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“Reckless,” Cyrus chides, easily dodging underneath Herald’s swing and grabbing his arm with one hand, the other one coming up to mercilessly strike at the underside of his elbow. Herald bucks with pain, and he uses the opportunity to lift him onto his shoulder and throw him to the ground. “Not to mention sloppy. And also…”
“I get it,” Herald interrupts, rolling away from Cyrus’ incoming stomp and quickly leaping to his feet—too quickly. He raises his fists to strike, but Cyrus takes a step back, stopping him.
“You’re cheating again.”
“What?” To his credit, Herald looks genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”
Cyrus crosses his arms and does his best to look properly ticked off. “You don’t even realize it, do you?”
“Realize what?”
“You’re hovering, Herald. Again.” The last word is uttered with no small amount of contempt.
“I…” Herald swallows, his mind lighting up with a flash of hurt that he quickly stomps down on, mindful of Cyrus’ telepathic abilities.
The gesture almost makes him smirk. As if there was any emotional reaction Herald’s unshielded mind could keep secret from his scouring gaze.
He can’t afford to smirk, though—that’s not the role he’s playing today—so he doesn’t. Instead, he pushes further, doing his best to seem genuinely irritated.
“I swear, it’s like you don’t even want to get better,” he complains, shaking his head for effect. “If I’d known you were gonna be like this from the start, I never would have agreed to train you.”
Another direct hit. Though he’s doing his best to hide it, he can tell that the constant verbal abuse is hurting Herald, genuinely hurting him, diminishing his confidence and taking the spring out of his step with every one of their sessions. A better man would be ashamed by this realization, but all it does is make Cyrus feel amused.
Good. Hurting Herald was the entire point of this.
“I… I’m sorry,” Herald says, swallowing again. He does his best to make himself look steadfast, though it’s a quickly cracking facade these days. “I promise I’ll do better this time.”
“I hope so,” Cyrus says, making no attempt to hide his skepticism… trying to amplify it, really. “Because if you can’t even follow simple instructions…”
“Look, it’s not that simple,” Herald tries, scratching his arm. “I am trying, I swear I am, but sometimes I…”
“You’re too used to flying. Too used to having it as a crutch. Is that it?”
“No!” Herald protests fiercely, before shaking his head, calming himself with sole difficulty. It’s a real effort not to smirk. “I… maybe. It’s just that… you know, the leg…”
Cyrus lets a smidgeon of sympathy show on his face. “You mean the one Blindspot broke?”
“Y-Yeah,” Herald says, surprised by his sudden switch up, but also visibly relieved. “It hurts sometimes, and I’m trying not to, but I…”
“You can’t stop remembering,” Cyrus nods, taking a step forward. “Can’t stop feeling phantom pains whenever you move.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Herald gives him a curious look. “How did you know?”
“I watched a recording of your fight,” Cyrus explains, sighing. “It’s one of the reasons I agreed to train you, honestly.”
“You… saw that, huh?” Herald’s cheeks turn pink with embarrassment. It’d be cute if it wasn’t anyone but him.
“I did. It was pretty sad stuff,” he continues, earning another direct hit. “I mean, the way he just grabbed you… like you were a rag doll… it was…”
“I get it,” Herald interrupts, sounding genuinely annoyed. “I was there. You don’t need to remind me.”
Cyrus raises an eyebrow, decently sure that’s the first flash of actual spine he’s seen from Herald. Better stamp that out fast. He doesn’t accidentally want to actually make the kid better through “tough love”. “Don’t talk back to me, kid. I’m doing you a favor by agreeing to this.”
“Sorry.” Herald flushes, scratching the back of his neck. Right back to insecurity, like a switch. Cyrus tried not to feel too proud of himself. “It’s just… hard.”
“I get that.” He takes another step and placed a hand on Herald’s shoulder, trying not show his amusement at the way he almost flinches. “Do you want to know what I did when I went through things like this as Sidestep?”
“I…” Herald seems surprised he had gone through things like this as Sidestep, but the eagerness on his face is unmistakeable. “Tell me.”
Cyrus leans forward, making Herald’s face go carefully blank.
“I walked that shit off,” he murmurs in Herald’s ear, his breath tickling his skin, “and did my fucking job.”
When he pulls back, Herald looks stricken. Cyrus finally allows his smirk to surface as he claps Herald on the shoulder and takes a step back. “Same time next week?”
Herald seems distracted. “Yeah, sure.”
“Good.” Cyrus turns away without another word, amused. “I’ll take the stairs.”