cryptically, rescuing her bread and taking a mouthful of soup so large it makes her cheeks puff like a rabbit. There is mirth dancing at the corners of her eyes though, bright and unburdened, just like he remembers from their childhood, and that alone is enough to deter him from asking any more asinine questions.

Clive still stirs his soup sullenly, his appetite much reduced.

It only makes Jill laugh at him further. He sighs and admits defeat.

They don't talk about it again.

(What does he need to ask Cid for anyway, when they've already had that conversation, just maybe not in proper order.

Pretty as you are, you're not my type, he'd said back then, and pretty is a common word. Insignificant. Insubstantial. Pretty is all he's going to get, with his stained face and stained hands and stained everything, charcoal and soot smeared on a tattered canvas, dull and dreary.

He looks at his reflection when he shaves and sees nothing remarkable, nothing of note, nothing worthy of a second glance, even in passing.

It is not a revelation, only a simple truth he's learned long ago.

It still stings nonetheless.)

This is stupid.

So, so, so godsdamned stupid.

Clive curses every God and every power that be in his life as he runs through the verdant undergrowth like a man possessed. He's had it up to here with Cid's perfect little shortcuts—would gladly tell him just how much, in great detail and with many expletives involved, if only the man in question were not an unconscious, deadweight in his hands.

Clive shifts his grip—too tight, too bruising—but he can't help it, adrenaline and a mad, helpless rush driving him forward. He leaps over rotting stumps and fallen tree logs, feels his knees buckle when he jumps from ledges that are far too high, but he can't afford to be careful with himself now, only with the body he carries, and time is of the essence.

Lostwing can't be too far now, he thinks, frenzied. Dread pools at the bottom of his gut with each minute he wastes, heavy like a stone.

Cid is bleeding.

There's a gash on his thigh, three savage stripes cut clean across his stupid, useless armor, all the way down to the tender flesh beneath, and they bleed sluggishly through the haphazard bandage Clive has wrapped there, the scraps of his cloak ripped and stained red, red, red.

It's just—a dragon! This far south! An honest to the Flames dragon, feral with some manner of poison from the Blight, like the opposite of akashic and no less worse for it.

It had descended upon them with a raw, bestial fury, laying a whole clearing to waste with its breath alone. They had been hard pressed to lay it low, off-guard and caught unawares, because Quinten had spoken of a beast, yes, but maybe a griffin, he'd said, an imperial aevis or a wyvern at worst, not—not that.

And Clive may have tamed Ifrit, may have let him into his heart, accepted him as truth, but the fact remains that Ifrit still hides from him, eludes him when Clive needs him most and all he can summon are a fraction of his flames. He is dearly paying for that weakness now, the taste of sick cloying and heavy at the back of his throat, because it had fallen to Cid to slay the beast, in the end.

It had been storm, thunder and levin that saved their lives, and Cid coughing half his lungs in the form of blood and phlegm right after. He'd looked at Clive for a charged second, the air heavy with static and tension, and then he'd crumbled like a mammet with its strings cut. That's when the downpour had started.

So Clive runs for all his body is worth.

When he sees the bridge leading to Lostwing and the rows upon rows of vine and grape, he nearly cries with relief. Nearly, because he cannot afford to waste his breath for it.

He does not stop until he is crashing right through the door to Quinten's tavern and calling for a physicker, throat scraped raw, his voice a wreck.

In hindsight, he may have been what Cid would call a little dramatic.

Later, Clive carries Cid's still slumbering body out of whatever passes for an infirmary in Lostwing and walks back to the tavern, daring anyone to stop him with a glare that scorches.

Clive sets him down on the single bed in their room with as much care as he possesses, though it matters little — Cid does not stir a single eyelash. Clive removes the swords at his hip, the daggers and the hidden knives he knows Cid hoards in various places on his person. It makes for an impressive pile of metal when he is done.

Still he does not stir. His chest rises and falls—inhale, exhale—a soft rhythm Clive tracks like a melody.

Clive pulls the leather gloves off his hands slowly. Privately, he allows himself a moment to study them, those naked palms — scarred in countless places by small, raised grooves, levin splitting like branches all over his skin. It continues further, the scarring, down his wrists where his pulse beats steady, across his forearms, up to his elbows and most likely further still. There's always a price.

It is sweltering.

The air is thick with humidity, an oppressive, asphyxiating heat heavy all around the valley. The rain patters on outside, calmer now, but still carrying the remnants of an Eikon's power. It most likely won't stop for a while yet.

He should probably—probably do what he can to make Cid comfortable while he recovers from whatever tithe Ramuh must've demanded this time.

The leg wound has been taken care of, cleaned and bandaged and already half on its way to healing. It is the slow, inevitable death creeping from the inside that terrifies him to his core. In his mind, an hourglass turns. How long until it is empty, he wonders, how long until there is no more of himself left to give?

His hands are steady when he pulls Cid's outer jerkin off. They remain steady as he folds it, lays it to the side. Then, Clive undoes the collar knot on the shirt left underneath, pulls the strings evenly so it loosens, and only when he spots the first hint of bandages layered around Cid's lower ribs does he falter.

"You're—" hurt, he means to say, as if Cid is awake and can answer him.

Clive bites his tongue sharply. Swallows down all his useless words, all the concern that makes him tremble so pitifully.

He stares at the bandages for a long time, and without meaning to, without any conscious thought, he finds himself trailing a finger along the edge where cotton meets skin, featherlight, tender as can be. He follows it until his palm rests flat against Cid's side, nestled amidst the warmth there. He can feel how Cid's ribcage expands with every breath, how his heart beats just a little off to the side, a steady pulse that spells out alive—alive—alive with each thud.

Clive thumbs at the cotton absentmindedly. He can tell it is not recent, fraying faintly at the edges as it is, and he wonders why it is there. He wonders why Cid hasn't mentioned it, why he insisted on coming along if he was hurt, why he would still call upon Ramuh, why he—

He forgets himself, Clive realizes with a flinch, retracting his hand as if stricken.

It is one thing to poke at your own bruises for fun. It is wholly another to invite yourself upon another man's body and see how far you can go before he flinches.

Shame burns hot behind his eyes, painfully familiar.

The remainder of the work he keeps clinical, detached. He takes off Cid's boots and arranges his limbs in what he hopes is a comfortable position, moves the pillow beneath his head so it won't give him a sore neck when he wakes. He fetches a passably clean cloth and goes about removing the silt and rainwater still clinging to Cid's person. He does not allow himself to think as he does it, does not dwell on the slope of his nose, the angle of his jaw, the smooth column of his throat that leads to wide shoulders and sharp collarbones, an expanse of golden skin on open display that he cleans, careful, thorough.

(There is a tan line across his chest, one that follows the ridiculously exposed shape of his collar, sunburnt and dark. Clive would call it endearing, if he were thinking about it. Would even dare to call it inviting.

But he is not thinking about it, so he doesn't. He doesn't.)

Once that is done, he busies himself with trivial tasks — he tidies up, arranges Cid's belongings neatly on the table, sorts through his own supplies, checking and double checking. When no more distractions are forthcoming and Cid still remains blissfully unconscious, Clive sighs. He resigns himself to another night of uneasy sleep on Quinten's floor.

His palm tingles, numb, all the while.

"Did you get into a fight with my shirt and lose?" Cid asks him the next morning, casual, careless, as if he hadn't been unconscious and half-gone in Clive's arms mere hours ago.

"What?"

"I appreciate the effort, I do, but I believe this is beyond even my capacity to untangle."

Clive stares, feeling only slightly affronted, as Cid saunters over to the table where his daggers lie and cuts the leather cord clean through, no sign of a limp in his gait at all. When he turns around, he looks like he's just walked out of a pleasure house after a late night tryst — hair a mess, half his chest glaringly exposed and the waistline of his pants riding far too low to be considered proper, courtesy of his unfastened belt.

There is a newly formed bruise blossoming red-purple-violet all across his left shoulder. One could mistake it for a gift from a too eager lover, perhaps, but—

Clive knows better.

He is acutely aware of his own hands in that moment. He remembers how they clung to Cid's body, unwilling to let go for even a moment, and he knows, too, that if he were to hold his palm against that mark now, it would be a near perfect match.

Fear makes of him a territorial creature, he's learned. A creature that is ferocious and possessive and ready to go to any lengths to save what it holds dear, no matter how depraved, no matter what burns in the wake of it. Ifrit is a dark purr in his chest, soundless yet satisfied.

It scares him. It shames him.

Cid continues, nonchalant, "I'd have thought you better at lacework, I'll admit. However do you deal with—" he makes a vague, all-encompassing gesture in Clive's direction, "—that glorified corset you're so fond of?"

"It's practical," Clive says, because it's true — his approach to combat is versatile, everchanging. He needs freedom of movement and the supple leather he wears now offers plenty. As an afterthought, he adds, "And I know my way around lace well enough, thank you."

"Worried about my modesty then, were you?" Cid teases with a grin, dangling the cord from his fingers. "Don't be. It'll ruin all my irresistible, roguish charm."

He scoffs on principle. There's no heat in it.

"Now there's the Clive I'm used to," the expression on Cid's face shifts into something kinder, something slightly soft around the edges, "Don't you worry your pretty little head about me. I'll be just fine."

Clive looks away. Outside, the rain is still falling quietly. There is no thunder.

"Right."

Pretty, the first time.

Impossible, once after, when Clive had been weak and asked for too much, with sweetheart laying him to sleep, the kindest and most cruel of disillusionments.

Pretty, again, a reminder of all he is, of all he is not.

His name, spoken in so many different ways, all of them making a hummingbird's wings beat between his ribs despite his best efforts to stifle it, to stop it from taking flight.

He doesn't know why he collects these words, why he hoards them like precious glows of ember to keep him warm when all else turns cold and biting on bad nights, when the dark gets so palpable he can't breathe and he is at his lowest.

(He knows, but he is unwilling to admit it. Little wonder he had to clash thrice against Ifrit, in the end of it.

He wonders how long he can go before he has to fight this too.)

((The answer: not long enough.))

"Does Ramuh ever…influence you?" Clive asks on a sleepless night, sat barefoot and unkempt on Cid's sofa, a nightmare still lurking pale at the corners of his vision. He stares at the single lit candle on Cid's desk, stares at the flame as it flickers and flickers and flickers.

"Influence me?"

The comforting sound of quill scratching against paper halts. The solar falls quiet around them.

"Sometimes I feel like Ifrit is more than…a part me. The Phoenix's flames I've known all my life, but Ifrit is so different in comparison. Overwhelming."

At his desk, Cid shifts. The ratty wooden chair creaks. Clive does not turn to look.

"He doesn't, but that's more because he's an old man content to give me permanent joint pain before my time."

"I'm serious."

"So am I!"

Clive pulls his legs closer, hugs himself like a child would. He tries to keep the malaise from spilling out of his chest that way, like it is a tangible thing, a stain to all he touches, rotten, reeking, wrong.

"Jill says Shiva feels distant. That she makes her numb."

"What's Ifrit feel like to you then?"

Clive swallows thickly. His throat is dry. He does not know how to answer, because Ifrit is—

Ifrit is want. Ifrit is desire.

Ifrit is a hunger that threatens to consume him whole, ravenous, neverending, the first spark that sends dry kindling ablaze. Ifrit is a possessiveness beyond measure, covetous of all that exists, a constant litany of mine, mine, mine in his head and Clive can barely reconcile it with himself, because if he is Ifrit and Ifrit is him, then—

Where does one end and the other begin?

Has he always been thus? Have depravation and avarice stood at the center of his being from the moment he was born?

"Mh. Nothing good by the looks of it," Cid answers his own question when the silence stretches too long. He sighs. "Alright then, how about this — I'll tell you about Ramuh and you'll tell me what's got you so glum, yeah?"

Clive tears his gaze away from the candle flame only when he feels Cid sit down next to him. Gooseflesh rises unbidden along his arms at the sudden proximity, the hairs at the back of his neck standing on edge. His entire body shivers. The reaction is merely instinctual, he tells himself — Cid's very presence is electric by nature, by virtue of his birthright.

Clive simmers warmth from the inside out and Cid brings with him the promise of fulmination.

"You know how old wounds start aching whenever a storm is near? That's Ramuh. All the time." Cid's voice is wry as he speaks, a low rumble that could lull Clive to a doze if he were to let it. "He's a right bastard when he wants to be though, I wasn't kidding about that. A very, very temperamental bastard."

Slowly, Clive unfurls from his perch, limbs stiff and an ache like a longing sharp between his ribs. He listens.

"It's not all bad, mind. He's a whole lotta calm, too. They call him Arbiter in the old scriptures, did you know? Now personally, I'm the type to take religious texts with more than a grain or two of salt, but they're right enough about that one." Cid holds out his palm. Clive watches as sparks of violet begin to dance atop the leather of his gloves.

"He tends to make everything slow down, kind of. Pulls you away from it until you can see the whole picture and then—" the sparks dissipate with a sudden, bright flash, "—boom. Lightning strikes. What hath thy verdict decre'd, o holy Arbiter above?"

"You are judge, jury and executioner then."

"Far from it." Cid looks tired beyond his years in that moment, for once free of all his masks, all his bravado. Before him, Clive sees Cid at his most bare, with regret heavy upon his shoulders like a mantle and his eyes distant. "I'm merely a fool who keeps making all the wrong decisions. Not even all of Ramuh's wisdom is enough to help me with that, I'm afraid. Too much of an outlaw to heed it myself."

It draws a laugh out of him, feeble and quiet, but there all the same. "Better to lay it on other, unsuspecting fools then?"

"Only if they catch my eye," Cid's mouth tugs at the corners slightly, becomes the smallest of smiles. Clive feels the indelible urge to trace it with his fingers. "Do as I say and not as I do and all that hogwash."

"Have I?" The question leaves him before he can stop it, too late to fetter the words and lock them away inside, where they can wither away in safety.

"What's that?"

"Caught your eye. Have I?"

Cid tuts. "You've got me — I just can't help myself when it comes to a lost cause."

"That's not what I—"

"But enough about me. I showed you mine, now you show me yours." Cid interrupts, purposefully obtuse. Clive does not know if he should count it a blessing or a curse. An honest answer he may not want to hear, after all. Better to not know. Better to let sleeping chocobos lie.

He looks away. This time, he holds fast to his silence.

"Come on now, there's no need to hide," he hears Cid beckon, careful, coaxing, and then a jolt runs through him — Cid's hand tilts his head, one gloved finger beneath his chin all it takes.

Clive lets it happen.

"If something feels wrong with your Eikon, tell me. It'd be awfully inconvenient to have you spontaneously combust next time we're on the field."

"I wouldn't combust—" Clive starts, incredulous.

"What is it then?"

His mouth snaps shut. He looks for the right words, tries to string them together in a way that will not leave him raw and exposed.

"I can't tell if I'm too much like him or if he is too much like me," he settles on eventually, "I can't tell which one of us is the vice."

"Vice?" Cid's hand drops once Clive meets his eyes.

"You said Ramuh is calm. Ifrit isn't." Clive nearly spits the words, hot like coals. "He's insistent. A right tenacious bastard, as you might call him. He's like a primal urge I have to keep stifling and he won't shut up."

Only a handful of times has Ifrit been content and quiet so far and not one of them does Clive wish to think about.

One time, with a bruise dark on Cid's skin and the intimate knowledge of exactly who is responsible for putting it there.

Another time, enveloped by the sharp scent of ozone and tobacco, Cid's bedsheets between his fingers and sweetheart still ringing in his ears. He had dreamt then, that wine-drunk night, but it had been no nightmare. He had woken, clammy with sweat and gasping for breath, but it had been no nightmare at all, oh no.

Every time after, too, had that one common thread been there, the reason behind Ifrit's blessed bouts of silence.

"Oh," Cid says smartly, "is that it?"

Clive bristles, temper flaring, "What do you mean, is that it?"

"I'm afraid you're putting the carriage in front of the chocobo, my friend." Cid's hands land on his shoulders, twin points of contact that steal all the breath from his lungs in a blink. He is suddenly aware of how little distance separates them, how close he has pushed without realizing. "Better yet: imagine your body as the carriage and you two as the chocobos. You're running in opposite directions, Clive."

That's stupid.

"That's stupid," he says out loud for good measure, because he is neither chocobo nor carriage. Neither is Ifrit.

Cid rolls his eyes. "Not my best comparison, sorry. Have you looked at the hour by any chance? I'm starting to think you enjoy keeping me up all night."

Warmth flushes up to his ears, hot and shameful.

"I don't—"

"Right, right, I'm going off track. What I mean is — you need to find a middle ground between what you want and what he wants."

How fortunate that those two desires align as they do, as if that isn't half of the problem itself. Clive keeps his eyes steadily fixed on a point somewhere over Cid's shoulder and asks tersely, "I'm to indulge him? That's your so-called timeless wisdom?"

"Essentially. So long as nobody gets hurt, of course. Eikons can be…testy."

"But Ramuh is reasonable," Clive scoffs.

"But Ramuh is reasonable," Cid agrees. He doesn't even have the decency to sound smug about it. He squeezes Clive's shoulders before letting go, the action surely meant as a comfort between comrades, but it only serves to tip him towards resignation, to disperse all his convenient excuses like so much smoke.

This is it, then.

This is how he falls.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Clive looks at Cid, drinks in the sight of him in the dim light of the solar — hooded green eyes and an open expression, patient and inquisitive, waiting, unsuspecting, wholly unaware of the thrum of desire ringing in Clive's ears with every heartbeat, the sound almost permanent by now, a dark croon he has tried his best not to heed.

It's only gotten worse, after Garuda, after Phoenix Gate, after Ifrit became a name, became him.

"I'll do as you say."

"Oh, now he listens to me all of a su—"

Clive moves.

He grabs a fistful of Cid's half-open shirt and swings himself across Cid's body deftly, straddles his legs, makes himself at home on his lap.

"Have I ever disobeyed you?" He breathes against his lips, fiery, testy, and does not wait for a response, simply kisses him with a hunger left unattended for far too long. Heat and levin surge through him immediately, hot and bright and searing, and he wants more, more, more, chases after it like a man possessed.

Inside him, Ifrit howls.

Clive deepens the kiss — makes it wet, makes it filthy, opens himself so he can taste Cid on his tongue, bitter apples and even more bitter wine heavy on his palate. He cards his hands through the mess of Cid's short hair, tilts his head back so the angle is better, so all their edges fit against each other like he wants them to.

Clive does not let himself think, only follows the desire coursing through him, the softness of Cid's lips against his own, the breathless gasp he makes without realizing, greedily swallowed.

Clive does not think, because he will break if he does.

This will have to do, he tells himself when his lungs start burning painfully, when he has to pull back and breathe. He feels dizzy, lightheaded with arousal and already halfway to tears. It is not their time yet.

"Clive," Cid speaks from below him, even, dangerous, oh so dangerous. "What are you doing?"

"Indulging."

He trails his hands along Cid's jaw reverently, feels the coarse stubble that grows there and then trails lower still, along the soft skin of his throat, the sharp jut of his collarbones, up and down, up and down, until he stops at his shoulders. He wants to take that shirt off of him. He wants to trace the skin beneath it with his mouth, every ridge and every scar.

He wants, wants, wants.

"Ifrit? Or yourself?" Cid asks him. The question is heavy with meaning. Clive sees no reason to shy from the truth now — he's already done his worst.

"Both."

"Both?" He feels Cid's hands land around his waist, slow, steady, but the force of his grip contradicts the controlled restraint Clive hears in his voice handsomely. It makes him hide a smirk as he leans down, leaving kiss after kiss along Cid's neck, fleeting as a flame. He does not think.

"Are you quite aware of what you're asking for here, Clive?" A shiver runs through him at the way Cid speaks his name, voltaic, charged with the promise of consequence.

"I am," he speaks into Cid's skin, teasing a spot at the crook of his neck with his tongue, with his teeth. It makes Cid's breath hitch almost imperceptibly, all that wise and sensible self-control slowly slipping, slipping. Clive wants to see how much he can get away with, how far he can push before he inevitably suffers the familiar sting of rejection. He does not think. He indulges.

"Godsdamned hellion—" Cid grinds out when Clive bites down with canines that are slightly too sharp, selfish and greedy and unable to resist the temptation of seeing a mark of his own on Cid's body, his, mine, mine, mine—Ifrit is a riot in his mind.

"Enough with the one word answers, you brat. What are you doing?" One of Cid's hands fists in his hair roughly, pulls him back with a tug that has Clive's blood singing with pleasure. He does not let go.

"I want you," Clive hears his mouth say, honest down to the bone. His voice is hoarse. "I try not to, I do. I'm sorry." He trembles as Cid's other hand slips from his waist down to his thigh. "But Ifrit makes me want you even more and it drives me mad sometimes."

Cid's eyes fall shut, something painful warring across his face, some internal conflict taking place in the span of seconds that feel like hours. Clive studies his face in that suspended moment, commits all to memory in case he never gets to see Cid like this again — hair a mess, golden skin flushed, his mouth wet with spit and the imprint of Clive's teeth red on his skin for all the world to see.

When Cid reopens his eyes, they are aglow with levin, sparkling violet and gold with only faint flecks of green shimmering in-between, like a kaleidoscope of shifting colors, like a tempest come down with a fury.

"You will regret this."

That is all Cid says before he pulls him down in a bruising kiss, sinful, obscene, pushing at Clive's mouth with his tongue in a way Clive cannot refuse. He opens before him, lets him take as he wishes and only keens weakly when the grip on his hair tightens again, starbursts of pleasure bright behind his eyelids. It makes Cid growl against him and Clive swallows the sound between his lips, adds it to the repository of fragments he hoards inside him.

"Fucking look at you," Cid rumbles when they pull apart, ragged for breath and with something eerie echoing in his voice, something unearthly. "You're too pretty for your own good."

Pretty.

Again, that useless word.

Clive stubbornly tries to kiss it out of Cid's mouth, tries to chase it away and replace it with another gasp, with another rumble of his name, but Cid doesn't let him. He holds him fast, a hairsbreadth of distance between them, and searches for something unknown in his eyes.

Whether he finds it or not, Clive cannot tell.

He thinks not, dread creeping slow along his spine, when Cid pushes him off his lap. His heart beats an unsteady rhythm in chest, threatens to stumble over itself in its panic, until he sees Cid rise after him and his hands find their place on Clive's waist once more. It feels like they belong there. It feels good.

"Please—" Clive starts weakly when Cid does not move, though he is unsure exactly of what it is he wants to ask for. He wants all. Everything.

"Maker above, you will be the death of me, Clive Rosfield." Cid exhales against him, quiet like a prayer. "Much as I'd love to ravish you here and now though, I'd love to do it on a proper bed even more. Come on, sweetheart."

Clive shudders helplessly against him. Cid leads him forward, step for step, along a path Clive has walked twice before, a path he follows when his dreams are kind. They nearly crash through the ratty wooden door, because Clive is impatient—Ifrit is impatient—and Cid is too far from him, the distance too much to bear in his heat-addled state.

"Eager, aren't you?" Cid almost laughs when Clive pushes him ungracefully towards the bed, but the sound is dark at the edges, leaden with an undercurrent of desire Clive feels mirrored in his own gut. They topple on top of the sheets in a mess of limbs and Cid wastes no time — he disposes of Clive's sleep shirt with too deft hands, lays him on his back and straddles his hips before Clive's eyes can even adjust to the lack of light.

There is a flash of brilliant purple then, the hiss of static heavy in the air, and stray candles spark to life at various parts of the room.

"Show-off," Clive scoffs, but it lacks any real bite.

"You're not the only one with fancy tricks up your sleeve, you know."

Whatever less than witty remark Clive means to say next dies upon his lips with a pathetic gasp, because he watches as Cid pulls off his gloves with his teeth. They land somewhere on the floor, maybe, Clive can't tell — Cid touches him, his bare palms against Clive's chest, his ribs, his waist, and all though leaves him. His back arches without his permission, his body a live wire, oversensitive, neglected for so long that every touch feels like ruination come.

Above him, Cid curses something foul.

Clive blinks at him through heavy eyelashes, confused, his vision hazy, "What is it?"

"You, godsdamn it," Cid snaps, "you is it."

Clive has no idea what that means, but he does not have the proper mind to complain, because Cid crashes into him like a bolt a split second after. He presses their mouths together in a wet, desperate kiss that has Clive moaning shamefully, too high, too breathless, like a common courtesan. He would be embarrassed about it, but Cid does not give him the opportunity — he keeps kissing him, biting at his lip and tangling one of his hands in his hair again, because Cid has always been too sharp, too clever, and Clive is merely an open book before him.

"You like it when I do that, don't you?" Cid asks pointedly, voice rough like thunder and gravel, and the sound of it rushes straight to Clive's groin. He raises his hands, reaches for the disheveled shirt still covering Cid's body and paws at it blindly, tries to take it off so he can touch too, he wants to—he wants—

"Now, now," Cid stops him, grabs his hands by the wrists and pins them above his head. Clive lets him. "Won't you let me have a little taste of indulgence myself, hm?"

"Don't move," he commands, so Clive doesn't.

He watches, pupils blown wide, as Cid releases his hold and finally, finally removes that ridiculous shirt he insists on wearing daily. It reveals an expanse of bare skin littered with countless gossamer thin scars, white and pale, like lace made of live lightning. Clive makes an aborted motion, stifles the urge to reach out and touch as best he can.

Cid notices. It makes him smirk.

"Good boy," he purrs, slow and sensual, and the words melt like liquid gold in Clive's veins, the phantom taste of sweet honey and ambrosia on his tongue, bitter apples and even more bitter wine. He feels dizzy. He wants.

"Cid, please—"

"I will, I will," Cid soothes him gently. He leans down and cradles Clive's face in his hands with such care it makes tears bead at the corners of his eyes. "Oh, sweet thing, if only you could see yourself right now. Laid out so pretty for me—"

Clive flinches involuntarily. He can't hide his aversion for the word, not when Cid is so close to him, when he brushes the crescents beneath his eyes with something so tender he might be tempted to give it a name.

 Indulgence, he reminds himself, this is indulgence. He mustn't go too far.

"Do you not like it when I call you that?" Cid asks, whisper-soft, and brushes the hair out of Clive's eyes.

"I thought I wasn't your type. Pretty as I am."

It makes Cid huff a laugh, near incredulous. "Clive," he says, "I was lying. Obviously."

"What?"

"You, my dear, are all the things I simply cannot resist wrapped up in one neat little package. Or, well, not so little, I suppose," Cid moves then, shifts slightly so he fits better on top of Clive's lap, and the resulting friction makes him bite his tongue in a desperate effort to stifle a whine. His hands move, too, carve a slow trail across Clive's chest all the way down to the waistline of his pants, thrilling, electrifying.

"Pretty doesn't even come close to describing you. Pretty is what you call a sunset. You, Clive, are gorgeous," Cid tells him, and something in him falls apart, falls undone, falls, falls, falls.

"Bewitching," he kisses upon the feverish skin of his throat, stubble rough and voice perilously low.

"Ravishing," he traces with his lips across the place where Clive's heart threatens to beat out of his chest, too far gone and already relinquished—foolish, foolish—but Clive cannot hope to endure against this, he can't—

"Resplendent," he laves wetly down his stomach, the muscles trembling with every swipe of his tongue, every touch of his lips, and Clive can't stop making these helpless, wanton noises, an endless supplication of ah ah ah that strips him bare.

"You are the loveliest thing on this godsforsaken rock, Clive Rosfield," Cid confesses quietly, presses a chaste kiss against the jut of his hipbone so tender it has Clive biting his lip to stifle a sob.

"Cid, can I—can I, please—" he begs, incomprehensible, but Cid sees his arms still above his head, held there by invisible bonds—don't move—and his expression crumbles as if stricken by something divine.

"The death of me, I swear—of course you can. Clive, anything you want."

He grabs Cid by the shoulders and pulls him up, up, up, because he needs to kiss him again, needs him to shut up, to stop saying these impossible things that undo him entirely, that make his heart swell with emotion he cannot bear.

Cid leans into him, steady, willing, and Clive traces the width of his shoulders with eager hands, follows the curve of his spine, the spiderweb of old scars on his back, and everything inside him burns molten, thrums with pleasure so profound he feels fit to burst.

"I could do this all night, you're so sweet," Cid murmurs between one kiss and the next, slow and languid. Clive opens his eyes—when had they closed?—and only manages to give him a questioning look. He chances a single glance to the spread of red blossoming across his throat and has to look away for his own sanity.

"Ah?" he says, rather intelligently. It makes Cid chuckle, the sound rich and dark in the clandestine candle glow around them.

"What do you want, Clive?"

He blinks. He does not comprehend the question, because he has already answered, has he not? I want you, I want you, I want you, and it was truth, plain and simple. Immutable.

He reaches for another kiss instead and lets that be his answer.

He is hungry, starving now that he is allowed to have this freedom. He glides his hands down Cid's sides to his front and finds the still fastened buckle on his belt there, which he seeks to undo at once. It makes Cid hiss against him, relieved and pained in equal measure.

"Great! Now use your words, sweet thing."

Clive tries to gather what scraps of thought are left in him, but all he manages is a needy whine shaped like Cid's name.

"Okay. Fuck, okay." Cid looks to the ceiling like he's praying to find patience. "Forget an early grave, you might just do me in tonight at this rate."

The buckle eventually unclasps under his frantic effort and he roves his hands over the newly exposed skin there greedily, grips Cid's hips with bruising strength, tries to bring him closer, mine, mine, mine.

Then, Cid grinds his hips against him in a way that is sinful, that has Clive writhing beneath him, and it feels good, it feels so good like this, but it is not enough, it is still not enough, he needs—

"More," he rasps, hoarse, "I want more."

"Oh, I'll give you more," Cid promises and he finally reaches down, down towards where Clive needs him most. He undoes the flimsy knot of his pants, pulls them off over his hips with torturous slowness, as if every inch of him revealed is something holy to behold.

Cid makes a sharp noise once Clive lies fully bare upon the bed, covered in sweat and flushed crimson from the tip of his ears down to his cock. He tries to cant his hips up uselessly, seeks that friction again, needy, so needy, but Cid holds him down with steady hands. He strokes down his hips, thighs, calves and then back up, still so agonizingly slow, so unbearably gentle.

Clive grips the bedsheets like a lifeline now that Cid is beyond his reach, settled dangerously between his legs.

"Please," he begs one more time, a final warning, because his restraint has whittled down to near nothing and his desire is a conflagration—base, primal, allconsuming. Need is all that is left of him, and if Cid doesn't do something about it—

He does not know how far he will go. He does not know how much he will take, if he is to seek his own pleasure. He does not trust himself with this intimacy.

(It scares him how much he wants this—him, them, together. It scares him how much he wants everything after that, too.)

"Next time, I'm going to worship you for hours," Cid says blithely, heedless or simply uncaring of the devastating implication next time carries with it. Then—finally, blissfully—he wraps his hand around Clive's cock and strokes him leisurely from base to tip, and the relief makes Clive sing.

"For hours, I tell you. I'll coax every pretty sound out of your mouth until I pick a favorite, a real sweet one, and then I'll make you cry nothing but that and my name until you're hoarse."

Clive shudders, a full-body tremor, and feels himself twitch in Cid's hand, wet and leaking and already too close to his peak, undone entirely by a handful of words and the slightest bit of attention. He bites his lip until he tastes iron and copper on his tongue, drags one arm over his eyes to hide behind, ashamed, yet still utterly helpless to resist.

"Oh, Clive," Cid exhales softly, tender enough to bruise, and Clive clenches his eyes shut, bites back a whimper savagely, because it sounds like, like—

"Cid, I'm—" he starts uselessly, only to cut himself off with a gasp when he feels Cid change his grip around him, feels him move forward until he is close enough to nudge Clive's arm out of the way, a request impossible to deny, he cannot deny him, anything he asks Clive will give.

"There you are," Cid murmurs in the space between them, so careful, so warm. "Don't go hiding from me now. What am I to do if I can't see your lovely face, hm?"

Cid kisses the salt from his cheeks, the tears gathered at his lashes still on the cusp of shedding, one and then the other. All the while he keeps that unhurried, even pace, works him closer to completion with every stroke, pleasure pulsing hot in his gut.

"Let go, love. I've got you."

This is what pushes him over the edge: a featherlight kiss on his lips and Cid's voice wrapped velvet-soft around the word love.

"Good boy," Clive hears through the static in his ears, blissed out and satiated, suspended in a moment that feels timeless. "You did so well for me."

His eyes flutter open with some difficulty, lids heavy, the praise making them heavier still, syrupy, sweet, so saccharine it makes his teeth ache. When his vision clears he makes a high-pitched, keening noise, one that bespeaks the severity of the sight before him.

Cid pants for breath above him, wild-eyed, levin-bright, and countless, nigh invisible fractures spark along his body, his veins, all of them aglow with aether and the heavy thrum of lightning, a storm etched upon his skin. He holds himself in hand, knelt at the altar of Clive's open legs—an Eikon, a God—

I'm going to worship you—

And smeared between his fingers is the proof of Clive's climax, gleaming slick and wet along his length as he chases his own peak.

It rekindles his hunger anew, this vision before him, twists it into a need he simply must satisfy with his own hands this time, he must—

"No," Clive protests when he hears the hitch in Cid's breath, the way his pace goes off-rhythm just slightly, "No, let me."

He gets one of his legs around Cid's middle, twists their bodies like he would in a fight, bold, brazen, and flips them both over until Cid is on his back, spread out beneath him like a feast. Clive's mouth waters.

"Let me," he says again, grabs Cid's hands by the wrists and pins them off to the side. That leaves his cock unattended and Cid makes his displeasure known immediately, ruts blindly into him, all instinct, all desire.

"Let me have you too," Clive guides one of Cid's hands up to his mouth, licks coquettishly at the wetness there and tastes himself on his tongue — himself and a faint foretaste of what he craves mixed alongside it.

It makes something dark inside him spark dangerously, possessive and pleased. It feels a lot like Ifrit and oh, he hungers. They hunger, two and one.

"Clive—" Cid grits out, a threat and a promise, so Clive dallies no longer.

He releases his hold and is savagely pleased when Cid immediately grips his hair with both hands, long digits tangling in his unruly locks so tightly it nearly has him purring with satisfaction.

Clive leans down and takes Cid in his mouth, unpracticed but too eager to care. It doesn't seem to matter anyway, because Cid throws his head back and curses fiercely, back arching in a beautiful curve, a string pulled taut to breaking.

"Fuck, of course you're—" he gasps, his voice a wreck, "you're so warm, what the fuck—"

Clive has to hold Cid's hips down with considerable effort to keep him from thrusting into his mouth as he takes him in deeper. He swallows around him as best he can, drops as low as he can go and then slowly trails back up, languid, savoring. Where he cannot reach with his mouth, he strokes with his hand, determined to give Cid this, to give him a reason to say his name, again and again and again.

"It's like you're made of heat, Gods, Clive—" Cid's grip on his hair turns almost painful, a delicious burn just on the edge of too much. It makes him moan around Cid's cock, drunk on the guttural, throaty sounds he can draw out of him, the way he gasps his name like a prayer, like something hallowed and holy.

Clive opens himself wider, tries to take in more, fervor redoubled, spit and slick wet on his face. He makes a mess of himself, lewd and obscene, but he does not care, cannot, not when Cid writhes beneath him so beautifully. He looks up through half-lidded eyes and finds Cid looking right back, pupils blown wide, eyes a maelstrom of black and eikonic violet.

In his ears, static rings like a warning.

"You'd better—hah—stop, unless you want me to spill down your throat."

Clive pointedly does not stop.

He laves his tongue all across Cid's length hotly, hollows his cheeks and takes him in deeper, urges him on, pushes him further, further, until,

"You absolute demon—" Cid cries, sharp as thunder, and does as promised.

Clive chokes on bitterness and salt, pulls off only to cough, gasping for breath and throat burning like fire. He swallows and tastes Cid on his palate, rich and heady, a craving he knows he will be itching for before long. It makes him lightheaded. It makes him preen on the inside, high on elation, because he did this, his touch, his mouth, his body, him, he did this.

He wants to do it again.

"You are unbelievable," Cid gasps above him, breathless. One of his hands falls from Clive's hair to his cheek, brushes gentle against the brand that lays there. He swipes his thumb across the corner of Clive's mouth, wipes away the stain left there, sweat and spit and come. He stares at Clive with an unfathomable emotion, one so warm that it makes him feel bashful, shy in the face of such intimacy.

"I cannot wait to take you apart, sweet thing. You'd be good for me, won't you?"

Clive shudders against him. Cid tilts his head, pulls him up with gentle hands and Clive follows dutifully. He sits up slowly and rests his palms on Cid's shoulders gingerly, suddenly unsure of where to touch, of what is allowed, of where the line between them rests.

Cid kisses him.

A slow, unhurried action meant to savor — kissing for the sake of kissing. It bruises something tender in him, something raw and still far too fragile to name, but it is good. It feels good.

"Forget hours — hours won't be enough for all I want to do to you," Cid whispers against him, light as summer rain. He tips them over gently, lets them both land on the worn mattress with a muted thud, and keeps kissing him. All the while he murmurs filth against Clive's lips, speaks all those silver-tongued promises and honeyed words Clive swore to himself not to heed, not to trust, not to let close to his heart, but—

In his hold, Clive melts. Simple as that.

He eats the words right out of Cid's mouth and tucks them behind his heart for safekeeping, carefully lets them feed the nascent flame that flickers there despite Fate's best efforts against it. It is a frail thing, that flame — weak and enfeebled from too many years of only meager scraps to sustain it, but it is there all the same. He thinks, foolishly, hopefully, that maybe—

Maybe it will shine again. Maybe it will be as bright as he remembers it from a lifetime ago. Maybe it will be brighter still than even that.

It is hope, he admits now.

It has been, ever since that first day, ever since the firmament broke open and rained fury and furor down around Jill's would-be executioners, him included, and yet not a single hair on his head was harmed.

It has been, ever since Cid walked one step ahead of him and Clive followed.

So, Clive kisses him back and lets this admission seep in every caress of his hands, every swipe of his tongue and every touch that lingers between their bodies, unmistakable, undeniable.

They lie nestled together, sticky and gross, but it doesn't discourage him from inching closer at all. One of Cid's hands cards through his hair with a repetitive, soothing motion, while the other rests wrapped around his waist, absentmindedly tracing nonsense patterns along the skin there. The kisses drag on and on, lazy and lethargic, until Clive's mouth feels bruised.

"Well, well…" Cid trails off quietly once they break apart for longer than a single breath. The word fades to a comfortable silence around them, mellow and subdued.

Clive sinks into it.

Then, he decides to seek more of Cid's warmth, just because he wants to.

He buries his face in the crook of his neck and lays a soft kiss there—once, twice, thrice—right against the mark he's so audaciously placed there himself. Cid adjusts his hold around him, shifts slightly so Clive fits better against him, cradled in his arms. It makes him ache with fondness unspeakable.

Without realizing, his eyes slip closed, drowsy, all of him enveloped by a sense of comfort so deep he cannot remember the last time he felt even a fraction of it.

Clive wants to stay here. And for once, he thinks he might be given the chance to.

(Ifrit purrs in the depths of his soul, vain and self-satisfied, and the sound is more akin to an oversized house cat than a nightmarish Eikon of Fire.

Nevertheless, he cannot deny it. He feels the same way after all.)

"Was that enough indulgence for you then?" Cid asks eventually, and for once his voice is barren of all inflection.

All of Clive's frivolous, stupid hope shatters like glass in an instant.

It cracks spectacularly — turns into a thousand, thousand razor sharp shards that cut into the softest parts of him without mercy, the parts left exposed and vulnerable for the first time in so long. And all it took was a sliver of flattery and the mere suggestion of a kind touch to return his own, foolish, foolish—

"What?" he exhales uselessly after an eternity, chest tight, all of him cold, all of his flames doused, just like that.

Was that enough, as in have you had your fill yet, as in can I get you off my hands now, as in—

Leave. 

"You and Ifrit sorted out your little spat?"

The question is measured, a simple query — impartial, impersonal, void of all color.

It sounds a lot like rejection.

Cid's hand drops to the nape of his neck, a gentle squeeze that would've felt like a dream a moment ago but now drags like a leaden weight. He pulls them apart slowly, just enough so he can look at Clive's face for whatever reason. Clive cannot hide the hurt that resides there in time, cannot unmake the prickle that burns hot and humiliating behind his eyes, damning, damning.

"I don't understand," Clive says quietly with what little breath is left in his lungs.

Cid's expression does something complicated. "I may have said some things. You may also have said some things. But I'd hate to keep you beholden to any of them, if it was just the heat of the moment. Pardon the choice of words."

Clive blinks at him, lashes wet.

"Far be it for me to complain, mind, you're marvelous." Cid brushes the skin behind his ear with his thumb lightly. It tickles. "Suppose I'm asking if I should keep my bed open for whenever your Eikon gets you in a mood."

Clive imagines it, for a brief moment — having this with Cid, this and no more. It would be a glorious pyre upon which to surrender himself, all raw pleasure and need, with none of the countless other, unspeakable things he yearns for so desperately.

It would destroy something in him, he thinks, something he would not be able to recover from. A slow, asphyxiating death, with every touch tightening the noose that little bit more.

"No," Clive says, because he would not—he doesn't want—

"Fair enough."

Cid's hand retracts and the hold around his waist loosens until it, too, is gone, faster than Clive can sort the mess of emotion lodged in his throat, holding all his words captive. Cid makes to rise, Clive realizes, makes to leave, to dismiss Clive out of his bed and out of his quarters and then they will never speak of this again.

Panic runs white-hot through him at the thought, because this isn't what he meant, it was not refusal, it was—

"No, wait—" Clive reaches for him, too desperate, too frantic, too everything. "That's not what I meant!"

"C—?"

Clive kisses the question out of his mouth. Cid freezes against him for a painful, heartbreaking second, unmoving, still as stone, and then he answers in kind. Clive kisses him with all the woeful, misbegotten love he harbors in his heart, because that is what it is, that is what he has to offer, the one thing he demands in return.

"I don't want that," he declares boldly, "I want more."

Cid laughs weakly against him, the sound of a distant thunderstorm. "What do I keep telling you? Use your words, Clive. I can't read your mind, much as I try."

So he does.

"I don't want to be just a warm body in your bed." He stares Cid right in the eye as he speaks, gray clouds and seafoam green. "It's not because of my Eikon that I want you." He presses their foreheads together, every word a vow. "Ifrit only made me stop hiding from myself just how much I want you."

"That so?"

"It is," he says, and then decides to go for broke, because he has nothing to lose. "I meant all I said, Cidolfus."

It makes Cid recoil from him as if burned, his entire face scrunching up ridiculously with distaste, like a cat that's just stepped in a puddle of water, "Gods, don't you ever call me that again."

It draws a giggle out of him, airy and bright. "Why not?" he asks, unable to stop the smile that tugs at his lips, and he thinks—

He thinks Cid might want him back, just a little bit.

"You're playing with fire here, Clive Rosfield."

He grins now, unabashed, a dawn breaking inside him, "In case you haven't noticed, I am fire."

 "Oh, I've noticed alright," Cid mutters darkly as he shuffles closer to Clive again. "You want to cast your lot with me?"

"I do."

"You do? I just—with me? Really?"

"Yes."

"Are you out of your mind?"

Clive balks at the question.

"You know what — don't answer that. Better if I don't know." Cid shakes his head slightly. His voice sombers, "I meant it too. And I also meant it when I said you will regret this."

"As much as I will regret anything else," Clive challenges, because yes, it's probably true. Their fight, their struggle — the odds of them coming out unscathed are nonexistent, but even so, Clive knows he will regret not reaching out his hand to try even more.

"You just love proving me wrong, don't you?"

"I try my best."

Cid sighs heavily. Surrenders against him. "Alright."

"That's all it takes to convince you?" Clive accents the question with a peck on Cid's lips, quick and fleeting.

"I've been known to make bad decisions on occasion," Cid bites his nose. It's more charming than it has any right to be.

"I'm a bad decision now, am I? Why not a good one instead?"

"I'm afraid I can no more tell the difference than you can tell stratus from cirrus."

At the sight of Clive's blank expression, he laughs lightly. It is not unkind. If Clive were to be generous to himself, he would even call it affectionate.

He feels generous, tonight.

"They're clouds. It doesn't matter."

"No, tell me."

"About clouds?"

A faint smile tugs at the corners of Clive's mouth. "Yeah," he exhales softly, his eyes soft, his everything soft.

Cid hums in consideration. He says, "How about we get some sleep first and I tell you all about the wonders of nephology in the morning? Ideally after a warm bath."

"I might be amenable to that."

Cid presses a kiss against his shoulder and a jolt sparks through him, teasing, playful. "Amenable, he says. Brat."

Clive laughs, open and full, a joy brimming in him to near overflowing. He laughs harder when he feels Cid's hands move against his ribs, down his sides, light and ticklish. "Alright, alright! I yield!"

Cid grumbles something inaudible into his skin, but he's smiling, Clive can feel it. He then grabs the edge of a discarded blanket and wipes the worst of the mess between them before he throws it off to the side. He pulls Clive into him and Clive rests his head on his chest, right over his heart, where he hears it beat solid and steady.

He stays.