Chapter Text
Clive Rosfield is terrible at waiting.
The feeling of being left behind settles into his stomach like a rock, every time. If he cared to, he could surely place where it started – how easy it is for those he cherishes to slip away when he isn’t there to be their vanguard and shield – but he doesn’t. Doesn’t even really realize it himself, just wears a circle into the ground at the Hideaway, perfect bootprints stamping out a pattern of worry. It’s just not fair.
(It’s perfectly fair, in fact. Clive was still healing from an injury, however mild , and the patience for his proclivity towards self-sacrifice had worn thin in everyone around him. Cid had clapped his shoulder with a sigh and a smoke – “Settle down, lad. We won’t be gone a full day.” – and Jill had squeezed his hand and promised him safety. He’d sent Torgal with them, too, in a weak attempt to swallow the bile-filled anxiety that burned his throat.
It hadn’t helped.)
The sun paints a watercolor arc across the sky as he worries a thread free of his cloak with still-gauntleted hands. They’d caught on it earlier, ever-so-slightly loosening the hem, and while the action is neither mature nor noble, it at least gives him something to focus on besides pacing incessantly. Charon had already commented on it, even, a passing glance with one judgemental eye and folded arms -
“We don’t need a new hole in the floor.”
And he’d flushed to his cheeks, sat for a while in his little alcove, but it hadn’t helped. The absence of Torgal had been felt keenly, and it shocks him how easily this fear grips him when he had been so isolated not too long ago. Now that he no longer had to be, the threat of it overcoming him again was nigh-unbearable.
The sky darkens, with rainclouds and sunset alike, when Clive is pulled from his stupor by the sound of Torgal barking.
“What is it, boy?” he asks, excitement hitching his tone – his loyal hound does not pause for pets, though, only nips at the ends of Clive’s cape as if to drag him.
Well, fuck him.
Torgal’s too well-behaved by far to drag his master like that for play, so he takes it as a sign of urgency. Fast footsteps lead him to the Hideaway’s entrance, where Jill stands, breathing heavily. At Clive’s presence she turns, eyes hard as steel, and she stands alone.
Clive’s chest tightens. His breath quickens. His hand flies to his sword, as if it can serve him any purpose here.
“It’s Cid,” Jill says, her words far clearer and steadier than Clive could’ve managed. “You’re…going to want to see this. I’ll meet you in the solar.”
Clive damn near bites his tongue at the request. His heart hammers faster than any prey he’s hunted, but he swallows it down and does as he’s told. It’s what he’s good for. The door to the solar creaks, opening into a silent room spilled full with moonlight and smelling distinctly of cigars and ozone.
Should he sit? Stand? It’s while he’s hovering in the doorway, debating, that a voice comes from behind him. Not a hand, not a touch. Jill is ever aware of the way skittishness has entered his frame from what he’s endured, in the same way he sees the fissures in how she carries herself, and for this he is grateful. Doubly so now, when anxiety is the only thing he can feel.
“Let me past you,” her voice hisses, no-nonsense, and sheepishly Clive steps aside. It is two pairs of footsteps that push past, and Jill slams the door shut with a rather heavy hand. It slams, and Torgal whimpers from behind it.
“Sorry, boy,” she mutters, barely audible, and then turns her attention to Clive.
At first, he’s not sure what to say. Can’t figure out what he’s supposed to look at, really – Jill stands before him, as she did earlier, and behind her stands a child. A child, swathed in dark clothing several sizes too large, with gleaming green eyes and hands that remind him of Joshua’s trembling fingers before Phoenix Gate fell. The child is wide-eyed and sturdily built, though, and it cuts the comparison to Joshua short – he only stands behind Jill because Shiva’s Dominant has extended a hand to keep him back.
It’s Cid, Clive’s brain reminds him of those words, through the buzz of confusion, and then it clicks.
“What happened?” he demands, unable to keep the growl from his tone.
“I don’t know,” Jill admits, and her gaze finally wavering. “I.. we went out to explore some Fallen ruins, and there was a flash, and..”
Her voice rings hollow in the solar, the room at once too small and too large to hold the three of them. The boy in too big clothing paws at her arm with rugged nails, and through a slip of the sleeve Clive sees the dappling of stone upon skin. Some things, then, remain unchanged – only the worst ones.
“..and now we’re here,” the boy says – Cid says, but Clive can’t reconcile the two – voice accented with the lilt of foreign shores.
Huh. It had never occurred to Clive that Cid’s voice could sound any other way, anything but hoarse and natural. Still, there’s a quiver there, something that hardly escapes his notice – a put-upon bravado by a child in far over his head.
Clive gestures for Jill to lower her arm. He's not wholly confident he can keep the boy from running off with the same steadiness that she can, but he dares to try. She does, relaxing, and he watches the breath she releases crystalize before her. Carefully as if approaching a cornered coerul pup, he approaches. Then Clive crouches before him, lowering himself to eye level. The boy meets his gaze, a bold thing to do in his circumstance.
“How old are you, lad?” Clive asks, swallowing down the feeling that rises in his chest – that’s what Cid calls him, not the other way around.
Cid holds his hands before him, furrowing his brow as he squints at his fingers. The silence stretches far too long, and Clive grinds his teeth as he waits for the fateful answer -
“Twelve.”