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Chapter Text

It should have been an easy fight. The eight Imperial legionnaires, though well armoured, were no better trained than any men set to a patrol of the Greatwood, and they were certainly no match for the pair of Dominants they had ambushed at the shore of a lake.

"After you," Cid said, drawing his blade and gesturing grandly. He rolled his shoulder, making a show of stretching casually. "This shouldn't take long."

Clive stepped forward and agreed, "Not long at all."

It was, indeed, quick work.

They had almost ended the skirmishing when Clive caught sight of another man hiding well back from the rest, on the other side of the lake, this one holding a staff topped with a crystal. The astrologer raised his staff, his hooded head turned in the direction of Cid's unprotected back.

Clive threw off the man he was fighting, called, "Cid—look out!" and thrust out a hand to cast a hasty fire spell.

The astrologer dodged the fire but, distracted, missed his target and immediately retreated several steps. Now that he had shown himself, the last remaining men would rally to protect him: the Sanbrequois legions despised the Bearer soldiers in their ranks, but they valued highly those granted the use of crystals for magic.

Perhaps Cid was familiar with Imperial tactics as well, for he redoubled his efforts against the legionnaire he was fighting and yelled, "Take the astrologer first, before they can form around him!"

With the flames of the Phoenix speeding his steps, Clive hurtled toward the astrologer, sprinting around the lake. The last two legionnaires met him grimly, blades raised, and Clive wasted no time summoning fire once again to his hand, slashing savagely at one man while setting the other alight.

Heat flared beside Clive, and the man screamed, dropping his sword and patting frantically at himself in an attempt to stamp out the fire. Clive had just enough time to see the face of the other legionnaire, pale with fear, before he thrust his blade through a weak point in the armour, one that Tiamat had shown him when he had been a boy.

He turned back to the astrologer—

Something struck him hard in the side, knocking the air out of his lungs and throwing him nearly off his feet.

"Help me!" cried the burning legionnaire, his voice high and garbled. Flames still crackled along his clothing and flesh. Panic had erased all thought but fear, even when faced with the enemy who had killed him, for Clive knew he was dead; he simply hadn't realized it yet. The man fell and shrieked, batting wildly at himself as though he could put out the fire and save himself.

Clive stepped back and gritted his teeth, drawing his arm back to deal a final blow and trying not to gag at the smell of roasting flesh, familiar after years of being its cause and—

(Help me—help me, Clive—)

"Help me, please!" the legionnaire shrieked.

Clive faltered.

With a final burst of strength, the man staggered to his feet. He barrelled toward Clive, his face horrified and stretched in a grimace and his arms outstretched. Before Clive could brace himself, the legionnaire's full armoured weight slammed into him, driving them both lurching back.

And then they were both falling into the lake behind them.

They landed with a splash, sinking deep, deeper than the lake had appeared from shore. Clive tightened his grip on his sword and twisted away with a sharp blow to his adversary, though the other man was no longer struggling. He kicked up to the surface—

He saw the spell a moment before it hit. The blizzard struck him full-force, stunning him and knocking him back beneath the water. Bitter cold spread instantly through him.

Involuntarily, Clive gasped. Water rushed into his mouth and down his throat, burning and freezing all at once. His mind went momentarily blank with panic. He choked, struggling to move his limbs enough to swim, or even to clutch at his own throat, but it was as though he had turned to frozen crystal himself, and, with his sword still clutched in his grasp and his cloak sodden and tangled about him, he began to sink again.

Then came another flash of magic. Ice formed over his head, shimmering and sharp; the water became glacial around him. Clive felt his feet touch the bottom of the lake and, desperate, pushed off with just enough force to begin to rise again.

But it did not matter. He hit a solid layer of ice and batted at it clumsily with numb fingers, struggling against the instinct to heave for breath. He clamped his lips closed over chattering teeth. His vision blurred and began to dim.

Acting on instinct, he summoned fire to his hand, only for it to be doused immediately in the frigid water. He tried again, and again, calling on the great fiery wings of the Phoenix, but though he felt the water around him begin to boil, he could not burn his way out of an entire lake. In desperation, he reached for Ifrit, seeking to semi-prime, to melt the ice over his head—anything—but his strength was fading, and—

Past the surface, a blinding light exploded. The booming sound of thunder rippled through the water. Clive searched sluggishly in the hard ice above him for a gap or a way to tell the direction of the shoreline. Surely he would reach the shallows soon and his feet would touch solid ground again?

Or perhaps they already had; he could barely feel his legs. His body was shuddering with the need to breathe, though his waterlogged lungs burned like they had been stabbed, and in a moment he would—

The ice splintered above him. Clive flinched, and another searing lungful of water rushed into his mouth. His body spasmed against his will, trying to cough. Shadows were falling over his eyes; he was turning to ice, or to stone, and his limbs would not obey him—

Something grabbed hold of him and hauled his head out of the water.

The air was like a shock when he surfaced, choking and gasping. He could not tell which way was up. His hand caught on something that cracked when he tried to lean on it, breaking away and leaving him to sink below the surface again before he could kick back up. A crumbling slab of ice drifted past him.

"Hold still, I've got you!" Cid yelled.

Abruptly, Clive felt himself go limp with relief. His eyes had cleared enough to see the sky, though the shadows had turned to blinding brightness. Before him, a blurry figure crouched on the ground, fingers wound into his cloak and struggling to drag him ashore. Clive reached, too slow, and though he found Cid's arm this time, his fingers were unable to move. Another tug, and he felt himself slide onto a shelf covered in rocks and sliding dirt.

"Come on," Cid gritted out, scrabbling for a more secure grip, and then, with one more heave, he dragged Clive out of the lake and onto dry land. Panting, he said, "I don't suppose you could work things out with your bloody Eikon and find your way to another fire spell?"

Clive's frozen brain churned slowly through the words. A spell? Were they still fighting?

He looked past Cid, and though he could see no one left standing, his vision was hazy. He was not entirely certain that he still had limbs, much less that he could move them. He opened his mouth to speak and gagged, his body convulsing.

Hands grasped him around the shoulders and turned him roughly onto his side just in time for water to force itself out of him. He coughed and coughed until he retched and could not see for the black spots converging before his eyes.

The world grew distant again. He was barely inhabiting his body; it was a thing that was frozen and labouring for breath while he only looked out of its eyes.

"That's it, get it all out," Cid said. "Ugh, you must have swallowed as much mud as water."

A hand cupped the back of his neck. Clive flinched, instinctual fear flooding him and rising just above the numbness that locked his joints tight, anticipating—

...something. Something that would hurt, for why else would someone touch him so?

But the hand only stayed, firm and solid, holding him as he gasped. "Easy, lad, just making sure it's coming up and not going down," Cid said. Another hand rubbed his chest. Clive shivered once at the sensation, dulled by the cold, and then fell still, utterly worn and half-frozen. "Is that all of it?"

Clive's chest burned like he had been stabbled. His throat felt like he had swallowed a bucketful of sand and then vomited it all back up. "I..." he rasped through chattering teeth, and coughed again.

Cid's hands were back, on Clive's face now, rubbing briskly. Clive shivered again, and then he could not stop. "You're covered in frost," Cid said with a wince. "How hard did that spell hit you?"

How...hard...?

Clive blinked sluggishly, dazed. He did not think he had ever been so cold in his life. It was hard to think past the shivers that racked him. "Wh...what?" he managed.

A sharp wind blew through the clearing, rippling the the surface of the lake and making Clive shudder harder in his wet, freezing clothes. A few drops of rain fell. Cid looked up and breathed deep, like he was scenting the air.

Thunder rolled in the distance. "Bollocks," Cid swore as the handful of drops became a drizzle. "Storm's coming, and I'm sorry to say your lips are an unflattering shade of blue at the moment. We need to find shelter, and fast. Come on, on your feet. Clive, stand up!"

He hauled Clive to a seat. The change in position made the world slosh unsteadily, like it was all still submerged in the freezing lake. Nearly as disorienting were the hands pulling at Clive, the arm encircling his waist.

Clive blinked away the raindrops that had fallen onto his eyelids. He dragged himself slowly to his feet. The arm around his waist yanked him closer, and he flinched again before he could stop himself, though when he found his balance, he found himself swaying toward the blistering human heat radiating into his side.

"Let's get out of this rain," Cid said, and, staggering and stumbling, they set off.

---

The gentle rain had become a downpour by the time they found a rock overhang that jutted out far enough from the cliffside to shelter them. Clive's vision had stopped focusing at all, and his legs no longer felt like his own.

"Oy, stay awake," Cid snapped.

Leather stung sharp against Clive's cheek. He was lying down, it seemed, though when that had happened he did not know. He drew in a breath to ask what was happening and coughed, like there was still lake water in his lungs. His chest ached, though the feeling of it was dull, distant. Perhaps he was not in his body after all; he could not feel his hands nor move his legs.

"Clive, open your eyes. Fuck—I don't suppose you could prime just now?"

Of course Clive could not prime. He should not, even if he could, for he did not yet know whether he could control Ifrit's tempers well enough. And, too, he was so drained that he did not think even Ifrit had any use for him now. If there had ever been fire inside of him, it was surely gone. Clive was not convinced there was fire left anywhere in the world, for it must have all been turned to ice, to that unrelenting, burning cold that had settled under his skin and inside his bones.

"That was a joke," Cid clarified, though Clive could not remember what the joke had been. His thoughts were slippery, and trying to focus was like trying to hold a melting block of ice between numb fingers. "I'd rather you didn't prime just here. But I wouldn't say 'no' to that little bauble of fire you like to summon when it's dark."

Cid scrubbed briskly up and down both of his arms, and then tugged at his hands. Clive turned lethargically and saw Cid tearing off his own gloves with his teeth before roughly pulling off Clive's, tossing all of them aside. Then he reached for the ties of Clive's jerkin.

"What are...you doing?" Clive rasped, trying to push him away with limbs that might as well have been made of cloth for all the strength they had. His voice sounded indistinct, as though he still had water in his ears.

"Getting these wet clothes off you," Cid said, and effortlessly brushed his hands aside. "You need to warm up, Clive, you're not even shivering anymore, and if the cold settles into your chest—"

"'M cold," Clive said, confused, as Cid dragged his cloak away, and then his jerkin. Why was Cid taking his clothing when he was already so cold?

"Aye, it's cold," Cid agreed. Clive jerked away as his shirt was drawn up—or tried, at least, but the only movement he managed was a weak twitch. His arms rose again to bat away the offending hands, and again, they were brushed off. "No, Clive, the wet is only making you colder. I'm helping you, I promise. Do you understand?"

The words made no sense. Clive gritted his teeth as the soaked garment was finally pulled over his head despite his meagre efforts, leaving his top half bare. Cid's fingers moved to the ties of his trousers.

Unease thrilled through Clive. He tried to rise, to—to do something, to run or to struggle, but he only managed to lift his shoulders off the ground on limbs that shook.

A hand on his naked chest pushed him back to the ground. The vague unease intensified, building into a confused panic as he realized dimly that he could not seem to fight the force holding him down. A horrible, grating sound tore itself from his throat. Fear hummed in his bones until he thought it would burn him from within, and he would welcome it, for it was better than this bloody cold or this shuddering distress he could not escape, and what good was it to be a Dominant of Fire if he could not at least burn himself, if he could not burn the world around him—

"Stop that," Cid said, and grunted when Clive felt his hand connect with something. "Stop it, Clive, I'm trying to help—"

(Stop it, he remembered screaming on the night he had awoken as a Dominant, and he remembered, Help me, Clive—)

Clive blinked.

The world blurred, turning to fog—or perhaps that was him, for he did not quite feel tethered to the earth.

There was nothing on top of him. The burning panic was gone. He stared at the rocky shelf over his head. His head spun, a faint, leisurely tilt. He did not know where he was; he was not sure if it mattered.

A jostling at his leg made him turn his sluggish gaze downward. Cid was crouched at his feet and wrenching a boot off his foot. The other one was already gone, Clive noticed vaguely. Cid tossed the boot aside and began tugging at his trousers.

Clive's chest hitched. Cid glanced up, his brows furrowed deeply and his hair plastered down with water. "Are you back?" he asked. His fingers slowed. "Where did you go, hm?"

When Clive did not know how to answer, Cid sighed and continued. The sodden leather of Clive's trousers squeaked in protest as they were peeled off, but he could barely feel it. It might be someone else's legs that were being stripped bare. He did not know what was happening, but it might not make a difference if he did, for he was not entirely certain if he had legs or arms at all.

Perhaps he had ice instead of limbs. It was so cold.

"I'm sorry about this," Cid said. The trousers were gone now, and Clive suspected that the legs were in fact his, as the cold seemed to become worse. He was being undressed, he remembered, though he did not know why. He was not a part of what was happening. "Truly, I am. I know you don't like being touched. When you're warm enough to fight me off, I'll let you, how does that sound?"

Clive did not want to fight. He was tired of fighting when fighting would do him no good, and Cid had never hurt him, not unless he had had to.

The thought made everything grow hazier. Perhaps he was still in the lake, looking up through water and a layer of ice that separated him from the world.

Disoriented, Clive closed his eyes and reached for the well of fire his brother had left him. Even after everything that had happened, he had always had the Phoenix with him, a reminder of the oaths he had sworn—the ones he had broken and the ones he yet lived for. Even in his darkest moments, he could float away from himself, away from everything he had become, and hold onto the warmth of aether that felt like his brother, like a final embrace of a boy he would never hold again.

But now, even the Phoenix's fire was slow to respond, like it, too, was battling the frost. Disconcerted, Clive let himself sink deep into the memory of kneeling before Joshua, of feeling heat suffuse him as the Blessing was granted him. He remembered little Joshua illuminating the darkened corridors of Rosalith Castle, holding Clive's hand in both of his smaller ones as they followed his little bobbing ball of fire, whispering: I'm sure you can do it, too, Clive! It's like having a little friend that will light your way.

"Shit!" Cid blurted suddenly.

The exclamation brought Clive crashing back into himself with a jolt, where he was cold and wet and stripped nearly bare. Cid had pulled away in surprise, but hovering above them was a ball of flame, burning merrily like a torch. Clive stared at it. It tugged at his core.

"Ah," Cid said, and looked up at the flame with apprehension, though he also held his hands up to it, as though warming them over a campfire. "Well, that's an improvement. How long can you sustain that?"

It's like tying off a string, Joshua had said, holding a flame in his hand and then tossing it in the air, easy as breathing, where it floated and followed him, dancing gently with his steps. You can still feel it, but it's like it has a mind of its own. The Undying texts say that the most powerful Dominants could even shape their magic into wards and shields as solid as steel! They used this—he had pointed to the floating flame—as an exercise to learn how to set aside bits of their aether to stand apart from them.

Perhaps that was how the Blessing was created, Clive had answered, struggling to shape his own flickering flame and release it without letting it extinguish. The Blessing had been new to him back then, and he had not yet had the kind of control over the Phoenix's power that Joshua had commanded for years. Through the Rite of Rejuvenation, your aether has created a Shield that will always stand before you.

Joshua had not answered that. Instead, he had slipped his soft hand into Clive's callused one and said, Come on, Clive, you can do it. You can do anything.

Holding his brother's hand, Clive had tied off the magic so that it would contain the tiny ball of flame before sending it to judder awkwardly into the air and join Joshua's.

Abruptly, a hand took his chin and turned his face. Clive looked up into Cid's eyes, though the bauble of fire had left bright spots in his vision, obscuring his sight. "...answer me," Cid was saying.

A hand fell onto his chest again. Clive stared at it, suddenly aware of nothing except the patch of pressure resting on his sternum and the fingers on his chin. His body was full of ice and his head foggy with the freezing cold. Cid's hands were warm, and they were holding him still. Clive supposed that that meant he had a body after all, if he could feel so much.

Then they disappeared, leaving Clive cold and confused and unmoored again.

"Clive," Cid said slowly. "Do you hear me?"

Clive did hear him, but he could not remember what had happened. "Cid?" he forced out.

"If I leave you alone for a bit, can you hold that floating torch without setting yourself on fire?"

(Come on, Clive. I'm sure you can do it!)

"Joshua...gave it me," Clive slurred with effort. The ball of flame dipped lower, hovering over him, radiating heat while everything else was bitterly cold, and he let his eyes fall shut again. "It's a...little friend."

For a while, Cid did not answer, though his hand on Clive's face grew gentle. "All right," he said quietly, and Clive fell asleep to a blissful dream of holding his baby brother.

---

When he was awoken again, it was by coughs tearing through his throat. A hand rubbed his chest, spreading heat over his sternum until he could breathe again.

Clive groaned. The pain in his chest had become a sharp thing, and he was shivering violently. He was so cold, and the ache had spread from his chest and throat to the rest of his body. His skin was almost painfully sensitive, like it had been scraped raw.

"Easy, now," Cid's voice said, directly in his ear. Clive twitched in surprise. "You're all right."

Blearily, Clive opened his eyes. The ball of firelight was no longer floating above him, though a small wood fire had been built an arm span away, a jumble of branches burning with quiet cracks and pops and throwing heat upon him. Slowly, he became aware that the hand on his chest was connected to an arm, which was in turn connected to a person. Clive's back was pressed against something warm and firm that moved with each puff of breath he felt on his neck.

"What," Clive breathed. His teeth were chattering again, so hard that he could barely speak. "C-cid?"

The hand on his chest stilled. "You actually awake this time?" Cid said.

Clive shifted his sore limbs. It was not cloth or leather he felt against the skin of his back. He stiffened. "You're n-naked," he croaked, confused.

"Aye, and so are you," Cid said. His voice was calm, and it rumbled low in his chest, vibrating into Clive where they touched. "Everything was sopping wet, and you were about to freeze to death. I'm not usually so forward, but there was no better option."

Rain was still falling outside of their little shelter. The sky was so dark with clouds that Clive could not tell whether it was day or night, nor whether it was warmer now than it had been before. He could feel his hands and feet now, though he was not sure whether that was an improvement, as they prickled uncomfortably.

"I—" Clive started, but the rest of his words dissolved into coughing once more. His body jerked weakly with each spasm of his lungs. Something rattled in his chest, and his head had begun to throb abominably.

"If you were about to tell me that you've taken ill, I'd already sussed it out," Cid said.

His grip was tight around Clive, strong arms bracing him against a warm chest. Cid shifted on the hard ground, and as he did, their bare legs slid together.

Suddenly, Clive was too aware all over again of how much of another man's skin was on his, pressed firmly against him so that there was no avoiding the sensation. The odd feeling that he was standing outside of himself was gone.

Clive was not certain if he preferred this feeling to that.

"I'll not attempt anything untoward, lad," Cid said with some exasperation when Clive could not stop himself from curling tighter around himself. "Relax, won't you?"

"How d-do you expect me to relax?" Clive gritted out, still shivering uncontrollably.

"There you are," Cid said, nonsensically. "You've still got a bit of fire in you, after all."

It did not feel like there was fire in him. It felt like there was a core of ice within Clive that would not thaw, though there was heat pressed against him from behind and a fire nearly in reach in front of him. His skin was stretched too tight over his body, like it might burst open if pressed too hard. It was hard to think about anything except the solid wall of skin and muscle and bone behind him, the arm still looped around him, the hand on his chest, the spot of heat where one of his feet rested against Cid's leg.

Cid sighed. They were plastered so closely together that Clive could feel it, warm air on his neck, and he flinched, unthinking, though there was no reason to; it was only strange and unnerving. He had spent many an evening in Cid's solar at the Hideaway, sitting side-by-side or putting their heads together over some map or other, but Clive could not remember the last time he had been this close to someone.

The Bastards used to whisper in his ear when they were in the field and too close to an enemy to risk speaking aloud. He had grown used to the occasional slap on the back after a mission gone well and a slap to the face, or worse, after a mission failed. They had all used their hands to stem each other's wounds, Tiamat especially, their strongest wielder of light and healing magic.

But those moments had been fleeting. Most of the time, if someone had been close enough for Clive to feel their breath on his skin, they had been close enough to hurt him. Often, they had been carrying a lash.

"I know you don't enjoy this sort of thing, but needs must," Cid said. He did not move, though he held himself quite still now. "You can amend the situation as soon as our clothes are dry." He tutted. "You're still shaking like a hog at midsummer's feast. Do you feel any less cold than before? I can't build a bigger fire without risking us both going up in flames in our sleep."

Clive grimaced. He did feel less cold, he supposed, in that he felt anything at all now, but what he felt was anything but comfortable. Even the chattering of his teeth was making his jaw ache. "A bit," he allowed, and coughed again, pain lancing through his chest; it was like something was trying to force itself out of his lungs, though he had earlier vomited so much muck and lake water that it was hard to imagine he had left anything inside.

When the fit passed, leaving him panting, Cid's hand moved to touch his brow. "I don't like how quick this came on, although I admit I'm not certain whether it's a good thing you haven't caught fever. It might have chased the cold away, at least."

"Damned ice magic," Clive groaned. He was grateful for blizzards and frost when he fought at Jill's side, of course, but though he had been struck before by magic of all sorts, nothing ever seemed to cut quite so deep and linger so long as the cold. "Why did it h-have to be in a lake."

Even now that he no longer felt in danger of succumbing to the ice, the spell's effects had left him so weak that he could do nothing but lie still. Against his own overly sensitive skin, Clive felt every contact with an uncomfortable harshness like a hard-bristled brush, bearing down too keenly on him. He could feel rough patches of stone peppered through Cid's soft flesh, the short hairs that brushed Clive's back, the chest rising and falling with each breath. Each movement—each slide of skin and stone against him—felt so jarringly intense that he thought he could draw the exact contours of Cid's torso from touch alone.

There was a questioning hum against his back. "Do Ifrit's flames provide you no resistance to the element?" Cid asked, curious. "Or the Phoenix's? It's not often one is presented with the opportunity to ask such things of another Dominant."

Clive shook his head. "Joshua could not swim," he mumbled, although that was not what Cid had asked. He tried again, clearing his throat, though it still sounded raspy when he spoke. "He t-took cold easily. Joshua was always too small. He h-hated the cold, too."

"Interesting." Cid's voice rumbled into him. "Well, I reckon the Phoenix wouldn't enjoy his feathers becoming cold and wet."

It was strange to think of the Phoenix in such a way. For years, the term had been to Clive synonymous with Joshua, who had always seemed to him a sweet little boy and not some miraculously powerful bird of legend. Joshua had sometimes summoned his little bauble of fire simply to warm his hands.

At the thought, Clive called on the power of the Phoenix within him and let the tiny, bobbing flame kindle in his palm once more. Instead of releasing it to float overhead, as he normally would when walking through the dark, he cupped it in his hands and held it to his belly.

Behind him, Cid shifted, raising himself to see. "You won't burn yourself?" Cid asked. "At least you waited until you weren't wearing any clothes to do that, I suppose."

Clive coughed once, rattling the sickness trying to take root in his chest. "The Phoenix won't hurt me." After all, the Phoenix had continued to serve him even when he had served the empire that had killed its Dominant.

Cid shifted his hand higher, to Clive's shoulder, to allow the little ball of fire space to settle against Clive's midsection. Cautiously, he asked, "You're certain that's not Ifrit's power, lad?"

Because, Clive heard in his question, Ifrit could create flame, too, and it would not have been the first time Ifrit had hurt him and those he loved. But Clive shook his throbbing head. "Joshua t-taught it to me. It doesn't take much to c-cast. He said it was like..."

He did not have the words to explain magical shields and wards made of aether the way Joshua might have. Instead, he focused on the ball of fire in his hands. It warmed his fingers, as it had so often warmed Joshua's, and as he clutched it to his core, he remembered suddenly:

It had felt like this, a bit, when Joshua had hugged him. Joshua used to creep into his room at night, ill or restless or frightened of nightmares, and pillow his tiny head on Clive's shoulder. Clive could still remember how it had felt when Joshua's breaths had puffed, warm and even in sleep, across his cheek.

"Like a friend, you said," Cid said quietly, and Clive could almost hear the words echo in his mind, in Joshua's voice.

It had been so long since then. Clive was no longer a thing that was held, the way he had been as a youth, even if only to Joshua. He did not know how to feel about the arm around him now; all he was certain of was that it was warm while his bones seemed to be made of ice.

He cleared his throat and let his eyes slip shut. "I will be...b-better by morning," he croaked. He hoped the same was true of the relentless chill, though cold, unlike illness and injury, often lingered long after the cause had gone. "I never take ill for long."

Cid settled back down again on the ground. "The Phoenix?"

"I think so."

"That's quite a gift your brother left you."

Clive curled his fingers around the dancing ball of flame like he was holding someone in an embrace, and let its heat seep deep into him. "Yes," he said.

The hand on his shoulder moved, a tiny motion only, though it was hard to focus on anything else. Cid's thumb was warm where it rubbed a soothing line across his collarbone, his calluses rasping rough against Clive's skin.

The feeling of it made Clive shiver again, and Cid's arm tightened around him. "Rest, Clive," Cid murmured to him. "You may carry the power of Eikons in you, but even you need time to recover from a blow like that. We won't be going until this rain lets up, anyhow. I won't take advantage in your state."

"I know," Clive said, and he did. This was Cid, after all. Cid's arms were like bands around him, and part of Clive could not help being uncomfortable at the thought of being so restrained; he was under no illusions of what would happen if he tried to escape the hold and run, as worn as he was while Cid's legs felt strong and solid with lean muscle.

But Cid had told him he was a free man and had never sought to treat him as anything but. Cid had fished him out of a freezing lake and was lying on the ground with rocks digging into their sides for no reason except to keep him warm. Clive's was not the first body Cid had warmed with his own, if the gossip around the Hideaway was true, but Cid seemed to want nothing more than to hold him.

Clive sighed and leaned back, pressing against the wall that was Cid behind him. He had never been so aware of his own body, of every inch of his skin, and he felt raw, as though all of his nerves were exposed, ready to be stung by the first person who brushed past him. Cid's embrace remained gentle, though, firm enough to keep him in place and no more.

One leg moved, tucking his icy feet between them. The thumb on his collarbone stroked a slow rhythm, and soft breaths tickled the back of his neck. Slowly, clutching his ball of fire, Clive sank into the warmth around him and let his mind grow quiet.

---

Clive woke once more to the feeling that something was wrong.

The bauble of fire had gone out in his sleep. He rolled onto his back and realized—

He opened his eyes. The ground was hard and cold beneath him; the warmth surrounding him was gone. The rain had not stopped; it left the air uncomfortably cold and damp, and Clive's skin tingled all over, like a buzz he could not escape. Everything ached. His eyes were hot and dry, and when he pushed himself into a seat with shaking arms, the soreness that seemed to have burrowed into all of his muscles made him hiss. His head pounded, though the rattling in his chest had eased a bit.

His body felt strange again—wrong. Like in the moments after being pulled from the lake, his limbs were just a bit too slow to respond. He could feel them—feel the dull pain when he moved them—but his mind could not quite seem to comprehend that they were his.

That was not always a bad thing, though. Clive had learned under Tiamat's tutelage that it was sometimes easier not to think while his body did the work of the weapon their masters wanted them to be. He had once come back to himself after a battle with Tiamat's arms restraining him in some warped version of an embrace, the ground around him already drenched in blood, and had barely felt it when Biast had gingerly taken his sword from him. He had not needed his mind to be the deadliest of the Bastards.

Clive had also let himself forget what he had done as Ifrit at Phoenix Gate, and though he had since learned the truth, the idea of facing Ifrit was still alarming. It did not seem possible that a being of such power dwelt within him; surely, human bodies were not meant for that.

The Phoenix was like that, too, though Clive carried only a portion of its power. It was hard to feel entirely real whenever he was hurt badly enough that the Blessing had to take hold of him, this magic he could neither comprehend nor command taking control of the weaknesses of his body so that he could be as strong a tool as he needed to be. The Phoenix had needed him strong to protect Joshua, and though Joshua was gone now, it had continued to heal his hurts and keep him healthier than a Bearer on the Sanbrequois front lines had any cause to expect.

"Don't go leaving just yet," Cid said. Clive stared dumbly at his own hands, closing them into fists to test that he could. Only when footfalls sounded beside him did he look up.

Cid was naked. As was Clive, he supposed, though it was only when he saw Cid's bare skin that he remembered.

"I was making sure our fire was still burning," Cid said. His feet were bare, and he placed them firmly in the dirt, step by steady step, unhesitating, seeming comfortable with his toes gripping the earth. He lowered himself into a crouch just as lightning flashed across the sky, and, for a long moment, he pressed one hand to the ground and closed his eyes, like he could feel the storm through the rocks beneath them.

As the sound of thunder reached them, Clive had the absurd thought that Cid, nude and planted in the dirt and wearing an expression of deep contemplation, seemed more like a spirit of earth than a Dominant of Thunder. Then he cocked his head, eyes still closed, and breathed deep, just as another bolt of levin crashed to earth in the distance. He stayed there unmoving for a moment, and then another, and then he exhaled slowly, in perfect time with the thunder that rolled over them.

Finally, Cid relaxed his stance and shuffled his feet. Clive found himself distracted by the way the muscles of his legs worked, flexing and stretching with every movement, though the image of him wavered, like looking at a person through the smoke of a fire. Perhaps Clive was still dreaming, after all.

A water skin appeared before his face. Clive blinked at it stupidly, then followed it to Cid's arm and up past patches of stone skin to a shoulder. His traced his eyes over Cid's chest and remembered, with an odd jolt that he could not quite parse in the moment, what it had felt like to be pressed against it.

"Enjoying the view?" Cid said.

A moment too late, Clive's eyes drifted back up to his face. Cid gestured to himself with his free hand, unconscious of any modesty. It was too dark to see clearly, but the fire threw a glimmer into Cid's eyes, and the skin around them was wrinkled with humour.

Clive felt the heat in his face flare to life. Of course, Cid had no cause for modesty. His entire body was nothing but wiry, rippling muscles made hard with years of use. Even his scars from the curse were worn like badges of defiance

"Sorry," Clive muttered. His voice was still weak and scratchy, and his mind was wandering.

"There's no need for apologies," Cid said easily. His eyes flicked once down the length of Clive's body. "If you didn't look like you'd just gone a few rounds with Shiva herself in a rage, I'd be doing the same."

"Jill wouldn't hurt me," Clive protested and then, belatedly, registered the way Cid's eyes lingered on his chest before returning to his face.

I'd be doing the same.

What exactly did Cid mean by that? Clive wondered blearily. Cid did not need to bring him along on errands such as these. The Cursebreakers numbered too few to easily justify two Dominants—two men trained in the sword by the best fighters in their nations—to be journeying together simply to rid the land of unruly and unwelcome beasts. There were some in the Hideaway who had begun to call Clive Cid's protégé, and perhaps that was so, given how frequently he found himself pulled into Cid's solar to discuss strategy, gaining a view of Cid's plans that few others did.

But, more often than not, those discussions turned to idle conversation, inconsequential chatter over cups of wine or watered mead. Cid talked of Waloed occasionally—not the people he had served with but the country he had called home for years, the craggy mountains and the castle halls his daughter had run through as soon as she had learned to walk. Some nights, when the words did not stick in his throat, Clive told him of Joshua, because he worried that he and Jill were the only people left in the world who remembered the tiny boy with too big a heart, who had wielded the power of a god in a body that could not withstand its might.

Sometimes, Cid's eyes seemed to linger on the curve of his arms when he stretched or on his lips when he licked away a drop of wine. That seemed, Clive thought—or hoped, perhaps, when the days were easy—like more than a leader imparting his wisdom to a subordinate.

But not all days were easy, and on nights when Clive could not pull his thoughts from his past to his present, or when a simple pat on the back grated and made him want to recoil, he supposed that there was no point in wishing for more than the lessons he was receiving.

Now, too tired for tact but too scattered to be articulate, Clive asked, "What are you saying?"

But if Cid understood his question, he did not answer it. He only rolled his eyes, smiling faintly, and held out the water skin again. "I'm saying you're look rough, lad," he said. "Take it, drink something."

It was not a request. Clive took it and drank. The skin was full and so heavy that his hands shook when he took it, but the water was fresh, soothing on his sore throat yet cool enough to make him shudder as it slid down his middle.

"Fever's gotten hold of you," Cid explained when he had drunk his fill, and cupped a hand around Clive's cheek.

Clive's eyes drifted shut. The world sharpened, and abruptly his body felt real again. His attention dwindled to the press of fingertips against his jaw, the brush of a thumb across his cheekbone. He took a long, trembling breath and barely noticed when the water skin was pulled from his grip.

"...normal, lad?" Another hand landed on his shoulder, keeping him in his skin. "Clive?"

Slowly, as though moving through molasses, Clive opened his eyes once more. "What?" he asked.

Any humour in Cid's face had faded to worry. "You're burning hot—too hot, I would have said, in anyone else."

"Oh." Clive cleared his throat, swallowing and trying to think of anything that was not the hands on his shoulder and his face. "It's always this way. Means it's almost over."

Cid peered into his eyes, searching for something. For a lie, perhaps, but Clive was not lying. He always imagined the Phoenix was burning the sickness from him, from the inside out, a cleansing fire. It was uncomfortable for a while, and it left him drained, but it meant he could survive wounds and illnesses that he might not otherwise.

"Well, that's welcome news," Cid said finally. "Your breathing sounds better, anyway. Sleep it off, then, and we'll see in the morning. Do you need more water?" Clive shook his head. Callused fingers dragged across his cheek as he did, making him shiver again. "You're putting off heat like a forge. Don't tell me you're still feeling cold?"

Clive was not. He felt too warm, rather, and like he might float away if Cid's hand stopped holding him in place. Driven by some instinct he was too muddled to understand, he nodded anyway.

Cid's fingers moved to his brow, brushing back his hair. "Then lie down closer to the fire," he ordered, and Clive felt his chest squeeze tight. Of course—that was the obvious answer. There was no need to be pressed against one another when they were no longer in danger of actually freezing to death.

But once he did as he was told, moving slowly, feeling like his very bones were old and brittle, Cid lay down behind him. Clive exhaled and closed his eyes in ashamed relief as the arm encircled him again, pulling him close. The knot in his chest loosened, and he breathed more easily.

"I suppose cuddling with a furnace will keep me warm through the night," Cid said good-naturedly. "Go and see Tarja as soon as we're home. I'd rather have her blessing than any Eikon's. And don't cast that little ball of fire tonight if you don't need it. Save your strength." When Clive did not answer, still adjusting dazedly to the sensation of being surrounded by arms he knew to be safe, Cid said, more quietly, "You sure you're all right, Clive?"

Tucking his hands to his chest, where he could grip Cid's wrist, an anchor to hold onto, Clive said hoarsely, "I will be. Thank you, Cid."

The hand patted him on the chest, twice. The movement dislodged Clive's grasp, but Cid found his fingers and gripped them, holding both of their hands together against his sternum. "Sleep, then. We'll start home when it's light enough to see."

Clive's chest ached. The pressure of their hands clasped together was nearly too much, and yet he did not want it to disappear. It would in the morning, he knew, and that was as it should be. He breathed deep, curled closer to Cid, and slept.

*****

The rain was gone when Clive woke. So was Cid.

Clive was lying down already, alone, but his heart managed to sink nonetheless.

He emerged slowly from sleep, wrung out and still exhausted, grimy with dried sweat and whatever lake muck the rain had not washed from him, aching like he had spent days on end fighting on some battlefield. There was something draped over him, and when he finally managed to open his eyes, he found that it was his cloak, now dry, shielding him from the wind.

Their fire had died to embers, and the rain had stopped, leaving behind a dawn chill. Clive blinked his gritty eyes and shivered. Under the protection of his cloak, the air was not cold enough to freeze—nothing to complain about for a man used to long campaigns and journeys without warm enough clothing, and nothing to compared to taking the full force of a blizzard spell from an experienced battle mage.

Clive took a breath that felt as though it did not fill his lungs. Perhaps it was the chill or the lingering fatigue, but he did not feel entirely solid, as though he might still be asleep and dreaming. He extracted one of his arms from under the makeshift blanket. He recognized the scar on his forearm, but he could not escape the strange impression that it was not connected to his body. Or, perhaps, that he was not connected to his body.

Damned ice magic.

He was being foolish. There was nothing wrong with him that a few more hours of sleep under a warm blanket would not cure. No one who was a person needed another's presence simply to convince them that they were real. Clive did not like being trapped by another's body, in any case, and it was a relief to have woken alone under his cloak, without the weight of a hand on his chest.

It did not exactly feel like a relief, but he supposed it must be.

It was only that he was unaccustomed to the sensation of another body curled around his, and he had not realized...

Well. He had not known how warm it would feel; that was all. The way he felt now that it was gone—this cold, hollow ache nestled securely in his core—was nothing new. It was normal. It would be selfish to want more only because he knew now what more felt like.

Grass rustled. Clive heard the sound—registered it—but did not find the energy to turn toward it until booted feet landed on the ground next to him.

"You were right about that fever," Cid said. He held out the water skin. "You were still warm when I rose, but at least I'm not worried you'll set the brush alight anymore. A fine trick, that. Feeling better, I hope?"

Clive looked up. Cid was dressed now, except for his gloves and his unsheathed swords, still lying on the ground. He looked unperturbed by the morning chill, so perhaps it was warmer than Clive realized. The sight of Cid's carelessly laced shirt threw a cloud of embarrassment over him as he remembered viscerally the feeling of a bare chest against his back, trapping in heat. Reflexively, he clenched his hands in the cloak, tugging it closer around himself.

The boots walked closer. "Clive?" Cid prompted.

Clearing his throat, Clive said hoarsely, "Yes. I..." He shook himself and sat up. The cloak puddled in his lap. Conscious of Cid's attention, he resisted the senseless urge to immediately gather it back up to cover himself. "The rain's stopped. We'd best be on our way."

"I imagine you'd want to get dressed first," Cid said. "More's the pity," he added under his breath, just loud enough that Clive was unsure of whether he was meant to have heard it. Cid scooped up Clive's clothing, handed it over, and then turned around, giving him a modicum of privacy as he dressed.

Cid had stripped him bare the day before, Clive remembered suddenly with another mortified jolt. He had a memory of gloves being yanked off with teeth and then warm hands tugging a sodden shirt off his shoulders.

"Thank you," Clive said. He grimaced at his trousers, stiff with dried mud, and began to pull them on. "For helping me last night."

With a snort, Cid said, "That spellcaster would have found his target in me if you hadn't called a warning. I should be thanking you for drawing his attention away."

When Clive glanced up from fumbling with the laces of his trousers—his fingers had not entirely regained their feeling or their dexterity—he saw the other man crouched beside the extinguished fire. Cid had not donned his gloves, and he had his eyes closed, his bare hands laid flat against the ground. Had Clive not known better, he would have thought the man listening for something.

"Why do you do that?" Clive asked. Cid turned to look over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised in question. Clive hurriedly reached for his shirt and nodded to Cid's hands. "You were doing that last night, too. And," he added, thinking back to previous campfires, "I've seen you walk about without your boots when we stop for the night."

"Why, does it offend your sense of strict military protocol?" Cid teased.

Shrugging, Clive admitted, "I assumed that was why you were doing it." Cid grinned; it would be very like him to want to spit in the eye of rules he used to have to follow. "But that doesn't explain...whatever you're doing now."

"Well, we live in the Deadlands, inside a Fallen structure," Cid said easily. "It's not often we have a chance to feel the earth beneath our feet."

Clive, who had spent most of his life being knocked to the ground on his arse—by instructors, soldiers, owners, commanders, or monsters—did not feel that he was lacking in the experience of dirt on his hands and feet.

His thoughts must have shown on his face. Cid laughed and leaned back, lifting one hand to rest his arm casually on his knee, though he left the other splayed across the dirt. "All right, it's..." He paused, considering Clive, and then his eyes flicked down to Clive's bare chest, a tiny movement, as though he had not meant to do it.

His face flushing, Clive dragged the shirt over his head.

"It's a bit dodgy to explain, but if anyone would understand..." Cid said. Clive opened and closed his stiff fingers, trying to work movement back into them. He watched curiously as Cid turned around fully and lowered himself to sit more comfortably, both hands now resting on the earth. "Ramuh gets a bit restless when I'm in the Hideaway for too long. I'll be damned if I know whether it affects you, though; I've never had anyone else to ask about it until you and Jill came along."

"Restless?" Clive asked. Whatever Cid meant, it must have something to do with being a Dominant.

"Aye. There's a...a flow in the world," Cid said. He tilted his face to the sky, like a man waiting to feel raindrops fall, though the weather remained dry. "And we are part of the world, so that flow passes through us, too." He glanced at Clive, then chuckled again. "You don't feel it? Perhaps it's just Ramuh. The others never seemed to notice it, either."

The others. Benedikta Harman and Barnabas Tharmr, he meant, the other two Dominants Cid had spent so much of his life with.

"There's some sense in that, I reckon," Cid said. "It does feel like levin. Not so intense, but it moves the same way—stands the hair up on my arms and hums right in my bones when I look for it. It's always strongest after a storm."

As he spoke, a thin line of lightning sparked over his shoulders and crackled down his body and into the ground, like some creature diving into its burrow. Clive watched, fascinated, but Cid only took a deep breath, clenching his fists and opening them again.

"The Fallen ruins protect us from the Blight, but the building material they used is a poor guide for this...this energy—levin or whatever it is," Cid said. "Ramuh understands it, I know he does, though the old bugger hasn't deigned to explain it to a mere mortal like me. He doesn't speak to me in words, so I'm always left to puzzle out what it is he's thinking."

Curious, Clive looked down at the ground, pressing his toes and hands to the dirt, but he did not perceive whatever it was that Cid seemed to. "You don't know what it is?" he asked. "Could it be aether? I can feel your aether, and Jill's, no matter where you are." He could feel the Phoenix's, too, but, as Joshua was gone, he supposed that must be only because of the Blessing.

Cid shook his head immediately. "No, whatever this is, I can feel it in the Deadlands—at least, I can when we're not hiding in a cave built out of Fallen stoneware—even though any aether not my own is out of reach when we're there. It's how I know the land isn't entirely dead. It may be drained of aether, but there's still some spark of life in it." As if to emphasize his meaning, a spark jumped between the fingers of his hand and disappeared again.

"And the walls of the Hideaway keep you from feeling this...flow," Clive said. The Hideaway cut them off from much, both good and ill: magic, the attention of local constables, the scorn of a world that had been taught to hate and fear them. That was something most of the Bearers there valued—something Clive himself had come to find comforting.

But perhaps not, entirely, to Cid. Never can get him to sit still, Gav had told Clive once, when Cid had ventured out of the Hideaway not long after returning home.

Cid grunted an affirmative. "I've always been able to feel it; I just didn't know why no one else seemed to until I awoke as a Dominant. And as much as I'm grateful for the Fallen architecture, I prefer not to spend too long at a time without being able to ground myself properly. It feels right, connecting back to that flow—calming, like it settles the flesh and bone and blood." He threw Clive a wry smirk. "Sleeping bare on the ground all night was not a hardship for me, I assure you. But it's not something I can do in the Deadlands unless I want Tarja on me about walking barefoot through rot and Blight."

Clive rubbed his eyes. He had slept deeply, too, as well as anyone could have after what had happened, but he did not think it was the ground that had calmed his slumber. There was something appealing in the thought that walking on the earth could settle one's bones.

On the other hand, though: "So," Clive asked, "because of the Eikon in you, you can't even rest in the home you built?"

"Rest?" Cid echoed. He grinned. "That has nothing to do with the Eikon! We didn't build that place thinking we'd be able to put our feet up, not when there's still even one Bearer to free and a bit of mischief to make in this realm. Clive, much as I am enjoying seeing you half-dressed, we need to be on our way at some point."

Reminded of what he was supposed to be doing, Clive pulled on his jerkin, struggling with the ties with fingers that were somehow both numb and yet tingling uncomfortably.

Cid had not really answered Clive's question, though what he had said was true. Dominant or not, Cid would never have been content to be safe in the Hideaway while there was work to be done in the world.

"I suppose it's not the worst thing our Eikons do to us," Clive said, thinking of the stiff stone that covered more and more of Cid's arm every time he primed.

"Far from it," Cid said, and smirked. He brushed his hands off and pushed himself to his feet. One more spark of lightning danced over his fingers, then flicked down his body and disappeared into the ground. "And we've a few things to thank them for, too. We would've had far more trouble last night if not for one of those Eikons in you. I may be able to sense the movement of certain energies in the world, but these old bones wouldn't have been able to shake off the cold the way you did."

"Better me than you," Clive agreed. "I can survive more than most. I think my sergeant must have known that when I was with the Bastards, or suspected. It was part of why he always sent me out first whenever we were deployed."

Suddenly, Cid's tone became flat. "Is that right." He kicked dirt over the smouldering pile of charcoal that was all that was left of their fire. "As convenient as it was last night, I don't suppose you've considered that constantly healing yourself will speed the spread of the curse."

"I don't think any of us thought we would live long enough for the curse to matter," Clive said.

"Well, when we met, you were trying to kill Shiva's Dominant. If that's what all of your missions were like, I don't doubt you valued the ability to use your magic more than the ability to survive it."

Clive gritted his teeth, not answering. It was not precisely pleasant to be reminded of all of that.

"And now that you're free?" Cid asked. "You've spoken to Tarja on the matter, I presume?"

"There's no need. The curse hasn't started in me," Clive said.

There was a short pause. "It's not always obvious," Cid said. "It starts as an ache that won't leave, or a stiffness in joints that you can't loosen. Sanbreque's been at war for nearly a decade, and I've seen units like the one you were with. I don't expect they were sparing with the use of your talents."

It was true. The Bastards had been selected for their magical prowess as well as their skill with weapons, and Clive had seen the stone spreading on Tiamat's arm for years. Even Aevis, their most recent companion, had begun coughing and rubbing his chest when he thought no one was looking, as though trying to soothe a persistent ache. There had been no healer to see to them, of course, and so none of them had spoken of it; there had been no point.

"I'm telling you: I don't have the curse," Clive said. His fingers slipped again, and he dropped the laces with a curse, giving them up as a lost cause on this morning. It was not as though he had much modesty left to preserve after the previous night. He was dressed, and though a lingering trace of fever kept him feeling somewhere between too warm and too cold, the chill inside him was no longer so bitter. That would have to be enough.

Now he just had to stand up. He took a tired breath.

"And I'm telling you," Cid said, "that recklessness will change that. The Phoenix's aether must work through your body when it heals you."

Unable to stop himself, Clive summoned the Phoenix's little bauble of fire and held it close, shutting his eyes and letting himself feel its warmth. Cid was right: this sort of healing always left him bone-weary, and yet, he could not find it in himself to dislike the feeling. Perhaps this was how Joshua had always felt when he had healed a Shield of some grave injury and then had to spend the rest of the day abed, recovering from the exertion.

Clive felt shivery and his skin parchment-thin; he was ready to sleep for another day, and there was still a day's travel before them to reach the Hideaway. But at least it felt like something. At least it meant the Phoenix was still with him even if Joshua was not. There was a temptation, unreasonable though it might be, to close his eyes, stay here under this rocky overhang, and let his brother's fire chase the edge of the numbness away.

"Still cold?" Cid's voice asked from directly in front of him.

Clive startled and opened his eyes, flinching back before he caught himself. Cid held a hand out to the side, cautious. "A bit," he admitted. A shiver moved through him. "The rain must have cooled the air."

"Not so much," Cid said, frowning, and unbuckled his belt. Before Clive could ask what he was doing, he stripped off his jacket and crouched once more to sling it around Clive's shoulders. "Look, I won't tell you what to do with your power, Clive. You've had enough men tell you that in your life. But, until you've had a full night's sleep out of the cold, what say you put your magic away? We've ways to stay warm that don't require you to use reserves of energy you don't have at the moment."

The jacket was still warm, wrapping around him and fending off the wind the way Cid had done in the night. It smelled like rain and smoke from the campfire where it had lay drying. There was a whiff of Cid on it, too, despite its recent soaking, a faint scent that Clive had not known he would recognize until the collar brushed his chin. It reminded him of evenings in the solar, easy and safe.

It was so distracting that it took Clive a few long moments to understand what Cid had said. "Right," he said, and, reluctantly, released his hold on the little ball of fire. It vanished. He clenched his hands to resist the urge to call it back.

"Put that on properly," Cid ordered. "Can you stand?"

Clive slid his arms into the warm sleeves and then, wincing, pushed himself to his feet. He wobbled; he stiffened his knees before they could buckle.

Abruptly, it felt as though he had floated out of himself, like he was watching his own body as it swayed. Cid took a step closer and caught him around the arms. "Steady, there," Cid said. "Are you going to make it back?"

"I'm fine," Clive heard himself say, because he was on his feet, and now that he had found his balance, he would stay there.

Once Cid was certain of the same, though, the hands let go, and for a moment, Clive thought he would drift away again. But Cid only reached down and unbuckled Clive's belt.

"What...?" Clive started, prickling with unease and a strange ache in his core. He thought his skin might crack open and spill him out if Cid did not leave him be; he wanted to sway closer until they were pressed together again. He was too tired to know how to reconcile the two.

"Your virtue is safe from me," Cid said, winking, and unceremoniously tugged the edges of the jacket closed before looping the belt back around Clive's waist. "It's a good thing you've taken to wearing these clothes. They fit you like a glove. We never would've gotten this jacket on over that suit of Imperial armour in which you came to us."

Clive held very still, feeling as though he had been petrified after all. Cid's nimble fingers buckled the belt for him, cinching the jacket closed. The older man wore only a shirt now, open to the middle of his chest. His bare arms, corded with muscle and spattered with stone, flexed gently as he worked. He stood so close that Clive could feel the heat of him.

With an odd mixture of apprehension and yearning, Clive pulled the edges of the jacket tighter around himself, trying to keep from taking a step closer or flinching away. "You're not cold?" he asked, though he did not know that he could have brought himself to return the jacket now.

"I'll be warm enough as we walk," Cid said. He studied Clive critically, touched his brow once more, and then stepped away to pick up his swords. "Put on your cloak, too. And go see Tarja when we get back, no matter how late it is. Phoenix's Blessing or no, I don't like how hard this put you down."

Clive did as he was told, wrapping himself in his cloak and gathering his sword and harness. He touched the jacket over his chest; he could still feel the imprint of Cid's hand and the cold it had left in its wake. "Right," he said again, and followed Cid home.

Chapter Text

The moon hung high in the sky by the time they reached the Hideaway. They had debated making camp for the night, but with home so near and the Deadlands uninhabited by predators, they had decided to press on across the wasteland instead.

Clive had begun to regret it about a league ago. There must have been another occasion on which he been this tired, but in the moment, with his eyes blurring and his feet stumbling, it was hard to remember when.

Torgal found them before they even made it into the Fallen ruin, sprinting toward them across the Deadlands and nudging Clive so forcefully that he lurched back and barely caught his balance.

"'Lo, boy," he mumbled. He reached down to rub Torgal between the ears. He was tempted to drop to his knees and give Torgal some proper attention, but he suspected he would not be able to rise again if he did.

"Back from your hunt, are you?" Cid said, bending to give Torgal a few hearty pats on the flank. "Did you heed Cole?"

Torgal barked happily and wagged his tail, so Clive assumed that all of the Cursebreakers who had taken Torgal out on their latest hunt had returned safe. "Sorry we left before you came home," Clive said.

In answer, Torgal rose onto his hind legs and planted his paws on Clive's shoulders to pant in his face, sending him reeling back.

Cid caught him before he could fall. "Calm down, boy," Cid said, and set a hand on Clive's back to guide them forward. "It's been a long day and night. Let us get off our feet."

Clive rubbed his eyes. He patted Torgal's head once more and staggered onward over the uneven ground, trying not let his focus wander from his footsteps to the warm touch he could feel on his back through the layers of clothing he wore.

The Hideaway was quiet and sleepy at this time of night. Clive stopped when they entered, allowing himself a moment to feel the relief of being home again—of having a home again—where they had safety and warm beds to sleep in.

He did not notice his eyes closing until a hand clamped around his arm. "To the physicker first," Cid said firmly, dragging him away and toward the stairs, "and then you can sleep as long as you like."

The physickers were all asleep, too, but Cid left him sitting on a bed in the infirmary, and when Clive blinked, Tarja suddenly stood in front of him, pulling a shawl around her shoulders.

"I'm fine," he said. He looked past her at the empty doorway and felt a lump of disappointment fall into his gut. Cid had disappeared between one blink and the next. "I'm only tired."

"Are you," Tarja said, eyeing the layers of clothing he still wore. Clive pulled the edges of Cid's jacket closer around himself, feeling the leather strain against his back. It felt like he was being held tight.

Tarja set the back of her hand against his brow, and against his will, Clive leaned into the touch. Her hand was much smaller than Cid's and her fingers cool on his skin. After a moment, he remembered himself and started to pull away, but she only moved her hand to cup his cheek.

"You're not fevered any longer," she proclaimed, and then pulled away, turning to rummage through the items on a shelf. "I talked to Cid. He says you're not injured, and I'm inclined to believe you wouldn't have been able to fool him all that way. Do I need to verify that?"

Clive folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. He did not want to strip down to his skin before her now, while there still seemed to be a core of ice inside him that had not yet thawed. "I don't much like ice magic," he confessed. "But I just feel a bit cold. Nothing more."

"Understandable," Tarja said, and pulled down a spare blanket. "Is it warm enough, in your quarters?"

He shrugged. He had never noticed otherwise. It was warmer than the outdoors, anyway.

"Have you eaten?"

"We ate on the road."

"Do so again, as soon as you're able," Tarja ordered. "It's no easy feat for the body, chasing off that sort of cold, and I've not the slightest idea how the Phoenix's Blessing affects you besides. And come to me again afterward. I had better not hear tomorrow that you've gone off gallivanting with Cid again before you've had a chance to recover."

Clive nodded. He accepted the blanket from her and squeezed it between his hands. It was soft and thick, and he wanted to wrap himself inside it and sleep for days.

A hand landed on his shoulder, jolting him. "Clive?" Tarja said.

"I'm going," he said. With a deep breath, he pushed himself slowly to his feet. Her hand dropped from his shoulder. "Sorry to wake you."

"You didn't; that was Cid," she said. She frowned up at him, shifting to look into his eyes. "And nothing else is the matter? Cid mentioned you seemed a bit...off."

Clive stared at her. He could think of no good way to say that he felt so flimsy that he was not certain he was inside his own body. It was the Phoenix, he supposed; or perhaps Ifrit, or even Garuda. Dominants felt things differently sometimes, if Cid's description of  Ramuh's influence was accurate. It did make sense, a bit, that Clive's body did not always feel like his own when so many great beings also made it theirs.

"Nothing sleep won't fix," he said at last, and she stepped aside to let him pass.

---

There was not a world in which Clive could have stayed awake long enough to do anything—to eat or wash himself or speak to anyone—before collapsing on his sleeping pallet. He considered it a success simply to have managed to strip off his dirtied clothes—his, and Cid's jacket—before burrowing into his blankets.

The sleeping quarters he had been given were small, just large enough for Clive to lie down and still have space for Torgal to crawl in after him. Otto had assigned him a berth near the entrance to the bunks that was separated from the next space by a thin but solid wall, allowing Torgal to come and go as he pleased without disturbing other residents. Clive closed his gritty eyes and pulled the blankets around himself as tightly as he could.

As tired as he was, sleep eluded him. He could hear no movement from the next berth; Dorys and Fabien had gone out on a hunt, and, as they had been searching for what was rumoured to be a particularly vicious pack of wolves, they had asked Jill to accompany them. They would not likely have made the journey back by now.

Clive wished Jill were here. She was easy to talk to, despite the years they had spent apart. Jill held his hand without hesitation and did not question him when he sometimes felt the need to pull away. But three Dominants travelling together would be too conspicuous, and the Cursebreakers were too short on numbers for the three most powerful magic-users to go questing together often rather than spreading their strength among the other groups.

(Strictly speaking, he supposed it did not make sense for Cid to so frequently ask Clive to accompany him on excursions. But it made Cid's eyes brighten whenever he agreed, and regardless of how sound the strategy, Clive liked it, too, the comfortable rhythm of talking and fighting at Cid's side.)

After years spent jealously hoarding a place to sleep in congested Bearer barracks, the mostly enclosed space Clive had been lent here in the Hideaway seemed simultaneously too small and too empty. His bed was comfortable, more so than any he had slept on in years. The pallet was soft beneath him, and the blankets were heavy enough to be warm. His body ached, but it often did, and he was used to sleeping in far more pain than this, even without feeling so tired. He was still cold, but, buried in quilts, it seemed ridiculous that he should be.

With a sigh, Clive shivered and peeled open his eyes, squinting through the darkness. Torgal lay just beside him, breathing slowly and deeply in his sleep.

Would that I could follow you, Clive thought, watching the dog sleep. He was so tired that he felt almost as though he were still underwater somehow, looking through rippling waves at the image of his faithful hound, or perhaps at a mirage.

But when his hand touched Torgal's fur, the dog was warm, his fur soft and thick. As Clive stroked his fingers through the smooth fur, Torgal opened one eye to stare at him.

Clive froze. He felt as though he had been caught doing something wrong. Torgal's flank rose under his hand, then fell—rose and fell—rose and fell. If Clive shifted his hand just a bit, he would feel the dog's heartbeat, thump-thump-thump in the stillness. The amber eye gleamed at him, and suddenly, Clive had the thought that this Torgal's body was one he barely knew. The Torgal he had known had been tiny, small enough to carry in one hand, constantly curious and innocently excitable.

And then Torgal—the one who was here and weighed as much as a man—whined sleepily and crawled closer, until the very tip of his nose rested against Clive's neck.

Clive had missed almost all of Torgal's life. He did not know how long it had taken for Charon to warm to him; he did not know where the dog had been in the years before finally finding Cid; he did not know how often he became restless enough that the Cursebreakers had to take him out hunting with them. He did not know whether Torgal still liked to be held the way he had as a puppy, now that he was too big to sit in a child's arms.

Slowly, ready to pull back at the first objection, Clive laid his arm over Torgal's back. Torgal's eye opened once more, and then closed, unbothered, so Clive tightened his grip. He moved closer and wrapped his other arm around the dog.

Torgal huffed and tossed his head, squirming, before he resettled on his side with his snout resting on the crown of Clive's head. He sighed contentedly and went back to sleep.

Relief cascaded over Clive like a warm ray of sun. He squeezed his eyes shut, inhaled deeply, and buried his face in Torgal's neck. Puffs of breath fluttered through the hair on his temple, and one of Torgal's paws pressed into his shoulder, the claws too sharp for comfort and just sharp enough to anchor him.

If he did not move, Clive thought, then perhaps he could fall asleep holding his dog without thinking about the way it had felt to have another person's arms around him. Perhaps he would wake up warm and rested and feeling like himself again.

For a long while, he drifted, aware of the dog's back and the way it moved when they breathed together. Torgal's paw migrated to Clive's neck. A hind leg kicked his knee.

Slowly, Clive's throat loosened, though he had not realized how tense he had been before. He was warm now, at home and safe, wrapped in blankets that someone here had made with their own hands and holding his dog. He let himself drift off to a deep, dreamless sleep.

---

Torgal shifted away.

Groggily, Clive tensed reflexively to keep his grip steady, but the dog snorted and wriggled until he was forced to let go. He opened his eyes sleepily to see Torgal stand and shake himself vigorously. Then he lay down again, a hand's width away, and went back to sleep.

Something anxious shivered in Clive's breast as he drew his arms back. It was perfectly normal not to want to be trapped in someone's hold, he reminded himself. Torgal was a creature of the icy North, after all, and did not enjoy being overheated. Perhaps he did not wish to be held by a body that was host to a fiery beast.

For a moment, Clive felt like a pit had opened inside of him, like an icicle had taken root in his gut and every breath pressed against some bruise. It was like he was no longer capable of enduring the solitude of his own body, and only because he had spent one night learning how much comfort another person's presence could bring. He inched pathetically closer until he could feel the heat radiating from Torgal's body again, taking care that he did not touch.

But still, Torgal was beside him, slumbering peacefully. He had chosen to come to Clive's bed and was choosing to stay, even though there was no shortage of residents who would have gladly let him spend the night at their side. Perhaps the dog simply did not want to be touched just now.

That was all right. Clive himself often did not want to be touched, except when he did.

---

Clive had not found his way to sleep again by the time he heard the sound of voices beginning to greet each other outside the bunks.

This was nothing out of the ordinary, he told himself again, pressing down the gloom that tried to rise into his throat. He was not injured, and he was not ill, and so he was back to normal. He knew where his body was and how to use it, even if it sometimes felt distant.

But he had always been this way, he supposed, even before the Phoenix's Blessing had infused him, before the brand on his face had made him into a thing too abhorrent to touch except to discipline or clap in chains. Whatever the reason—Ifrit, perhaps, or some fault of his birth—Clive could not rely on another to feel like he was...functional, at least. Clive had spent his whole life learning to be useful, whether to his brother and his father or to the Sanbrequois legions.

He remembered how annoyed Tiamat had become on the days when Clive had not felt like body or his comrades or the world were real. Life had been like walking through a dream in those early days, some nightmare that every Bearer soldier knew well and from which none of them could wake.

He was practiced at it now, though, and he had learned at Tiamat's hand the art of working no matter what species of hollowness nestled in his bones from day to day. He did not need to feel right to be useful. Just because he had been saved from his enslavement to the Sanbrequois empire did not mean that he should forget the lessons he had learned during his time there.

Quietly, so as not to wake the still-sleeping dog, Clive crawled out of his blankets. He dressed himself with automatic motions in the simple but clean clothing Hortense had given him a month ago, then stepped out. Without thinking, his feet turned first toward Jill's bunk...but, of course, she was not there. He was not sure what he would have done even if she had been—woken her, simply to have the comfort of her voice?

He was being stupid.

It was still early, and not many had stirred from their beds yet when he found a wash basin at the faucets and did the best he could to scrub sweat and travel dirt from his face. The only other person here in the bathing chamber—one of the carpenters whose name he did not know—nodded to him absently and went about his own ablutions. Clive kept his eyes averted, undressing only long enough to clean his top and tail, and tried not to think about the way Cid had looked, nude and crouching in the dirt, eyes closed like he could feel the storm that had raged around them.

A hand brushed his arm, and he twitched away. "Sorry about that, mate," said the carpenter, squeezing past him in the small space.

Clive let out a breath when the man left. He had his wash cloth clenched tight in his hands, and his muscles from his neck to his legs were tense. He loosened his fists and rolled his shoulders, trying to relax, and sighed. He was about as clean as he was going to get without drawing a bucket for himself and finding some soap or ash fit for cleansing, and the idea of having to spend any more time in here than he had to while other residents milled and chatted around him was exhausting.

At least he was no longer covered in spatters of blood from their skirmish, after having been dunked in a lake and soaked through by the rain. He dragged a hand through his hair, grimacing at the feeling of dried sweat that he did not have the energy to attend to, and left.

There were no other patrons yet when he entered the Fat Chocobo. "Oy, Clive, I didn't know you and Cid were back!" Kenneth called. "Something to eat?"

At the words, Clive's stomach rumbled loudly. Kenneth's jovial face brightened. "If you've anything ready," Clive said, a bit embarrassed. "We only returned last night. Most were asleep by then, I think."

"Ah! I won't expect Cid until the midday meal, then," Kenneth said. He turned to peer into a bubbling pot and reached for a bowl. "He tends to sleep hard when he comes back from outside. What're you doing up so early? You look like you've barely slept a wink!"

Clive folded his arms over his chest. "Too hungry to sleep, I suppose," he said, and though he had barely noticed it before, it was true that he felt famished now, enough to be almost light-headed with it.

Kenneth clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "What, is Cid not feeding you when you're out with him?"

"No, of course he is," Clive said immediately, reflexively defensive of Cid after all the man had done to keep him alive. "I was just too tired to eat much."

Throwing him a sympathetic look, Kenneth said, "Too tired to eat, then too hungry to sleep. That won't do! Here, this is just about ready."

"Anything I can help you with while I'm here?"

But Kenneth waved him off. "There are not so many people around yet that I need the help," he said, and handed him the bowl, full of steaming porridge with chunks of some sort of meat piled liberally on top. "Sit down for a bit. Mayhap a stomach full of hot food'll help you off to a nap, eh?"

Despite himself, Clive hesitated before he accepted the bowl, as he did every time. It had been months since he and Jill had come to the Hideaway to stay, and yet, a part of him could not stop the thought that this food could not truly be his; surely, he was meant only to serve it to someone else, and there would be hell to pay if he dared to sample it.

But Kenneth continued holding it out, his smile unwavering, and waited patiently until Clive shook himself and took it. "There you are," Kenneth said, and slipped a spoon into the bowl. "There's more of that if you need it when you're done."

"Thank you, Kenneth," Clive said sincerely, and sat at a table near the counter.

The moment Clive brought the spoon to his lips, the urgent hunger that had lain quiet through the night came roaring to the front of his mind. He ate quickly, and when he returned with the empty bowl, he did not argue as Kenneth filled it again rather than taking it from him.

"You know what I say," Kenneth told him when he tried to thank the man once more: "make sure that food doesn't go to waste. That's all the thanks I need."

Sitting in the Fat Chocobo, expected to do nothing but eat, was simple, an easy lull compared to the previous few days. As his hunger diminished, Clive began to feel tired again, not quite recovered from the unexpected brush with bitter cold. He let his thoughts quiet to nothing but the mindless motions of filling his belly, peripherally aware of other folk beginning to trickle into the mess hall. The Chocobo was always warm, with the fires kept burning and ovens hot, and more than a few residents smiled at him as they entered, familiar with his face by now, though there were some whose names he had not yet learned.

"'Lo, Clive," August greeted as he passed, and he darted out a hand. Clive quickly slid his bowl away, hunching protectively over it, determined to finish his meal.

A moment later, he realized what he had done and felt his face warm.

He glanced up at the Cursebreaker. August had paused with his arm extended, his face surprised. He had not been reaching to take the food away but rather to clap Clive on the back the way many of the Cursebreakers did. August was one of the more affable of their number, and he could often be seen in the Fat Chocobo with an arm slung casually over the back of someone else's chair or playfully nudging one of his comrades. He had not meant anything more than a greeting.

Swallowing hard, Clive straightened in his seat and tried to soften the set of his shoulders, though he did not think he was successful, if the wary look in August's eye meant anything. He cleared his throat. "Good morning," he said, unable to meet the other man's eyes.

"Good to see you back in one piece," August said, lowering his arm without comment. He skirted around the other side of the table, out of reach, though he threw Clive a friendly smile.

Clive managed to nod back, but the clenching unease had once again taken residence in his throat. His back tingled where the Cursebreaker had nearly touched him, and he could not decide whether he was more relieved or disappointed that the interaction had passed him by.

He lowered his head to his bowl and steadily shovelled the rest of the food into his mouth. He did not taste much of it, but it was hearty and sat warm in his belly. His head felt a bit clearer than it had upon waking; perhaps he really had only needed something to eat.

By the time he carried his empty bowl back to the counter for a second time, the Chocobo had begun to fill. Normally, Clive met Cid in the solar after their outings to discuss what they had found, reviewing whatever troop movements they had caught glimpses of, marking down the fiends they had encountered in an attempt to keep abreast of the spread of the Blight by the migration of beasts driven from their native lands. Clive was only just beginning to learn a new routine here in the Hideaway, and those times spent cloistered together in the solar had become a comfortable part of it. But if Kenneth was right, Cid would still be asleep now, so there was nowhere Clive was meant to be at the moment.

"Let me take those for you," Clive said, gesturing to bowls ready to be served when he saw Kenneth wiping his brow and looking nervously over the hall.

Kenneth gave him a relieved grin. "I won't say 'no' to a hand," he said, and pointed out their intended destinations.

It did not take long for Clive to fall into the rhythm of the Fat Chocobo. There were meals to be delivered to those who could not easily retrieve their own food and dishes to collected when they were finished. Bowls needed to be washed and pots watched; the floor needed to be swept; Kenneth and his assistants needed water to be brought from the reservoir. A few Bearers afflicted with the curse were not entirely bound to their beds, but neither could they manage the trek to the mess hall without assistance, and so Clive was sent to help the ones who wished to walk while they still could.

Harpocrates, though not a Bearer, was one of those who needed an arm to lean on. "You will have to tell me of your latest adventures," the scholar said as he tottered carefully from the bunks, his hands shaking where they clung to Clive's shoulders.

"Gladly," Clive said, keeping a firm grip around the man's back. "Er, you know I could deliver your food to you in your quarters."

"That would probably be easier for you," Harpocrates agreed wryly. "But I like to be around people. Too often the records left to us are concerned only with the great moments of history: the movements of armies, the whims of rulers, the fall of civilizations. Did you know, Clive, that although we know that the Fallen existed and thrived centuries ago, I have not in all of my studies found a single account of the lives of those people?"

"I expect they would have been rather strange to us," Clive said, nonplussed, "living in the heavens as they did."

"But we do not know even that for certain," Harpocrates said. "Oh, we know that they had ships and that those ships likely flew. But there is no reliable source that tells us names of the citizens of their civilization."

"What about Lanitus Aurea?" Clive asked.

Harpocrates chuckled. "I have not heard that name in years! But Sir Lanitus is, I'm afraid, only a character, an invention of those writers of novels that have imagined the Fallen as players in a great romance. I had not realized that you were an enthusiast of such tales, Clive."

Clive felt his cheeks warm as they reached the steps to the Chocobo. He had had piles of such books as a child, full of drama and battles between gods and men, though, of course, all of that had been lost to him when he had been captured at Phoenix Gate. "It has been quite some time since I last read anything of the sort."

"I had forgotten that you were once the son of a duke," Harpocrates said. "There are not many here who had the privilege of learning to read as children, and I know that my collection of books is not wonderful. But if you wished to acquire other texts, I do not think Cid would object."

"Books are an expensive commodity," Clive said. "We would do better to spend our coin and our efforts on things that are necessary."

But Harpocrates only laughed breathily as they climbed painstakingly up the steps, one at a time. "What is necessary?" he said, and paused to rest. Clive paused with him. "Not the vast variety of flavoured ales Maeve has been trying to brew, when we have a well that provides us water clean of the Blight, nor the pepio nuts Charon keeps at her stall just in case Torgal wants a treat. I am not necessarily, certainly, not if you mean the things that keep the body alive."

"Don't say that; I know you've been teaching some of the Bearers to read," said Clive, who could not imagine a Hideaway without old Tomes ready to share his knowledge and collect more for himself.

"And is that necessary?" Harpocrates asked. His arm tightened around Clive's shoulders as they made their way up the last two steps, and he let out a breath. "We are not only animals, Clive. Inventing a character in a story, or enjoying a book of romance, or learning the secrets of horticulture—those are the kinds of things that make us men."

"I don't wish to imagine Otto's face if I asked him to buy some books instead of grain," Clive said.

"And I should hope not," Harpocrates said. "We must survive first, certainly; the animal needs must be met. But once they are, then we are free to be more than just hungry beasts surviving on instinct alone."

A dull ache settled in Clive's chest. For a while after his branding, he had written whenever he could secret away the materials for it, a way of reminding himself of what—of who—he had been on the days when despair had crowded too close and he had begun to wonder if life before the Sanbrequois army had been only a dream. Clive was not only an animal, not like his masters had tried to make him, but he did not always feel capable of much more than that. Each time he had primed, had that not been the act of a beast, acting on instinct—or fear, or anger, or whatever it was that filled him when Ifrit came?

But perhaps Tomes was right. He had resolved to be better now than what he had been on those darkest of days. He did not guess that an animal would know to seek atonement for his sins. Coming here to the Hideaway and serving a greater purpose was part of being more than a beast—or trying, anyway.

Clive led Harpocrates to his usual table in the corner. "I suppose," he said, "such things are important for people who have lived their whole lives being seen as less than human."

"Precisely. Cid understands that, and Clive, you are one of Cid's now as much as the rest of us."

One of Cid's. Clive tried not to think about the gleam of rainwater on Cid's skin and the feeling of Cid's jacket settling over his shoulders. He could not possibly be the first of the man's strays to entertain such thoughts.

"I must be, aye," Clive said, and then, unexpectedly, he caught Cid's eye.

Cid sat at a table in the middle of the mess, watching them as they entered—it must be later in the day than he had thought. When Clive's step faltered, he raised his cup and winked.

Flustered, Clive tore his gaze away. He hooked a chair out from beneath the table with his foot and returned his attention to his task.

Harpocrates groaned as he was lowered gently into the chair. "Ah," he breathed, settling himself and slowly unwinding his arm from Clive's shoulders. "Thank you, my boy. Wait a moment, if you would—"

He took Clive's hand and held it in his own. Clive's breath caught—though he had half-carried the man from the bunks, it was somehow this simple gesture that made him freeze. Harpocrates' hand was dry and his fingers thin and crooked with age, and Clive had to remind himself not to clutch back too hard, lest he hurt their resident scholar.

"May I make a request of you?" Harpocrates asked from his seat.

Clive knelt so that the old man would not have to strain his neck to look up at him. "What is it?"

"Jara and I have been discussing the possibility of reading lessons for the younger children," Harpocrates said. "It would be wonderful to have some books of stories to read to them—something less stuffy than the books of ancient history I have in my possession. If you come across any such storybooks that might suit while you're travelling, would you bring some back? For me, that is. Or for the children, if you prefer, though you would of course be free to avail of them.”

Harpocrates's warm eyes were fixed on his, and he wore a small smile. Clive's throat tightened. "I..." he said. He swallowed. "I will...do my best. Are there other books you would like to study, Tomes? Surely you want more than storybooks. Stuffy books of history, perhaps?"

"Always," Harpocrates said, "though I know such references are not easy to find."

"I will bring you whatever I can," Clive promised. Impulsively, he added, "Perhaps we can even build you an entire library one day."

"That would be quite a feat," Harpocrates said, smiling wider, his wrinkles fighting to obscure his eyes, "though I fear I keep asking petty things of you when you already have many more important things to do. I don't mean to be a burden on the very people this place was built to serve. I know you soldiers do not come here without wounds and scars, and the Sanbrequois are notorious for their appalling treatment of their Bearers."

"You are no burden, I assure you," Clive said. He hesitated for another moment, but there was something comforting about talking to Tomes. Feeling as though he were confessing some secret, he lowered his voice and added, "You're right—my masters were not kind, but neither was I in their service. It is a welcome change, being able to help, even if only a little."

Harpocrates's smile softened. He patted Clive's hand. "Everyone here comes with their own wounds," the old man said again, gently.

Without warning, heat sprang to Clive's eyes. He closed his hand around Harpocrates' and then opened it quickly before he could squeeze too hard. He took a breath and stood. "I'll...go and fetch a candle for you to see by," he said, and escaped to the counter.

A pang of guilt passed through him. The warmth of the old man's hands lingered. Even when it was Clive that people leaned on, it felt as though he were the one borrowing strength from them.

---

He was wiping the counter when Cid appeared before him with an empty bowl and cup. "Didn't take Kenneth long to snap you up for a helping hand," Cid said good-naturedly.

"I wasn't exactly busy," Clive said.

"And now you are. You don't have be working every minute of the day, you understand."

"I'm not," Clive said, and, "I don't mind." He took the dishes from Cid and set them in the pile of others to be cleaned before the next meal. "I like it here."

"Aren't you a good lad," Cid said, and smiled, slow and fond. "I like having you here, too."

Instead of leaving, he set his elbows on the counter and leaned forward. The campfire smell that had lingered on them both—and on the jacket Clive had worn on the journey home—had sharpened to a vague metallic smell, a scent that Cid always carried on him after he had spent some time working on Blackthorne's forge. He was wearing a clean shirt, worn with barely an effort to do up the laces, as he often did, and no jerkin. It was so casual as to be nearly indecent, though he seemed entirely at ease. Clive felt his eyes drawn to the exposed skin of Cid's neck, his chest; his hand, uncovered by the gloves he wore in the field, flexed idly against the edge of the counter, and Clive could not help but remember the feeling of those fingers entangling with his own. He could not help wanting to entangle them again.

Clive rubbed his eyes and deliberately looked away from Cid's loose shirt and strong hands. He felt like he was losing his mind, but slowly, gently, sliding into a confused morass of instincts that he neither understood nor knew how to dispel.

"Well, I do learn fast," Clive said, attempting to recover his senses. "I'll have you know I managed to carry four bowls in my hands today without spilling a drop."

Cid chuckled and tilted his head. "Four bowls?" he echoed with exaggerated admiration. "I fear I may have to fight Kenneth soon if I wish to have the pleasure of your company."

Clive shot him a glance. Cid's eyes were twinkling with humour, but he had not moved from his relaxed posture at the counter, and he only grinned when Kenneth snapped a cleaning rag at him in mock indignation.

"They like it when Clive delivers their food," Kenneth explained primly. He held up his hands. "The heat does not bother him, you see, and so their meal arrives still boiling hot."

Raising an eyebrow, Cid peered closer at Clive's hands, though Clive knew that this was not a thing that was visible. "Ifrit?" Cid asked. "Or the Phoenix?"

Clive shrugged. "I suppose."

Kenneth pointed at him. "Dead useful, whatever it is."

Cid hummed, ever curious. While in Waloed, he had had been surrounded by more Dominants than most ever would be, but that still amounted to only three, including himself. There were never enough in the world of whom to ask questions, and Cid was a man who liked to know things.

But he left it for now and raised his eyes to Clive's again. "It's kind of you to help—you with your hands that will not burn," he teased. "But Kenneth survived the days before you, and he would again. Did you sleep at all?"

Clive sighed. He slumped where he stood; hearing the question seemed to have drained the energy from him. "I was hungry," he said, falling back on the same excuse, "and Tarja said to eat something first thing."

"Is that all Tarja told you?"

Clive winced. He had forgotten that he was supposed to have gone to see the physicker in the morning. Perhaps that explained why Tarja had scowled at him so pointedly when she had come in for her own morning meal. She had not berated him directly, though, so he supposed she could not have been overly concerned.

Chuckling, Cid said, "I thought so. Listen: if you'll put down that rag and actually rest for a bit, I'll tell Tarja you don't need another of her examinations. All right?"

"I've tried," Clive muttered, frustrated enough with himself to be annoyed into honesty.

"Try again," Cid said, as though it were simple. He pushed himself away from the counter. "There's nothing that needs attending to outside of the Hideaway at the moment, and there are only so many good deeds you can do in here before we run out of chores."

"We're never going to run out of—" Clive started, rolling his eyes.

"So go have a nap and then eat some supper," Cid went on, ignoring him. "It'll do you good. I'll be in my solar when you're done, if you want to join me for a drink." He paused. "Or...go straight to your bed. Better that, probably, after the couple of days you've had."

Clive exhaled through his nose. He had no real argument to make. But, still... "Do we not need to review this last trip?"

To his disappointment, Cid only shrugged. "We followed a report of wyverns nesting near one of the main routes toward Eastpool; we found them, we slew them. Then we danced with a few Imperials, you fell into a great puddle, and now we're home. Anything else?"

"Er..." Clive said. Flippancy aside, it was a startlingly accurate retelling of the past several days. He tried to recall anything else that might warrant more discussion than that—the kind of discussion that would require them to sit together over a map or a scroll for more than the time it took to speak a couple of sentences—but was forced to admit, "No, I...suppose that's all."

"Relax," Cid told him. "Take one bloody night for yourself, Clive. You can find someone to give you work to do in the morning, I promise."

The problem was, embarrassingly, that Clive did not particularly want to be left alone for the night, or at all. Though his eyelids were beginning to feel heavy, he was not looking forward to leaving the bright company of the Chocobo. He had grown accustomed to evenings in Cid's solar, chatting over a cup of wine or a tankard of the latest cider Maeve was trying to make with sour apples. There was always something to talk about, whether it was Cid's plans for the best order in which to approach the Mothercrystals or some new repair Clive was helping with in the Hideaway.

But there was nothing urgent, and he could think of no other excuse, so he finally said, "Fine, I'll...do that."

Cid clapped a hearty hand on his shoulder, and it was all Clive could do to hold still, stiff, unsure whether to start back or to sway into the fleeting contact. Cid's brow furrowed, and he stepped back, taking his hand with him.

"And there'll be no one crowding you this time," Cid said, the corner of his lips quirking up wryly. "Go on, Clive—get some rest, or I'll drag your arse to Tarja myself."

Then he winked, turned, and was gone.

Clive let out a long breath and rubbed his fingers along the washcloth in his hands. It was an effort not to touch his own shoulder where Cid's hand had left a burning imprint.

A hand tapped the counter beside him. "He's really taken a liking to you," Kenneth said, grinning.

"What?" Clive said. His face warmed and something shivered through him, some melange of unease and thrill. Cid was his commander here—or something like, whatever the corresponding word was in the Hideaway—and Clive knew what it looked like for a new, pretty soldier to be shown the kind of favour that invited him into his superior's sleeping quarters. "I..."

"Never mind," Kenneth said, still smiling, shaking his head, though Clive could not detect anything but amusement in his voice. "Sounds like you'd better head back to your quarters. He's right—you've done more than enough work today, and you look ready to fall asleep standing up."

"I'm all right," Clive said, and he did feel steadier than he had last night with a belly full of food and warmed by the Chocobo and its company.

"Here," Kenneth said, and slid a pouch toward him. "For your help today."

Clive pushed it back. He had taken payment from Kenneth before, but it seemed different, now that he knew the man and the people he had served here. "There's no need. I'm the one who asked to help."

"And I'm asking you to take what you deserve in return," Kenneth countered. "We all do our part around here, and you do more than enough as it is, running around with Cid out there in the world."

"I like it, though," Clive said. He turned to leave as an expedient way to win the argument. "It's not necessary. I'll come back in the—"

Someone grabbed his hand.

Before he could think, Clive ripped his arm away and stepped back from the counter, reaching over his shoulder for his sword. His pulse jumped, and it was like the candles around them had all begun to shine brighter, glaring like sharp pinpricks in Clive's vision.

He did not have his sword, of course; his fingers closed on air. Kenneth held one hand up, like he was trying to pacify a feral animal, eyes wide. His other still held the small bag, as though...as though he had been trying to press it directly into Clive's hand.

Clive gulped a breath. He felt not unlike a wild animal—the kind that was mad and might attack an innocent man, or a child.

He glanced around. The Chocobo seemed too crowded, suddenly, and in his periphery, he saw Cole watching him closely, eyes drawn by the sudden movement. The Cursebreaker's posture was alert and his chair pushed back from the table. The wary attention scoured like sand over his skin, and Clive felt himself grow hot.

Atonement, he reminded himself. He deserved their suspicion, and more, after the horrors he had committed.

"Forgive me," he said. "I didn't—"

"No," Kenneth interrupted. His shoulders relaxed a bit. "Don't. I should know better than that; I was the same way, at first. But...but I do insist, Clive." He pushed the bag across the counter. "Take it."

His skin prickling with nerves, Clive protested again, "I can't. You're doing me the favour by letting me..." He gestured vaguely to the tables. Letting him come in here, perhaps; or letting him be around these people, even knowing what he had been. Kenneth might not know about Phoenix Gate, but it was no secret that Clive had been an Imperial assassin.

Kenneth's face softened. "You're a good man," he said, as though he had never seen Clive walk into the Hideaway wearing armour and a sword both spattered with blood. "So do me a favour in return and take what you've earned. I will not be like our masters were."

Clive felt the muscles in his back ripple, reacting to the wary eyes of the Cursebreakers in the hall. His rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, took the step forward to the counter, and picked up the bag. It was not heavy—they did not have much here in the way of coin or treasure—but the gil Otto dispensed to each person who helped to keep the Hideaway running was small enough payment for the work they did. Kenneth could have kept this for himself.

Clive took a deep breath. He had spent thirteen years learning how to push down hot shame and resentment and the prickle of panic, to behave like a person—or at least a well-honed tool—despite it all. With an effort, he lowered his arm, leaving his hand clenched at his side. Slowly, the tension in his shoulders drained away, replaced by the familiar, distant coldness that he remembered so well from the last decade or more.

He wished, irrationally, that Kenneth would take his hand again. Kenneth was a gentle man, and Clive wished for a chance to prove himself more than some savage. He wished people would clap him on the back or pat his arm; he wished that he was not also glad when they did not.

But that was not a problem for anyone else to be burdened with. If there was to be any forgiveness for Clive's sins, a bit of deserved caution was the least of the discomforts he would endure. He took the cleaning cloth on the counter and swiped it idly over a stain.

"Stop that, now—go and have a kip," Kenneth said briskly, waving a hand at him. "Unless you're still hungry?"

"No, thank you, Kenneth. I...I'll see you later, then." Clive pulled back reluctantly, wiped his hands on the cloth, and stepped out of the hall without looking back.

He had not taken more than two steps away before Torgal bounded up to him, tail wagging.

With an outsized sense of relief, Clive bent to ruffle the fur between his ears. This, at least, was simple. "Awake now, are you? I'm afraid I've been sent off to bed again."

Torgal did not seem to mind; he panted happily as he followed. Between excursions, Torgal was a staunch enthusiast for sleep.

Once there, however, Clive could only stare unhappily at his pallet. Having a secluded berth to himself was a kindness, though he supposed it was because of Ifrit's unpredictable nature that the space had been lent to him. In truth, after the mess he had made outside Caer Norvent, he should count himself fortunate that Cid and Otto had not assigned him quarters in the dungeons instead.

But it was lonely, too, in a way Clive would not have imagined he could feel after years without the least bit of privacy. The muffled sounds of life outside the walls only accentuated the quiet in his little corner of the bunks, and the sight of his soft, borrowed blankets could not entirely ward off the chill settling back into his chest. Even half a day of mingling with friendly faces in the mess hall could not quite fill what he was beginning to suspect was a hole right through the middle of him.

Clive shook his head. He was being ridiculous and ungrateful. He was not a child to need a hand to hold. Knowing now that he was a Dominant in whom an Eikon—more than one Eikon—had carved out a place to inhabit, he supposed it stood to reason that he might have been born more hollow inside than most.

A brush of fur against his hand made him look away from his contemplation of his bed. Torgal whined, bored or confused, and sniffed at his hands.

Despite himself, Clive smiled. "Do you smell Kenneth's food on my hands, boy?" he asked, kneeling to stroke Torgal's snout and rub his face. Torgal closed his eyes in pleasure, and, for a moment, Clive was tempted to throw his arms around the dog's neck.

But the memory of Torgal twisting out of his grasp in the night halted him. Though he knew there had been no malice in it—that there was no malice at all in Torgal and that no one should have to suffer a person's hand unwanted—there was something particularly horrible in the idea that even Clive's dog found his touch undesirable.

He shivered. Here in the Deadlands, he could not even summon the Phoenix's little bauble of flame to give him light and a little warmth. More than that, it was hard to pretend any longer that the cold was truly in his body and not only in his mind.

Perhaps, he thought, standing up with one last pat to the top of Torgal's head, it would be better to find something to do after all. Kenneth would send him back to his bunk, but Geoffroy might welcome a hand, or perhaps one of the botanists in the furrows. There was no shortage of work to be done, and if he paid enough attention, perhaps he would not flinch this time if someone were to tap him on the arm.

Pathetic.

And yet...

As he started to turn to leave, however, his eye caught on the pile of clothing he had left on the floor last night. Cid's jacket was still there, lying on top of his own clothes.

It had still been warm from Cid's body when Clive had worn it. It had fit snugly around his shoulders and wrapped around him, and Cid's sure fingers had adjusted its lapels, fastening his belt around it and sealing Clive in with the scent of campfire smoke and rain and Cid.

He should probably return it, Clive thought with a mixture of reluctance and anticipation. Cid had said he would be in his solar, after all. Clive picked it up and headed back out of the bunks.