SALVE

A knock on the door was the last thing Cecil wanted to hear at the moment, and to his even greater annoyance, he realized that he'd neglected to bolt the damn thing shut. Currently, his attention was completely engaged with trying to bandage the wound on his sword arm — a gash that was fortunately shallow enough, but that ran from just above his elbow nearly all the way to his shoulder. Unable to use both hands for the task, in his frustration Cecil had turned to using his teeth, and this left him without recourse when the interloper simply let themselves in after receiving no response. Instead, Cecil could only glare and hope whoever it was got the point.

Cecil was surprised to see that the busybody at the door was not one of the monastic chirurgeons he'd fended off earlier, nor was it the Royal Abbot of Fabul or the captain of the ship that had been earmarked for their journey or even perhaps Yang, who likely would not have entered Cecil's room without his assent in any case. It was none other than Edward, slightly favoring a twisted ankle and carrying a handful of bottles — not the last person Cecil had expected to see, but fairly far down the list. The bard had, up until now, largely avoided being alone with him. Since they’d left Kaipo Edward had grown steadily more talkative as time went on, but he still seemed to regard Cecil with an apprehension he could not quite shake.

Cecil could scarcely blame Edward for that -- not after seeing Golbez stride into Fabul’s crystal chapel and hearing his voice emerge hollow and cold from the blank faceless mask of his helmet. Golbez's very presence had seemed to leech the air from the room, make it hard to breathe without struggle. Cecil had never been in such haste to strip off his armor after that, and not entirely due to the injury. The blue-black plate now lay in a pile on the other side of the room, haphazardly discarded.

It had been altogether a little too much like catching his reflection in the mirror.

Edward didn't look directly at him but otherwise seemed undeterred by Cecil’s withering gaze, though he had to have made his displeasure more than clear. Instead, Edward walked over to Cecil’s bed, set the bottles down, and shrugged out of the strap of his harp case -- which he'd brought with him, of course. Cecil had never seen Edward without it. The bard even slept with the case curled up in his arms from time to time, and whenever a fight broke out he protected the instrument like it was part of his own body.

"You disappeared so quickly after the battle," Edward said, perhaps by way of explaining why he'd barged into Cecil's room. He sat down, first barely on the edge of the bed furthest from Cecil, then pulling himself up a little closer, far enough that his feet were off the floor. "I was certain I saw you struck at least once, though. That, and you looked halfway to keeling over when you insisted the doctors leave you be. I thought you might be hurt."

There was no point in denying it -- with his armor in a pile on the floor, it was quite clear to see Cecil had been lying when he'd insisted he was uninjured. Even if he hadn't been in the process of bandaging the wound when Edward entered, the bedspread was littered with the rags Cecil had used to clean the blood from the inside of his armor and staunch the persistent nosebleed that had welled up after he'd called upon the dark perhaps one too many times in his desperation. Blood was the black blade's signature now, it seemed -- it had always caused him pain, even to the point of agony, but visible wounds had once been rare. Over time, the dark sword's ravages had started to show on his body -- welts raised across his skin like he'd been struck with a whip or seared with a red-hot brand, or bouts of coughing where he spattered his gauntlets with blood like a consumptive. If Cecil didn't know better, he would have sworn the weapon was taunting him, gloating in the extent of the abuse it could inflict upon its wielder without raising objection, seeing how much Cecil would suffer to keep its power. Gruesome as they were, though, the effects hardly ever seemed to wear him down. Instead, Cecil often found himself filled with a manic vigor that he was starting to find far more frightening than weakness.

"It's nothing," Cecil objected, giving up and dropping the bandage on the bedspread. There was another one beneath it, technically -- more of a tourniquet, really, a strip of cloth hastily tied around the wound to slow the bleeding to a sluggish trickle.

"You know," Edward said, his eyes drifting to Cecil's shaking hand, "You're not nearly as good at being stoic as you think you are." He held out one of the bottles -- a flask of water -- and cocked his head to the side.

Cecil was quiet for a moment. Edward had, in recent days, become almost infuriatingly perceptive, as though he had spent the entire journey out of Damcyan in a kind of daze that he'd only recently begun to emerge from. When they'd first trekked across the desert, Edward had spent most of his time mutely withdrawn or so caught up in his own terror that the scarcely seemed to know where he was -- and yet less than a day ago he'd come face to face with the very man who'd taken everything from him and managed to keep his head, at least to the extent that any of them had. Kept his head enough, even, to stand between Golbez himself and yet another thing Cecil had failed to protect.

Edward was patiently waiting for him to either accept the offer of water or reject it, and Cecil couldn't help but think back to the moment they'd met. Preoccupied with Rosa's illness, Cecil had said and done a lot of things he knew Rosa wouldn't have liked.

Almost resentfully, Cecil took the flask of water out of Edward's hands and took a drink. The water was cool and pure, and Cecil did not realize how thirsty he was until it hit his raw, parched throat.

"I know you're hiding from the doctors for some reason," Cecil heard Edward say as he downed the rest of the water. "And I suppose you don't want to bother Rydia. She's sleeping by the way. Quite soundly." Though the little girl had been harsh with Edward at first, she had quickly warmed up to him and would often cling to his cloak as they walked along mountain ledges and sit with him when they made camp, the bard plucking his harp in time with her improvisations. For the most part they got along famously, and Cecil wondered occasionally if Edward had been anticipating having children of his own soon, before everything had come crashing down.

The flask empty, Cecil set it aside. Edward was folding the discarded bandage carefully, a clay bottle between his knees. Then, he twisted the cork, breaking the wax seal with an audible crack. The astringent, herbal smell of a healing potion flooded the space between them.

"I'm no healer," Edward said. "But I thought I might be able to do something. You can't just leave a wound like that to fester."

Cecil, who had been planning on doing exactly that, glowered at Edward. "I don't need your help."

"You do," Edward said. "Give me your hand."

Once again, Edward didn't wait for a response. Instead, he reached out and took Cecil's wrist, though gently enough that Cecil could have easily removed himself from Edward's grip if he wanted. After a moment, Cecil decided he didn't.

Extending his arm fully made Cecil hiss in pain, at which Edward frowned and heaved himself further up onto the bed, close enough that he could rest Cecil's arm in his lap -- which he did. The sudden closeness felt strange, the presence of another person impossible now to ignore or brush off with a few harsh words, and for a moment Cecil almost wished he was still wearing his armor. Once again Cecil found himself thinking back to their first meeting -- Edward staring up at him, face streaked with blood and tears, eyes blankly hysterical, sobbing for Cecil to leave him to his misery. Now, Cecil supposed, he was the one who couldn't convince Edward to just let him rot.

Edward held the folded bandage over the mouth of the potion bottle and tipped it so that the greenish liquid began to leak into the fabric. Cecil frowned.

"Potions don't work topically," he said. "Everyone knows that."

"They don't work quickly," Edward corrected him. "Nor is the effect quite as dramatic as imbibing it. Soak a dressing in it and keep the wound wrapped up, though, and it'll stop the bleeding, prevent infection, dull the pain a little. Means you can do without stitches in a pinch. Not much use in the thick of things, I suppose, but it means you can treat a number of injuries with a single potion. Old Damcyani travelers' trick." Edward wrapped his hands around Cecil's wrist again to steady him, and Cecil realized how badly he was shaking. The wound had narrowly missed striking anything critically disabling, but it was not a clean or precise cut, and its location meant even the slightest movement pulled at it painfully. Swept up in the rush of battle and the dark sword's ecstatic urging, he'd been able to ignore it. Now both had faded.

Edward began to wind the bandage around Cecil's upper arm, tightening as he went. "And she was a sage's daughter, you know," he said softly. "Anna knew a great deal about a lot of things, and she loved to talk."

Cecil had barely heard Edward mention Anna since her death, and every time he did it was in a hushed, halting tone, as though he were struggling to keep his mind upon a happier past. Right now, Edward was leaning close enough that Cecil could hear him swallow thickly, feel him almost tangibly turn his full attention towards his work, even as his voice stayed mostly steady and his eyes free of tears.

The damp dressing pressed into the open wound as Edward tightened the bandage. Kain's lance had found a gap in his armor, a place where the needle-thin tip of it could slip through the chain and padding to gouge out a ragged gash. Kain knew his weapon well, but he clearly also knew Cecil to an almost harrowing degree -- they'd sparred together so often, fought back to back enough times, that Kain knew every quirk of his movement and could take advantage of even the way he carried his shield-arm. Nobody else could possibly have struck him like that. It was the kind of wound only a friend would be able to leave.

Edward tied the bandage in place neatly. Cecil gritted his teeth, not keen on allowing any more acknowledgement of the wound's seriousness to pass his lips, but the sting of it shot up and down his arm, making his fingers twitch. Finished with this bit of his work, Edward laid a soothing hand on Cecil's throbbing shoulder for a moment before picking up the half-empty potion bottle.

"I think you must brew these things stronger out here too," Cecil said. Even as he spoke he could feel the pain starting to lose its edge.

"Well, we haven't got any white wizards," Edward said. "Not like Baron does. Unless you're lucky enough to find one for hire, even the royal guards have to rely upon other means."

Edward was nothing if not tactful, but he had cut right to the heart of the matter at hand -- Rosa would have made short work of this cut, but she wasn't here.

"You'd better drink the rest," Edward prompted, holding the potion out. Cecil numbly took the bottle and downed its contents, grimacing slightly at the taste. His arm was still partially laying in Edward's lap, and Edward idly stroked along Cecil's palm with his thumb, a soothing motion that Cecil hated to admit did make the pain a little easier to bear.

No, it wasn't the actual pain that it helped, Cecil thought. He was used to pain -- sometimes even reveled in it, for what else was he to do when his life belonged inescapably to the black sword lying against the foot of his bed? It was everything else that really troubled him -- everything he hadn't said to Kain and Rosa, everything he hadn't done, the ache of betrayal and fear that couldn't be ignored with gritted teeth or smoothed away by magic. That was the thing that Edward's presence made a little more bearable.

Only Rosa had ever touched him with such tenderness before, and even that he had not permitted her to do in months, unless he was too wounded to object. Edward, however, had seen firsthand the engine of war that Cecil had been too craven to stop run roughshod over half the world, and somehow had still shown up to Cecil's room by lamplight to sit in his bed and handle him as gently as Cecil could ever recall anyone doing.

What he really ought to do right now, Cecil thought, would be to issue a cold thank you, escort Edward swiftly out the door, and then lock it behind him when he left.Likely as not, Edward would feel relieved to be freed from the duty of showing compassion by Cecil's refusal to entertain it.

Instead, he selfishly leaned back until his head was nearly resting on Edward's shoulder.

Edward, who had apparently come quite prepared to bandage wounds, produced a length of what looked to be oilcloth from one of his seemingly endless amount of pockets. He busied himself with wrapping this over the bandage he'd already tied, up and down almost the entire length of Cecil's upper arm -- to keep the potion from drying out too quickly, Edward explained. At the very least, Edward had not been lying when he claimed to know what he was doing. It seemed an unusual skill for someone who still tended to get violently sick in the aftermath of battle, but it seemed to be the fighting that bothered him, not the mere sight of blood. Besides, a few folk remedies, quick fingers, and a degree of patience was all the average healer really needed.

To do this delicate work, of course, Edward had to pull himself close enough that Cecil was practically laying on him -- much closer than Cecil thought was strictly necessary, in fact, even if Edward had wanted to avoid forcing him to reach with his injured arm. Close enough that Cecil could feel the rise and fall of his breathing and the warmth of his body, notice the way he would occasionally glance up at Cecil's face for a brief moment before looking back down again, as though trying to gauge his reaction.

Seemingly without thinking, Edward laid a hand on Cecil's hair -- perhaps forgetting where he was and who he was with, as he tended to do from time to time. Cecil tilted his head into the caress -- it was hard not to -- and Edward leaned forward at almost the same moment, perhaps to speak or make certain of his handiwork, but there was now so little space between them that Cecil only had to make the slightest move for their lips to meet. Cecil found himself closing that distance almost before he realized he was moving at all.

For one very brief moment that had felt very much like the right thing to do, so obviously Edward's intent that it barely merited thought -- but it was a moment that did not last long. Maybe a heartbeat passed before Edward reacted with a small noise of alarm, his hand tensing up on Cecil's arm.

Realization hit Cecil like swallowing a shard of ice, and he shoved Edward away violently enough that it made the wound in his arm sting in protest.

"Gods, I think I'm losing my mind," Cecil hissed, with his face buried in his hands. "I...I think you'd better go."

"No, it's..." Edward said, and he didn't sound upset, or at least not exactly. "It's just...you're bleeding."

Cautiously, Cecil looked up. There was indeed blood smeared across Edward's lips and fingers -- an amount that must seem alarming, Cecil supposed. He hadn't noticed, of course. He'd long since gotten used to the taste of iron in the back of his throat.

Cecil coughed and rubbed at his mouth, leaving more streaks of blood along his sleeve. After a few passes the linen came back no more befouled than it had been a moment ago, and Edward was, somehow, still looking at him.

"Are you hurt somewhere else?" he asked. "I could--"

"No. You can't." Cecil looked down at the empty potion bottle, the pile of bloody rags, the black armor that glistened wetly like a pool of oil in the candlelight. Back in the crystal chapel, Cecil had felt that creeping darkness begin to overtake him, and he'd been so tempted to reach towards it, to throw himself into that mindless abyss even with his dearest friend on the other end of his blade. Maybe he could have protected Rosa with that, and maybe she would have forgiven him for it eventually -- it wasn't as though Kain hadn't attacked him first, after all -- but Cecil couldn't have lived with himself after that. He could scarcely live with himself right now.

Edward opened his mouth to say something, but Cecil thought if he heard another kind word out of him, he really was going to lose his mind.

"You really should stop trying to help," Cecil snapped; some remaining rational thought in the back of his head told him this was an absurd way to speak to someone he'd just kissed, but maybe it would make him leave before he got the urge to do it again. "You have no idea what you're--" Only a few words into his objections, Cecil cut himself off abruptly because Edward was frowning at him, his brow furrowing in a way that almost made him look cross. Cecil couldn't remember ever seeing Edward actually lose his temper, even though he was certain he must've said something that had struck a nerve over the weeks they'd been traveling together.

"No, maybe I don't. It isn't as though you're particularly inclined to explain," Edward said, and he was cross, Cecil realized, or at least as cross as Cecil had ever been able to identify. "You keep telling me that I ought to go, I should do this or that, like you want to spare me from making a mistake. Do you think I came here solely to help you?" This was maybe the most Cecil had ever heard out of Edward at one time, so he couldn't help but listen, a little taken aback, as he continued. "I can't sleep, Cecil. It's so quiet here, and staring up at the stone ceiling with the starlight streaming in through the window, I just can't help but think and I swear I'll smell smoke or I'll hear--" Edward cut himself off, almost embarrassed, and ran his hand through his hair roughly enough that a few strands came loose in his nails. He exhaled, sharply. "I didn't know where else to go, but it was so much like my old bedroom I couldn't stay there another moment either." Again, Edward did not say anything directly, dancing around naming the exact problem, but the implication was clear: The last night I spent in that room was my wedding night. The very next she was dead, and I spent it on the floor of a cave wrapped in a cloak still stained with her blood. "I thought maybe you'd... I don't know what I was thinking, really. If you want me to leave, then I will. But I'd rather not." Edward closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts for a moment before speaking again. "Not every sacrifice is noble, you know," he said, the irritation already starting to fade from his voice.

Cecil fell silent for a moment. He couldn't think of anything to say, really. Edward was right -- of course he was right, as though Cecil hadn't made things entirely clear just now in a moment of impulsive weakness, as though Edward hadn't been watching how Cecil carried on with Rosa as they traveled together. And he had been putting off the prospect of trying to sleep in an empty room, trusting his injuries and the creeping whispers of his dark sword would be distraction enough from his own loneliness and self-pity. Well, Edward had salved the wound, and what was the point of suffering the urgings of that monstrous weapon? To prove to himself he could resist what it offered? He couldn't. Not alone, at least, and not yet.

If Cecil were in Edward's place, he would have stalked out long ago in disgust and annoyance, surely. Some wry voice in the back of his head chided him for that thought -- a voice which he recognized not as Rosa's, exactly, but the side of him Rosa seemed so adept at bringing to the surface. Lucky thing Edward isn't you, then.

The silence stretched so long that Edward could only take it as rejection. Muttering something inaudible, he moved to get up off the bed and push himself to his feet. Cecil grabbed his arm to stop him.

"No. Stay," Cecil said. "I...I'd like that. Though I think you'd be a fool to do it."

"Mmm," Edward said, with a tiny shrug. "I've been called worse."

Edward sat back down, and with the same kind of quiet caution he'd used to approach the antlion he reached out and laid his hands on either side of Cecil's face, pulling him closer. Unlike Cecil, Edward was capable of being gentle, and Cecil once again could have easily shoved Edward's hands aside and pushed him away and Edward surely wouldn't have insisted.

But he didn't have to, and he didn't want to.

Cecil was surprised to find that the tips of Edward's fingers felt rough against his skin, callused from plucking strings as surely as a swordsman's palm was from gripping a hilt. When Edward played it sounded delicate as glass and easy as breathing, but how long had he spent practicing until his fingers were raw and bruised before that? And Edward did everything as if it were a song he was playing with the careful dedication of a musician.

Their lips met. Once in a while Cecil had wondered how anyone had fallen so fiercely in love with Edward, timid and flighty as he was, but Edward kissed him with such confident tenderness that Cecil found himself thinking, Oh.

For a long moment there might not have been anything in the world except that. Then, Edward drew back a little, and Cecil was suddenly acutely aware of everything all at once -- the distant throb of the wound in his arm, the cold air and the exhaustion slowly turning his limbs to lead. He could taste salt on Edward's lips -- how long had he spent weeping before he'd made his way to Cecil's door? -- and Cecil was sure he must have blood still on his tongue, but it all barely seemed to matter. Not as though they hadn't seen each other in worse states, after all.

Cecil sat, barely moving, before he could bring himself to respond. Letting someone so close worried him in the same way it would be worrisome to see someone pick up a knife by the blade, but how badly could anyone cut themselves on a sharp edge handled with such care?

Maybe, Cecil thought, he'd been going about things all wrong.

"Tell her when you see her again," Edward said, quietly. Of course he'd know exactly what Cecil was thinking, and of course he'd have advice, and of course he'd be certain their rescue would be successful. Cecil wondered how on earth Edward had managed to stay such an optimist -- but then again, Cecil supposed there was only one real alternative, and Edward had already tried to take it once.

Edward leaned against Cecil's shoulder, and Cecil ventured to put his arms around him. He seemed nearly tense as one of his harp strings, but just the feeling of being embraced seemed to drain some of that away. Edward sighed very slightly and let his eyes fall closed.

"When was the last time you slept?" Cecil asked.

"Not sure, Edward murmured. "Hard to tell sometimes."

Barely eating, barely sleeping, injured more often than not, staring the prospect of violent death in the face day after day...it was the kind of thing Cecil had trained his entire life to do. Edward had never had any idea where to even begin, but had managed nonetheless. Maybe not excelled, but managed. And...

"All this time," Cecil said quietly, head full of thoughts he had no idea how to sort through at the moment, "I don't think I've ever heard you miss a note."

"Second nature," Edward said. He sounded like he was on the verge of drifting off already, his words quiet and unguarded. "It's music. It just...comes to you. When I act without thinking, that's...that's what's there. You do it too, sometimes."

Cecil frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Act without thinking." Edward shifted slightly, to curl up more comfortably in Cecil's arms. "Like earlier today, when I fell. I looked up and you were already there. That blow hit your shield so hard you went to your knees. Would've killed me." Cecil did recall the incident, vaguely -- it had blurred into the chaos of battle, barely notable. "When you act without thinking, that's what you do. I don't think you even realize."

Never eloquent even in the best of times, Cecil could not think of anything to say in response, though Edward did not seem to be expecting one anyway.

Maybe there was no dulling the blade, Cecil thought. Maybe he would always be a weapon, one way or another, but...

Maybe even the sharpest of blades need not be wielded by a cruel hand.