do it right

by cuubism

Summary:

A battle goes wildly sideways when Kaladin and Adolin get cut off from the rest of the army, but that moment, and the aftermath, does create the opportunity for some feelings to finally come to light.

Notes:

i love anti-stormlight and i think it should be as hardcore as possible 🤩 so i can use it to torment kaladin

i wrote this as a 'quick,' 'light' and 'fun' fic to distract myself during some very busy stressful weeks so of course it's five thousand words. typical

Chapter 1

In retrospect, the pincer movement the Fused forces pulled on them was predictable. But the thing about things that are predictable in retrospect is that you don’t predict them when you need to.

“Fuck,” Adolin swears, panting, as they shelter behind a rock formation, a dozen Fused and a whole battalion of soldiers between them and the rest of the Alethi army. “We’re cut off.”

“So it would appear,” Kaladin says dryly.

From above them, Syl says, “Ohh, there’s six Heavenly Ones. I think they are looking for you.”

“Awesome,” Adolin says.

And as if it wasn’t bad enough, Kaladin is also dreadfully low on stormlight. At the very least, he doesn’t have enough to reliably fly both of them back fast enough over the enemy army. Adolin had told him to go on his own, but Kaladin only said, “don’t be a fucking idiot.” So here they both are hiding behind this meager rock formation.

Adolin starts unbuckling his Shardplate gauntlets.

Kaladin looks over to him from where he’s been peering around the rocks, trying to get a lay of the field. “What are you doing?”

“I’m dismantling my Shardplate so you can pull its stormlight. If you do it while I’m wearing it, you’ll turn me into a statue.”

Kaladin considers this, then seems to find it reasonable, and crouches by him to help unbuckle the greaves. “I wouldn’t think you’d want to leave your Shardplate behind.”

“I don’t want to leave my life behind.”

Kaladin just snorts at that.

Adolin manages to get a good half of the plate off, but needs Kaladin’s help again to undo the breastplate at the back. Kaladin stands behind him, fingers deft on the straps, as Syl keeps watch.

The idea of trying to fight his way back to camp without plate makes Adolin nervous, so instead of anything sane, what comes tumbling out of his mouth is, “You know, Kal, when you finally undressed me, I expected it to be in a more romantic situation.”

Kaladin’s hands still temporarily on the buckles, then start up again. “So did I.”

Honest to God Adolin cannot tell if he is joking. He’s not even sure seeing Kaladin’s face would help him figure it out.

Adolin himself was half-joking—if spilling unlikely desires at inopportune moments counts as joking—but he jumps on it, saying, “I’d take you out. Dinner. Good wine. You know, do it right.”

“I guess Hell works as a good backup option,” Kaladin says, to the echo of clashing weapons and screaming in the distance. He’s finally gotten Adolin’s breastplate undone, and Adolin pulls it over his head. That only leaves his thighs, which Adolin can get himself, but Kaladin crouches down and starts undoing the buckles anyway, as if just to tease him.

“We really ought to get dinner before this,” Adolin says as Kaladin’s hands brush his inner thighs. Adolin really wishes this was happening in any other circumstances. He’s too nervous about their dire surroundings to truly appreciate it.

“So you can do it right?”

“Exactly.”

Kaladin gets the final piece off and Adolin turns to face him, catching him just before he gets off the ground. Kaladin looks up at him, eyes dark with challenge.

“Do it, then, after this,” he says.

Only Kaladin could make an offer of dinner sound like a duel to the death.

Only Kaladin could make a shiver run up Adolin’s spine like that.

“Deal,” Adolin says, and offers him a hand to get back to his feet.

Kaladin draws the stormlight out of Adolin’s plate gemstones, beginning to glow faintly. Adolin stashes the plate pieces in a rock crevice. Maybe he’ll get lucky and they’ll still be there later.

“Got enough to get us back?” Adolin asks. All he’s aiming for is for them to be able to bolt past the army to safety. He has no grand ambitions of taking down this entire battalion, just the two of them.

“I think so,” Kaladin says, “just—”

He cuts off mid-sentence, grabs Adolin by the arm and darts up into the air just as a Fused careens around the rock face at them. Adolin dangles wildly—the Fused leaps at them—he summons Maya in his free hand and slashes downward, catching the creature in the shoulder. It shrieks, flails, claws at his leg but Adolin barely feels it as Kaladin yanks him upward, finally getting him properly lashed in the air.

“Going now!” he yells, and then they’re streaking across the sky so fast tears gather in Adolin’s eyes. The ground blurs below them, hundreds of soldiers turned to pinpricks, the entire world a dizzying stretch of muddy red and grey, he thinks they’re almost—

Kaladin lurches sideways with a yell, letting go of his hand. Gravity catches Adolin, and he plummets fast, flailing, heart in his throat— Kaladin catches him again by the collar but their fall barely slows, they spin and fall and—

Adolin hits the ground hard and skids across the stone, Kaladin tumbling over him. When he comes to a stop, he’s miraculously only minorly injured— he crawls upright, touches his cheek, which is bleeding, but stumbles to his feet and staggers back over to Kaladin, who’s lying on his back on the ground. There’s an arrow sticking out of his chest, the fletching snapped off in the crash. Damnation, who’s a good enough shot to hit him him at that speed?

But that’s a matter for later. For now, he falls to his knees by Kaladin’s side. He’s out cold, blood pooling around the wound in sickening slow rivulets— Adolin tears at his shirt and finds pale tendrils like lightning etched in a jagged array over his skin, arcing outward from the arrow wound, what in Damnation?

“Take it out, Adolin!” Syl cries, appearing before him.

“Won’t he bleed out?”

“It’s anti-light! He already— I don’t know— he shouldn’t have used stormlight— I don’t know—”

Adolin’s blood goes chill. Anti-light. No.

He yanks the arrow free, wincing as blood pools deeper around the injury, then rips off his coat to pack the wound. Blood immediately soaks the fabric.

Finally he takes stock of their location. Kaladin got them almost past the occupied part of the field, but there’s still—

There’s a Fused advancing on them, carrying a crossbow. The tip of the arrow flares with dark light.

Actually, it’s not advancing on them.

Its gaze is fixed on Syl.

Syl who’s hovering over Kaladin, unwilling to leave him unprotected.

The Fused raises its crossbow.

Adolin does something very stupid.

He charges the Fused and tackles it.

The crossbow goes off. The bolt plunges through his arm. But unlike Kaladin, the anti-light can’t hurt him any worse than a regular arrow. Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

He just ignores it.

He wrestles the Fused to the ground, kicking the crossbow away. Summons Maya with his uninjured hand, unwieldy though she is at this range, he manages to get her up—

The Fused rakes its claws over his face, digging into his cheek, down his neck, just missing the artery. Adolin yells and slashes Maya towards himself, killing the Fused’s arm. Then he grinds his elbow into its face and finally turns his blade and pushes it down through the creature’s neck.

It goes limp, and Adolin rolls off, panting. But he doesn’t have time to be exhausted. He shoves himself to his feet, sways, then runs back over to Kaladin and Syl.

Kaladin is still where he left him, unmoving. Syl is on his chest, trembling, pressing her hands to the flow of blood, even though she's too ephemeral to make a difference. “He’s bleeding so much, Adolin,” she says.

“We’ll get him to safety,” Adolin promises, though he doesn’t really know if he can keep that promise. He can try. He won’t give up.

Kaladin looks horribly wan, sweat beading on his forehead. Adolin helps Syl keep pressure on the wound. He should be close enough now that he can whistle for Gallant without getting the horse caught in the crossfire—

Sure enough, as he thinks it, Gallant trots around the bend. Those horses are smarter than they have any right to be.

Gallant kneels so Adolin can heave Kaladin up onto his withers, then clamber up after him. As the horse gets back to his feet, Adolin gets Kaladin situated against his chest, wrapping an arm tight across him, palm braced over the injury.

“Syl, let me know if anyone’s trying to shoot us again,” he says, and urges Gallant up into a canter.

Syl races along beside them, determination on her face. A few sword-wielding Singer soldiers emerge from the fray to stop them— Adolin barrels his horse right through them, hearing bones crunch under Gallant's hooves.

Gallant breaks away from the enemy army and races across the field— up ahead, Adolin can make out their own men. He doesn’t slow. Even from afar they’ll recognize Gallant and won’t fire on them. “Syl, let them know we need help!”

Syl zips off, and Adolin races after her, finally crossing the boundary of the war camp with a breath of relief. Soldiers close in behind them to block the way in case they’re pursued.

Adolin careens through the camp, forcing people to jump out of his way, then pulls Gallant to an abrupt stop by the infirmary tent. Syl is already hovering there anxiously by Renarin, Rock, and Teft, who looks like he’s just come from battle himself.

Adolin swings himself down out of the tack, stumbling as pain lances up his injured leg, but doesn’t have a chance to get Kaladin before Rock is striding over to carefully pull him down off the horse.

“He got hit with an anti-light arrow,” Adolin says, suddenly lightheaded—shit, that cut in his thigh is bleeding worse than he thought—“he can’t— I don’t know if he can heal—”

“I will bring him,” Rock says, carrying Kaladin’s limp form into the infirmary tent, Renarin following at a quick clip after casting a worried look at Adolin.

Teft takes Adolin by the arm. “You need to lie down, lad.”

Adolin stumbles after him into the infirmary, feeling increasingly faint, and collapses onto a cot at Teft’s bidding. He wants to watch Kaladin, but he blinks and the next thing he’s aware of is a medic tying a tourniquet around his thigh.

“They got all the Edgedancers on the field,” Teft, at his side, says, sounding chagrined.

“Keep Renarin on Kal,” Adolin says, wincing as the medic pulls the tourniquet tighter, then starts packing the wound. He tries to push himself up on his elbows to check on Kaladin in the next bed over, but can’t see past Rock and Renarin who are leaning over him. All he can see is that Kaladin is still dreadfully still.

“Please lie still, Brightlord,” says the medic, now moving to bind the arrow wound in his arm.

“Teft, is he okay? Can they help him?” Adolin demands.

Rock hears him and says, “Stormlight, it is working now, but slowly.”

“I’ve got him, Adolin,” Renarin says. “Just give me a few minutes.”

Thank the Almighty.

“Good, I’m just gonna… nap then,” Adolin says, suddenly exhausted, and before his eyes fall shut he sees Teft’s face twist in alarm. “G’night.”

Teft shakes his arm, but Adolin’s already gone.

 

He wakes to find it’s nighttime, and he’s miraculously healed—stormlight healing always feels miraculous to him, anyway. Renarin must have helped him after he’d finished with Kal.

Indeed, his brother is waiting up for him, sitting by his bedside.

Adolin startles upright and Renarin pushes him back down by his sternum. “He’s alive,” Renarin says, before Adolin can ask, “he’s just sleeping still.”

Adolin peers around him and finds Kaladin passed out on the next bed over, one arm draped across his chest.

“I’m not certain exactly how he’ll be when he wakes up, though,” Renarin adds, with a worried look back over his shoulder at Kaladin. “The anti-stormlight might have adverse effects that I can’t fix.”

Adolin keeps staring at him, awash with sudden guilt. “He only used stormlight at all to save me.”

“Probably to save you both,” Renarin says. “Syl told us what happened. You both would have crashed.”

“Well, he used more of it to keep me in the air, too.”

That, Renarin can’t argue with.

Adolin scrubs his hands over his face. Storms. What a nightmare.

“They recovered your Shardplate, though,” Renarin says.

“Seriously?” Well, one tiny bit of good news.

“And Father’s ordered you both back to Urithiru for a while once Kaladin is awake,” Renarin adds.

“Both of us?” Kaladin surely needs it, based on his current condition, but as far as Adolin can tell while still lying here, he himself has been pretty much put back to rights.

Renarin gives him a clever, crooked smile. Oh, Stormfather, he knows. “I might have exaggerated some things.”

“Ren,” Adolin says, admonishing—but secretly kind of pleased. “I’ve never known you to be this meddlesome in my relationships.”

“They were always too short for me to have the opportunity,” Renarin says, and Adolin shoves his knee.

“Besides,” Renarin says, glancing back over at Kaladin, still worried, “he should probably have someone go back with him, either way.”

The fact that Renarin is worried only worries Adolin more. “I’m not complaining,” he says. He sits up, swinging his legs around so he’s sitting on the side of the bed. This time, Renarin lets him. “I’ll go back with him, happily.”

“Now you owe me a favor,” Renarin says. Almighty, he’s so cheeky.

“I’ll bribe Rlain to take you out,” Adolin says, and Renarin’s mouth pops open, cheeks flushing. Ha! “Oh, you thought you were the only one who pays attention?”

“Adolin,” Renarin says plaintively, but Adolin’s grin only widens.

“You’re lucky these are dire circumstances, or I’d be demanding all the details.”

“Should a Highprince be this gossipy?” Renarin asks, though he’s still blushing.

Adolin laughs. “The Highprinces are the most gossipy people of all! You were at enough of Elhokar’s parties to know that.”

Renarin groans, rubbing his eyes. “Don’t remind me of that.”

Adolin wants to know everything—he’d only been pretty sure there was something going on between Renarin and Rlain, not completely sure—but he does have more serious responsibilities right now than pestering his little brother. “Let’s talk about it later,” he says, more gently, and lays a hand on Renarin’s arm. “And thank you, for saving Kaladin.”

“I care about him,” Renarin says simply.

He gets up, then, passing Adolin his chair. “I figure you’ll want to sit with him. I have to go help some others, too.”

“Stay safe,” Adolin tells him. Hopefully he won’t be too much on the front lines of battle, at least.

Adolin probably ought to rest more, honestly. Instead, once Renarin leaves, he sits by Kaladin’s bed, waiting for him to wake. Watches the quiet rise and fall of his chest, worried it might stop. Kaladin at least looks less wan now. More-so peacefully sleeping, less-so actively dying, though it's a small comfort.

At some point, Teft comes to sit with him, too. It’s some time before Kaladin wakes, though; it’s nearly dawn when Kaladin finally opens bleary eyes and looks at them hazily.

“Adolin…” he says, voice slurred. “Was worried—“ he swallows hard, sounding pained, “worried I didn’t get you in time.”

“You did. You saved me.” He dares to reach out and touch the edge of Kaladin’s hair. “You did good.”

Kaladin’s eyes fall shut again tiredly, but Adolin can tell he’s still awake. “Syl…” he says, and then Adolin assumes she must speak to him, because he doesn’t ask again, though Adolin can’t see or hear her.

“You’re going home, lad,” Teft tells him. “Dalinar’s orders.”

“Fine,” Kaladin says. He scrubs a hand over his face tiredly. His hand is shaking. He must feel truly awful to not even be protesting Dalinar sending him back to Urithiru halfway through a campaign. “Let’s go, then.”

“Now?” Adolin says.

"I hate being in the infirmary.”

Adolin supposes they aren’t going to accomplish much here. He just doesn’t want Kal to overexert himself. But perhaps he’ll rest better at home.

“Fine, then,” he says, offering Kaladin a hand. Kaladin takes it to pull himself upright, then stands gingerly, arm braced across his chest, grimacing in pain. It's disturbing to see; Adolin is used to the Radiants healing right up once they get stormlight.

“Come on,” Teft says, gesturing them onwards, “I’m your escort back home.”

Adolin wraps his arm around Kaladin to steady him, and they limp after Teft out of the infirmary. Kaladin’s breathing sounds so ragged that Adolin is severely tempted to just pick him up and carry him instead, but he knows Kaladin wouldn’t like it, especially not in public. That he’s even letting Adolin help him at all is going to have to be good enough.

Still, Adolin leans in close, murmurs, “You alright?” and Kaladin just nods tiredly.

Even though Adolin doesn’t need to keep hold of him while Teft is flying them both back, he does anyway. After seeing how limp and lifeless Kaladin was on the battlefield, and then lying in that infirmary bed afterward… he doesn’t particularly want to let him go anytime soon.

 

Back in the tower, Kaladin just follows dazedly as Adolin leads him to his room. He only seems to come back to full awareness when Adolin is halfway through settling him in his bed. “This is… your room,” he says.

“Yeah, it’s a lot more comfortable than yours.”

Kaladin doesn’t seem to have an argument against that, or he’s just too tired to mount one. His passivity is honestly a little disturbing.

“Not even a criticism of my decor?” Adolin says, just to try to get him engaged again.

Kaladin touches the edge of the blanket. “This has a lot of colors going on. But I’ve seen you put worse on your own body, so it’s not really making an impression.”

“Oh, Kal, you haven’t seen anything. The clothes here at Urithiru? Tame. Boring.”

“Tame. Boring,” Kaladin echoes, with a tiny half-smile. “Let’s not see what’s wild and interesting, then.”

“Rude.” Adolin fetches him one of said tame and boring shirts out of his own dresser—they’re both still wearing uniforms covered in blood and grime, Kaladin's shirt torn open, and Adolin's coat sacrificed entirely as a makeshift bandage. He comes back over and starts unbuttoning the rest of Kaladin’s shirt, fingers careful against his chest in case the wound hurts to touch. Kaladin just watches him do it. Stormfather, he must be beyond exhausted to allow Adolin to do this.

“Does this count as ‘doing it right’?” he asks as Adolin’s pushing his shirt off over his shoulders. His tone ought to be teasing, but instead it’s more… plaintive. Genuinely asking.

“Would prefer fewer mortal injuries,” Adolin says as he’s helping Kaladin’s arms into the clean shirt. He doesn’t miss how each movement makes him wince. “Would prefer zero mortal injuries. But otherwise, yeah. Pretty much.”

“I thought,” Kaladin starts, but trails off.

“You still deserve to be taken out, some other time,” Adolin says. “But, yeah. This counts as doing it right. I figured you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That it’s not a game.” When he looks up from buttoning Kaladin’s shirt, Kaladin is studying him, brow pinched. Adolin offers him a tight smile. “I’m serious about you.”

“You’re serious,” Kaladin says, tight.

“I’ve been serious,” Adolin says. So have you, he even dares to think.

“You could have gotten away from the Fused faster if you left me,” Kaladin says. He touches Adolin’s cheek where the Fused’s claws had dug through the side of his face, though the marks are now gone. “Odds were good I would die anyway.”

“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Adolin says, which draws a small smile from Kaladin.

“Thank you for protecting Syl,” he says. “She says it was very heroic.”

“More like incredibly stupid,” Adolin says. “But come on. I’m not letting anyone hurt my second-favorite spren.”

Kaladin’s gaze flicks over Adolin’s shoulder where Syl must be listening to all of this. Adolin still hasn’t actually seen her since they got to the infirmary at the war camp. “She says she won’t take offense to that only because she knows your first-favorite spren is Maya.”

Adolin salutes in Syl’s general direction. “I must remain loyal, Syl.”

He finds Kaladin smiling a little bit, again, at that.

“Come on,” Adolin says then, “you’re still all covered in blood.” He helps Kaladin change out of his blood-soaked trousers too—which is surprisingly less awkward than he would have thought—and gets him settled again in bed with a blanket draped over his lap. Kaladin looks dreadfully uncomfortable, but not, Adolin thinks, because of the trousers. His arms are wrapped around his chest, tension gathering in every muscle.

“It still hurts a lot, doesn’t it?” Adolin says quietly.

It says a lot that Kaladin nods, instead of denying it. He clutches his chest, jaw clenched tight. “Comes and goes in waves.”

“What does it feel like?”

“It’s like getting burned,” Kaladin says. “But… inside your body.”

Adolin winces.

“I’ve never felt anything like it,” Kaladin says, then hunches over, voice going tight with pain. “Not in a good way.”

Adolin carefully touches his shoulder, worried touching him will only hurt him, but Kaladin doesn’t push him off. Perhaps he’s too preoccupied with curling in on himself as his breath comes quick and strained. Adolin slides his hand up to the back of his neck and Kaladin actually whimpers, fingers scrabbling uselessly at his sternum.

“Fuck,” he swears, voice cracking, and Adolin is alarmed to see tears beading in his eyes. He’s seen Kaladin injured in battle before, sometimes quite seriously, but he’s never seen him actually cry from the pain before.

“Alright, hey, come here, it’s alright.” He pulls Kaladin into a hug, pressing Kaladin’s forehead into his shoulder, bracing him as he heaves for breath. “It’s alright. Breathe.”

“Fuck you,” Kaladin says through gritted teeth, but clutches at Adolin’s shirt.

“Yeah, fuck me, whenever you want,” Adolin says, and Kaladin barks a pained laugh. He keeps his face pressed into Adolin’s shoulder where Adolin set it. Adolin holds him as he pants for air, braces his back, and hopes it’s helping.

Eventually some of the horrible tension in Kaladin’s shoulders falls. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Adolin asks softly.

“Get some fathombark from the infirmary?” Kaladin says. “I don’t know if it will actually work on this, though.”

“Worth a try,” Adolin says. Anything, if it will help him. “Let’s get you down, and I’ll go find some.”

He eases Kaladin down to the bed, failing to steel himself against his ragged breathing. He gets Kaladin situated with a blanket pulled up over his chest, leans in to kiss him lightly on the lips, then heads off quick to try to get him the medicine and come back as fast as he can.

It’s not until he’s out in the hall that he even realizes what he did.

 

Lying in Adolin’s bed, wearing Adolin’s clothes, it nevertheless takes Kaladin several minutes to wade through the haze of pain enough to decide that he did not, in fact, hallucinate that. “Syl, did I hallucinate that?” he asks anyway.

“Maybe you’re hallucinating me,” she says, dancing above him like a bit of soot in the air. “I think it was a pretty nice hallucination if you did.”

“He kissed me,” Kaladin says.

“Well, he did say you could—”

“Alright, yeah, I get it.” Storms, this day has gotten so weird. It’s kind of hard to think about it with much clarity right now, though, when he feels like he’s just barely survived being burned alive.

He curls onto his side, hoping the position might relieve the agony in his chest. It doesn’t. It’s not a physical injury anymore and so nothing seems to make a difference for it.

“Kaladin…” Syl lands on the bed in front of him, looking at him with big, worried eyes. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Really?” Kaladin says tiredly. “I love it.”

“I didn’t know it could do this to you,” Syl says, ignoring his sarcasm.

Yeah, neither did Kaladin. Fucking anti-stormlight. “If anything,” he tells Syl, “I’m surprised that it didn’t just kill me.”

Syl looks troubled. “You shouldn’t have used any stormlight once you were hit.”

“I didn’t think about it fast enough. I just felt us falling and reacted.” One of the reasons the anti-light is so dangerous. It’s a blade that turns his best instincts against him.

Though even if he had thought about it fast enough to make a conscious choice, it’s likely he would have made the same one. He couldn’t just let Adolin fall to his death.

He’s pretty sure any Radiant at a lower ideal would have been killed, though. He’s going to have to figure out some modifications to how he trains his people, some new protocol…

It’s hard to think of it now, though. He’s too weary for complexity. All he can think about is how he still feels like he might just turn around and die, actually.

And that Adolin kissed him.

It happened too fast to really feel or appreciate. He touches his lips anyway.

He’s still lying like that, too pained to move but at least somewhat distracted, when Adolin returns from the infirmary, carrying a packet of fathombark. He sits on the edge of the bed by Kaladin’s hip. “Listen—”

“You didn’t put enough effort into that,” Kaladin tells him. It’s probable he would never do this if he wasn’t half out of his mind, but he is out of his mind so he grabs Adolin’s collar and drags him down. “Come back down here and do it right.”

Adolin’s lips meet his again, and this time it’s a proper kiss. A proper kiss, their lips sliding together, the taste of Adolin on his tongue, even if Kaladin is too tired to put as much intensity into it as he’d really want to. Adolin drags a hand through his hair. Swipes his tongue along the inside of his lip. Kaladin stifles a whimper.

Then Adolin tips his head back further, and Kaladin has to stifle another whimper, but this time of pain. Adolin catches it anyway, and lets them part, breath warm on Kaladin’s lips. His eyes look very dark up close. “Sorry,” he whispers.

Kaladin just touches his cheek gently.

Adolin sits up again, and passes him the fathombark he’s brought. Kaladin takes it and chews it slowly, feeling limp and invalid. He honestly can’t remember the last time he felt this physically unwell; usually stormlight heals any injuries before they can drag on like this.

“How long does it take to work?” Adolin asks.

“Twenty minutes, at least.”

Adolin frowns, and Kaladin feels suddenly certain that he is contemplating whether it’s possible to bully medicine into working faster.

Instead of trying, he just starts stripping off his bloody clothes, changing into clean ones from the dresser. He doesn’t even bother to tease Kaladin about it, which is for the best as Kaladin is too tired to even try to appreciate the view. Pity.

He just closes his eyes, pressing his face into the pillow.

Next thing he’s aware of is Adolin sliding into the other side of the bed, under the covers. He curls up behind Kaladin, wrapping an arm around his waist, careful even though Kaladin doesn’t actually have any physical wounds anymore. “Alright?” he says.

Kaladin nods. It probably shouldn’t be, but it is. It’s actually nice.

Maybe he’s hallucinating all this too. Feels likely. Oh well.

Adolin presses his nose into the back of Kaladin’s neck. Firms his hold on Kaladin’s waist once it’s clear his grip has no effect on his pain. Kaladin sinks into the mattress. It is more comfortable than his own. Having Adolin at his back is comfortable too.

He doesn’t think he’ll be able to fall asleep when he still feels like the muscle is being slowly flayed from his ribs, like he’s breathing in aerosolized acid…

But like that, eventually he does.

 

Kaladin sleeps like the dead for nearly twelve hours. Adolin actually checks that he isn’t dead multiple times throughout the night, compulsively. He stays curled around him long after he himself has awoken again—the last thing he wants is to wake him prematurely when he’s actually resting.

Eventually Kaladin comes awake, slowly, with a groan. He turns in Adolin’s arms and presses his nose into Adolin’s throat, then seems to realize what he’s doing seconds later, and freezes.

“Feel any better?” Adolin asks, rather than drawing attention to it.

“Yeah,” Kaladin says.

“Lying,” Syl declares, appearing suddenly above him and making Adolin jump.

Kaladin glares up at her. “Somewhat,” he amends. “And I’m not lying. He asked if I felt any better, not if I felt completely better.”

“Mmmmmmm!” Syl says. She sounds like she’s mimicking Pattern, mockingly. “Bending the truth! I haven’t heard that one before.”

“What’s Adolin supposed to do about it anyway?” Kaladin complains.

Adolin pulls him into a hug, squeezing him to his chest. “That.”

Kaladin grunts in the vague echo of a protest, but doesn’t push him off. After a long moment, he curls a hand around Adolin’s back.

“It’ll get better,” Adolin says, with confidence he doesn’t wholly feel. They don’t know much about anti-light. Who’s to say how it will affect Kaladin. How it’s already affected him. He has to hope, though. And Kaladin is resilient. He’s already survived it when most others wouldn’t.

“Should get you up, get you something to eat,” Adolin says. It’s been at least a full day since either of them has eaten. “Promised you dinner before I got you into bed, after all. I’m already doing it backwards.”

“Not even a single drink first,” Kaladin agrees. “How easy do you think I am?”

“Oh, Kal, if you were easy we’d have already been here. But that’s okay, I like a challenge.”

Kaladin just sighs as if exhausted by him. Nevertheless, he stays in Adolin’s bed.

“Come on,” Adolin says, carefully maneuvering him upright. “Food. Let’s go. I’ll even get them to make you something with real ingredients, instead of Soulcast."

“Hooray,” Kaladin says flatly, allowing Adolin to drag him to his feet. “Are these the privileges of courting a prince?”

“Yes, and there are many more,” Adolin says, and dares to kiss him on the cheek. It actually manages to draw a small smile out of him.

“Let’s hear them, then,” Kaladin says, as Adolin wraps a warm robe around his shoulders, over his shirt, then grabs his hand to drag him off into the hall to get food.

“So first of all, you never pay for dinner,” Adolin says, as if he really needs to bargain with Kaladin to convince him to court him. “Second of all, you get to fuck someone really hot—”

“And really modest, too—”

“Third of all,” Adolin interrupts, “your sense of fashion will vastly improve—”

“I changed my mind, I want out of this,” Kaladin says, but when Adolin wraps an arm around his shoulders, he leans into him, tipping his head against Adolin’s. It’s such a simple, fond gesture that it cuts off Adolin’s rambling before it can begin again, and he’s filled with so much joy he doesn’t need to start listing any more reasons for Kaladin to keep him.

He just holds him tight, and walks on.

Notes:

clothes-sharing is one of my ~things~ for a ship, if you can’t tell

for my next trick i will hopefully finish the next chapter of my kaleshwi fic, instead of spending all my time writing scenes that occur way in the future

Chapter 2

Notes:

I started pondering the long term effects of the anti-stormlight and you know I never let an opportunity to write more hurt/comfort pass me by.

Anti-stormlight wound as a chronic injury? Let’s go

sorry Kal

More than a full month’s passed, and Kaladin is finally back out on the field.

It had taken what felt like ages for that anti-stormlight wound to stop hurting, and then longer to prove to Dalinar, his own father, and Syl, who was in many ways the strictest judge of all, that he was back in fighting shape. Finally he’s back, and it feels good to be up in the air. He doesn’t necessarily enjoy fighting, but he does enjoy flying, and feeling like he’s actually accomplishing something. Like he’s able to help protect his men. Like he can protect Adolin, who returned to the field a lot sooner than he did.

Dalinar let Kaladin come back out to the war camp to advise on strategy from the ground several weeks before he let him actually fight, so he’s at least been able to see Adolin, which is good as he’d probably have worked himself into some kind of insane mental spiral about the change in their relationship if he was at Urithiru for weeks alone. As it is he found it a bit hard to focus, sending Adolin off to battle and not being able to go with him, but at least he got to see him, and every day Adolin’s cheerful face assuaged his instinctive fears that this, like so many other things, somehow wouldn’t work out.

Now he’s back on the battlefield himself, hovering high above the field to get a sense of the general troop movements and directions. He lost sight of the bigger picture last time, and he’s not letting that happen again. They are not getting cut off in another storming pincer move.

That’s when he sees her across the field. Leshwi. He actually smiles to himself. Always a pleasure to see Leshwi at battle, despite the dire circumstances. She fights so gracefully, so elegantly—it always makes him wish they were dancing instead.

Leshwi spots him too, and raises her lance to him in greeting with what Kaladin thinks might be the Fused equivalent of a smile.

He’s distracted before he can engage her in a formal challenge—there’s another Fused down on the ground, not one of the Shanay-im, about to corner some of the ground troops. Kaladin curses. He’s tired, he’s used a lot of stormlight already today, more than he has in a long while, but still he summons another huge burst of it to race after the Fused and protect the ground troops, his armorspren flying after him—

The next thing he’s aware of, he’s on the ground, his entire body screaming with pain.

“—adin!” Syl is yelling, as sound filters in past the ringing in his ears. “Kaladin!”

Kaladin spits blood, tries to push himself up on his arms, but can’t. His entire chest is on fire. Was he shot? Where? When?

His armorspren are flying around him in a panic now, having no idea what to do. Kaladin tries to breathe in more stormlight to heal the wound and barely contains a scream, collapsing back onto his side. Shit, shit, that doesn’t work, fuck—

A flutter of wind and long robes, and one of the Heavenly Ones lands in front of him. Fuck, he’s dead— Kaladin thrusts out his hand desperately to draw Syl even though he can’t get up—

Instead, Leshwi’s hand falls into his.

“…Leshwi?” Did she strike him? But no, that isn’t her way.

Leshwi doesn’t speak, just grabs both of his hands and drags him into the tiny sheltered cove between two rock formations, just as a battalion of Singer troops storms by.

“Let him go!” Syl yells, battering herself against Leshwi’s face.

“Peace, spren,” Leshwi says, letting go of Kaladin’s hands. “I will not harm your Radiant.”

She crouches by Kaladin’s side. He still can’t manage to get himself up, it hurts too much to move. What is wrong with him?

Leshwi runs her hands over his chest with surprising gentleness. “Where are you injured?”

“I’m not,” Kaladin realizes. He rubs a hand over his chest, where the burning sensation localizes. “Not…” oh, fuck— “not right now.”

Leshwi tugs open his coat and shirt and touches the scar over his heart with light fingertips. The mark left by the anti-light shimmers disconcertingly in the sunlight. Damnation, Kaladin should have known he got off too easy with that.

Leshwi splays her hand flat over the wound, humming an angry rhythm. Kaladin shivers. “I detest these weapons,” she says. “I have not seen this effect from one before. Normally, they simply kill you.”

“New case,” Kaladin pants. “Novelty’s fun, isn’t it?”

Leshwi grumbles. “I do not wish to see you dead,” she confesses. “But I cannot return you to your army without being attacked.”

“I don’t think it’s going to kill me now,” Kaladin says. Just fuck him up to an insane degree, apparently. That’s all.

“But you will be killed if another soldier discovers you incapacitated,” she points out. Alright, true. Damnation. Leshwi hums with determination. “I shall guard you until you can return to your army.”

“…What?” Everything’s taking a very strange turn today…

After everything that had happened at the tower, Kaladin had started to hope… but then the war had resumed and they’d both been drawn back into their respective sides of the conflict. But not all is lost between them, it seems.

Syl appears before Leshwi again, hands on her hips, and growls at her threateningly. “I’m watching you.”

Leshwi hums in amusement. “There is no need. But your loyalty is commendable.”

Syl just huffs, clearly not trusting her.

“It’s okay, Syl,” Kaladin says. He curls up on his side, holding his chest, resting his head on Leshwi’s thigh. “I trust her.”

Leshwi’s next hum sounds surprised, but pleased. She pets his head the way one might pet a particularly bitey axehound one’s managed to gain favor with. Whatever remains of Kaladin’s strength flees him, dizziness overcomes him, and he closes his eyes.

When he wakes, he’s alone, and yet somehow he senses the battle is just about over; that Leshwi’s protected him as long as she could, not left him to the elements.

“Kaladin?” Syl hovers before his face. “Are you okay?”

“Probably not, but I’m alive.” He finally manages to push himself into a sitting position. The world spins and sways around him.

Syl perches on his shoulder. “Teft and Adolin are looking for you. I would have helped but I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

“It’s okay. Is the battle over?”

“Yes, and they chased off Odium’s forces.”

No thanks to Kaladin, though he did, in a strange way, contribute to getting Leshwi off the field, which might have helped some.

He heaves himself up onto his feet, immediately wishing he had something to lean on to help with the dizziness. As he thinks it, his armor spren fly around him, transforming into a staff that falls into his hand.

“Oh, thanks,” he says. "Clever." And though the windspren don’t have much cognition, he senses they’re pleased with themselves for figuring out a way to help. Especially when they couldn’t do anything to protect him from whatever was going on in his own body.

He stumbles his way out from the little cave formed by the rock formation, grimacing at the sight of the battlefield that awaits him. Carnage, as always. Dead bodies on both sides. Medics running around helping the wounded coalition soldiers. Others identifying the dead. The aftermath is always so horrible.

The field is mostly flat terrain broken by occasional rock formations. He spots Adolin quickly by the shock of his blond hair. Kaladin stumbles another couple steps forward, swaying even with the help of his armorspren. Almighty, he’s so wiped out. No way he makes it all the way over there. “Syl, can you just go let him know I’m alive?”

Syl zips off, and moments later Adolin’s head whips around in Kaladin’s direction. Kaladin offers him a halfhearted wave that he nearly pays for by falling over.

Adolin yells something off to the side, then Teft stands up from where he was checking over another body nearby. Oh, Almighty.

Adolin starts running towards him, but Teft beats him there on account of being able to fly. He lands before him and catches Kaladin under the arms just as his staff dissolves back into windspren and his legs give out.

“Almighty, kid,” Teft swears, lowering him back down to the ground. Seems Kaladin’s been spending a lot of time there lately. “I was starting to think you were dead. What happened?”

Kaladin grimaces, rubbing his chest again. “Remember that anti-light wound?”

Teft curses colorfully under his breath.

Then Adolin reaches them, falling to his knees beside Kaladin and hauling him into his arms, burying his face in Kaladin’s neck. A second later he seems to realize he maybe shouldn’t have done that when Kaladin could be injured, and pulls back, holding Kaladin’s face between his hands, looking panicked. “Stormfather, Kal, I thought you were dead,” he says, an echo of Teft. “I checked every body on the field.”

Almighty above. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. Are you injured? Where are you hurt?”

“I’m not.” He presses his hand to his chest.

Adolin’s hand covers his. He looks pale. “It’s this.”

Kaladin nods. He doesn’t know what any of it means. Whether he’ll be able to fight at all now—how can he, when at any point he’s liable to go crashing out of the sky? 

If he thinks about it too much right now he's going to start panicking, so he shoves it out of his mind. It's not hard to do when so much of his energy is being taken up by just staying upright. 

Adolin and Teft don’t comment on it either. Instead Adolin gets his arms around him and scoops him up off the ground.

“Adolin!” Kaladin yells, but is forced to wrap his arms around his neck for balance.

“We gotta get back, and you’re not walking.”

Kaladin looks to Teft for help, but Teft only pats his shoulder in agreement.

Kaladin does feel incredibly dizzy still, and so is forced to allow Adolin to carry him back to the war camp. It’s horrible.

It’s… kind of nice, too.

---

The fact that Kaladin is getting taken out like this is kind of freaking Adolin the fuck out.

He’d always figured that if Kaladin ever got an injury that was bad enough to take him off the field, Radiant healing be damned, that it would happen like… taking down one of the most powerful Fused. Taking down Odium himself. Saving the entire army from catastrophe. That sort of insanely heroic thing.

But the last battle where this all occurred was so… ordinary. Just one in a long line of the endless fights that make up this war. The only thing notable about it was the fact that Kaladin got injured.

Now Adolin is watching from across the room as Kaladin and Dalinar talk. This time instead of issuing orders to send him home from afar, Dalinar came to talk to him directly.

And unlike last time, which was a temporary medical rest order, Adolin is almost certain Dalinar is taking him off the field for good.

How can he not? They don’t know how any of this works. There’s nothing to indicate a flare up like that won’t happen again. If it does, Kaladin is liable to get himself, or anyone he’s fighting beside, killed. Frankly it’s a miracle he didn’t get killed this time. If Adolin were more devout, he’d say the Almighty was watching over him, dead or not.

It’s all so random and stupid. If he had just gone when Adolin told him, left Adolin behind— if he had just dropped him when he got hit by that arrow and used less stormlight, would this be happening now?

It’s impossible to know. Reimagining the past may not be taboo in Vorin culture the way predicting the future is, but it’s equally impossible.

Eventually, Dalinar rests a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder, then turns to go. Adolin doesn’t intercept him. Whatever the result was, he’d rather Kal tell him himself.

He steps into the room, stopping by where Kaladin is sitting on the side of the bed. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Kaladin says, tired.

“What did he say?”

Kaladin sighs. “I’m sure you can guess.”

Adolin sits down on the bed beside him. “I’d still rather you tell me.”

“Rubbing it in?”

“Getting a sense of your feelings, actually.”

“Right now I’m just kind of numb.” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “Dalinar took me off the field. He didn’t explicitly say it was permanent, but the implication was basically that unless there’s some significant, provable change in this, he can’t have me out there. And logically, I can’t disagree with him.”

“Emotionally, then?”

Kaladin groans. “It’s frustrating because I can fight, I just don’t know where the limit is. And that makes me dangerous. Dalinar isn’t wrong.” He rubs his hands over his face, shaking. His voice cracks. "Fuck, Adolin--"

"Hey, hey." Adolin pulls him close, heart aching, pressing Kaladin’s head to his shoulder. "It's alright. I promise it'll be alright."

Sometimes he feels like he promises that a lot and doesn't often manage to fulfill it. But he has to keep trying. Especially for Kaladin.

"It's not alright, this is a disaster. I don't know what I'm going to do, I'm supposed to be able to--"

"Hey, breathe," Adolin says, rocking him back and forth. "Breathe, Kal." 

Kaladin takes a deep, heaving breath against his neck.

"We'll sort something out," Adolin tells him. "There's always some way to sort it out, so long as you're there to try."

"Adolin, I don't know what possible life experiences have led to you becoming such an optimist."

"It's not optimism, it's called defiance. I think you know something about it?"

Kaladin twists his fingers in Adolin's shirt. His voice sounds raw and tired. "I'm getting a little tired of defiance."

"I know you are," Adolin says, squeezing him tighter. "I know you are, gemheart."

"I just don't want to be useless--"

"Nothing about you is useless," Adolin says firmly. "Nothing." 

Kaladin collapses into him, overwhelmed.

Almighty, how sideways things went at that last battle. Adolin still feels horrible about it; if Kaladin had been alone, maybe he could have gotten away. "I’m so sorry, Kal. I wish it had turned out differently.”

“It would definitely have been better if we had foreseen that move the Fused pulled at the last battle," Kaladin says into his neck. "That was stupidly obvious looking back, I still can’t believe I let us get surrounded.”

“I meant, like… you could have escaped on your own, maybe then this wouldn’t have happened.”

Kaladin pulls away to look at him sharply. “Do you really think I’d rather still be able to fight if the tradeoff was your death? You think that’s what I want?”

“It’s just a steep price to pay,” Adolin says softly.

“No, it isn’t.” Kaladin takes Adolin by the arms and sort of shakes him, looking desperate. “It isn’t.”

“Alright.” This time Kaladin is the one to pull him back into a firm embrace, and Adolin goes, feeling choked up. “Okay.”

Kaladin takes a deep breath, clutching him tight.

“Are you still in pain?” Adolin asks quietly.

Kaladin nods. “It took storming forever to go away last time.”

“Let’s get you some rest, then.” He draws them both down to the infirmary bed, cradling Kaladin against his chest. Kaladin tucks his face into his neck, letting out another heavy breath.

Adolin doesn't realize how panicked he was still feeling from today's battle until Kaladin settles against him and calms his heart. When the battle wound down and Kal was still nowhere to be seen, Adolin and Teft had scoured every dead or injured person on the field that looked even remotely like him, growing increasingly terrified that he was lying dead or dying somewhere else, or had been dragged off by the Fused. The relief when Syl flew over to him nearly took Adolin to his knees, but only now does he truly begin to calm enough to think seriously about anything else.

Like the broader implications of this. Kaladin doesn’t just have to be careful fighting, which is bad enough. He has to be careful using any stormlight. He has to be careful flying. What if he’s hundreds of feet in the air and gets struck with one of those attacks again? He’ll plummet to his death.

Adolin’s sure Kaladin has thought about that as well, though he hasn’t brought it up. He’s equally sure Kaladin is going to keep flying anyway, off the battlefield. Perhaps there’s some way Syl can tune in to what’s going on with him and at least warn him before he’s going to fall. That would be something.

Stormfather, it’s all a mess.

He digs his hand into Kaladin’s hair, holding him close. Eventually Kaladin says, “You know… Leshwi saved me.”

“Leshwi… one of the Fused?”

Kaladin nods. “We sort of came to an understanding during the tower occupation. It’s still strange, though.”

That’s putting it mildly. A Fused saved him?

“I think things are shifting,” Kaladin continues. “But I’m not sure yet which way they’re going to fall.”

"Well, it sounds like you already formed some kind of truce with a Fused. That’s got to go somewhere positive, doesn’t it?”

“Perhaps.” He sighs. “I don’t know. I don't know what I can do with it if I'm not on the field. I can't figure anything out.”

“You’re in pain and you’re tired, don’t think about it too much right now."

"What am I supposed to be thinking about instead?"

"You can entertain yourself by thinking about how much anyone who comes in here will be scandalized by us lying like this.” They're just lying tangled up in each other in the middle of the public war camp infirmary. Kaladin is practically on top of him. Not very Vorin.

Kaladin snorts. “I think you’ve developed a liking for being controversial.”

“You have to get your entertainment somewhere,” Adolin says cheerfully. Almighty knows there's little enough of it to go around right now.

“Public displays of affection,” Kaladin murmurs. “This is downright whorish behavior for a Highprince. Shame upon House Kholin.”

“I get to make the laws,” Adolin says. “I now declare that if you don’t engage in public displays of affection, you get fined.”

“I didn’t realize you were a merciless dictator destroying the social fabric of the princedom for your own amusement.”

“There’s barely a princedom right now anyway, so I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Kaladin finally laughs despite how grim the joke is.

“Any laws you want to pass, while we’re at it?” Adolin asks.

“Wealth redistribution,” Kaladin mutters, still with his face pressed into Adolin’s neck.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Kaladin chuckles, wedging his arms around Adolin’s torso in an embrace. “Thank you,” he says.

“For what? Redistributing wealth? Not sure we can actually do much with an occupied princedom in the middle of an apocalyptic war, but I’ll look into it.”

Kaladin sighs. Though Adolin's glad he managed to get him to laugh, he still sounds unbelievably weary. “Just… for everything.”

“You know I got you no matter what,” Adolin says softly. “Always.”

“I understand, I think,” Kaladin says quietly.

Adolin kisses the top of his head. “Go to sleep. We’ll figure it all out later.”

Then he doesn’t move for several hours, because miraculously, Kaladin falls asleep in his arms.

Notes:

kaladin back at it again with another epic crash out staved off by the appearance of his emotional support adolin. every powerful mentally unstable hero type needs a boyfriend who's like the human equivalent of a bernese mountain dog you know what i mean. Did ask 👍 do care 👍 never give up 👍 hugging you hugging you hugging you

 

the knights radiant after their most skilled windrunner got taken out of commission by literally one arrow in a random battle: this-is-fine.jpg 😵‍💫
crazy how a seemingly-ordinary moment can change your life in an instant
they were shook. dalinar was shook. adolin was especially shook (hello guilt complex). everyone was really not normal for a while after this

-

later on kaladin definitely enlists sigzil for an extremely ethically dubious experiment where they test exactly how much stormlight kaladin can use before being overcome with so much pain he falls out of the sky

kaladin on the ground spitting up blood: okay so ten emerald broams worth of stormlight was definitely too much
sigzil: i don't think i like this experiment, kaladin
kaladin: no worries i can just do it by myself if you don't wanna participate :)
sigzil: *dutifully writing down "10 broams = death"*

-

this scenario deserves a proper kal & leshwi conversation and kal & syl conversation, maybe there will be one later

kaladin: always so nice to see leshwi, she's so pretty and good at fighting :)
yeah normal thing to think about your enemy bro
his type is just "pretty and good at fighting" actually