#aza is unfazed by near death experiences

[kivaember]

(Aza shows just how much he’s improved since starting to find healthier coping mechanisms - and seeing the closest thing to a therapist in ffxiv - and that Aymeric has some issues of his own too...

i.e i just felt like writing this bc i was in weird mood)

Stone Vigil was a hot mess.

That was Aymeric’s eventual assessment as wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, his nose stinging with the near overpowering stench of dragon blood. With the revelation of Ishgardians carrying a trace of Dragon’s blood, it was standard practice for knights at risk of combat to cover their mouths and nose with a facial mask. Whilst it protected them from accidental ingestion, it made fighting a lot more uncomfortable.

Aymeric’s own facial mask was damp from condensation, and he irritably tugged it down beneath his chin, keeping his bloodied fingers away from his mouth. They were ambushed on one of the exposed corridors that led to the strongroom near the rear of the vigil, and he tentatively eyed the scorched stone and stress cracks running along the wall and floor where the dragons had barrelled through.

This corridor was going to collapse long before they finished fixing and reinforcing it. How many attacks had this vigil endured, now? They had reclaimed it due to Aza’s help, but the weakened walls, compromised foundations, as well as the insistent skirmishes, were making it more of a dangerous burden than a strategic reclamation. Their manpower was already stretched thin between the territory they already held and fulfilling their commitments to the Eorzean Alliance, that they couldn’t do anything more than keeping Stone Vigil by their mere fingertips. It was… frustrating, to say the least, to go through the depressing cycle of fighting back a dragon skirmish, fixing the damage done in said skirmish… only to go through it all over again a week or two later.

It was causing a lot of grumblings in the House of Lords, grumblings Aymeric could ill afford right now. He needed to find some way to break this vicious cycle…

“Lord Commander,” an exhausted knight pulled up next to him, drawing him out of his thoughts, “All men are accounted for and the dragons are completely routed. However, the corridor has taken extensive structural damage, so it’s been suggested by the engineers to relocate to a more stable location, sir.”

“Understood. Thank you, Knight,” Aymeric said distractedly. The knight saluted and dismissed himself – to be swiftly replaced with a much more welcome presence.

“Well, that was fun,” Aza said in the tone that implied it was the exact opposite, “I sure do love fighting dragons in cramped, narrow hallways while tripping over a hundred bumbling knights.”

“Yes, yes, you could have killed them all single-handedly,” Aymeric said with a quiet huff, “Unfortunately, they didn’t give us a chance to politely excuse ourselves from your magnificent presence.”

“How rude of them,” Aza tutted, slouching his shoulders in a near-comical exaggeration.

Aymeric looked him over, taking in his partner’s relaxed, satisfied posture. For all his belly-aching, he seemed to have found the fight invigorating enough to be in a good mood. There was blood speckled against his cheek, as well as thick, drying streaks of dragon’s blood smeared across his breastplate. The cloying smell of so much blood was beginning to make him feel ill, a nausea he ignored with some difficulty.  

“Anyway,” Aza said, straightening up and giving him a small smile, “I keep being heckled to move to ‘someplace safer’, so…?”

“The corridor’s structural integrity is unreliable at best, so, yes, best we move,” Aymeric confirmed, gesturing for Aza to start skedaddling. His partner did so, and they started to pick their careful way down the corridor. Debris and chunks of masonry threatened to trip them, and the cracked floor was slick with half-frozen blood and ice. Dragon corpses lay sprawled in the narrow space, all of them sporting the downy feathers of immature Aevis. Very young dragons, remnants of Nidhogg’s crazed brood.

It made Aymeric tired to think on it. He had naïvely thought that Nidhogg’s death would bring about the end of this, but the dragon’s brood stubbornly and insistently dashed themselves on Ishgard’s walls. They were too disorganised, too few and too weak to have any long-damaging effect, yet still they persisted. Did they intend to fight them down to the very last dragon pup? Didn’t they want peace at all, or was vengeance all they had left?

“You’re quiet,” Aza noted once they were two thirds down the corridor, “Something on your mind?”

“Mn,” Aymeric pushed those worries away, “No, I’m just tired.”

“Well, in that case,” Aza began, “We-”

“DRAGON!” Someone yelled, then-

The warning came a split second too late. Before Aymeric even processed it, before he even had a chance to whirl on the exposed side of the corridor – the Vigil violently shook beneath his feet hard enough that he almost staggered into Aza. A grinding cracking noise thrummed all around him, the groaning of stone pushed to the very limits, a very, awful, lurching feeling in his belly when he felt the stone floor shift beneath his feet, pale brick dust half-blinding him from the force of whatever the hell just rammed into the corridor-

In that frozen split-second, Aymeric’s mind processed several things at once.

The monstrously huge Aevis determinedly clawing its way into the narrow corridor, having rammed headfirst into the structure with the blind, maddened fury of a rabid animal. The chips of stone flinging everywhere as its claws tore at everything. The cracks of stressed masonry literally falling apart. Hot embers choking the air. The abrupt, terrifyingly cold knowledge of there is a thousand fulm drop beneath our feet and-

And by pure, beautiful, sheer instinct, Aymeric blindly lunged sideways into Aza, just as the floor gave way beneath their feet.

---

Aza weighed too much.

It was an awful, terrifying thought to have in that moment. Aymeric’s shoulder was a hot throb of agony, strained past its limit as he balanced dangerously, perfectly on the very edge of the massive hole that just opened in the corridor. Around him was yelling and shouting and the furious, pained howls of a dragon. Aymeric’s mind frantically pushed away all that noise and focused on his numbing fingers clenched tight around Aza’s forearm, the way the edge of the half-crumbled floor dug into his belly, the way he could feel gravity plucking at him, trying to tease him over and to tumble into that fucking terrifying expanse of steel grey below. It was taking all his core strength and weight to stop himself from sliding forwards, helped by the fact that Aza did not struggle or flail or do anything any sane man would’ve done when finding himself a thousand fulms above ground.

“Oh, fuck, okay,” Aza was saying, his voice breathless and strained but calm. A dragon roared somewhere, “You’re good, Aym. You’re good. Just hold on.”

“I… am…” he forced out in a curt grunt, his free hand pressing hard into the stone when he felt himself almost slip forwards a damning half-ilm. His shoulder was on fire. He was losing strength in his grip. Fuck, he might’ve pulled something when stopping his partner’s very rapid descent, “Aza, I can’t… you’re t-too…”

“If you say ‘you’re too heavy’,” Aza laughed a little wildly, reaching up with his free hand to grip Aymeric’s bicep, “No, it’s good. I can- I can get myself up. Just- just stay like that, handsome, okay? It’s okay. Just stay there.”

The entire corridor felt like it heaved, masonry cracking somewhere out of sight. A flare of heat at his back, everything lighting up in a glow that reflected in Aza’s eyes. His partner was disturbingly calm. Aymeric was… calm. His mind compartmentalised everything, broken up into manageable chunks to deal with later. He focused on; Aza, his weight, his shoulder, the steel grey sky below their feet. Everything else was boxed up and put away. Later. Focus.

“I’m really sorry,” Aza said to him, “This is probably going to hurt a lot.”

Then, with an abrupt yank on his arm, almost making Aymeric’s vision go white with pain, Aza hauled himself up from sheer upper body strength alone, his fingers gripping hard into his shoulder, the other hand – the stone edge. Blindly, Aymeric gripped at him, shuffling back and half-dragging, half-holding as Aza scrambled and crawled over the edge onto solid ground. Semi-solid ground. Everything was still trembling.

“Phew! Okay!” Aza said shakily, giving him a wobbly smile, his face alarmingly pale, “It’s good. We’re all good. You did good, Aym, you’re amazing, holy shit, thank the Twelve for your fast reflexes, okay? Okay, so- oh, fuck, I forgot about the dragon-”

Aymeric, on his knees, still honed into that calm, focused edge, turned to see the Aevis reeling from one smart knight aiming a still functioning Bertha cannon into its face. It screeched, writhed, wildly spraying spluttering fire, sending knights scattering with shouts.

“Oi!” Aza roared, his near-death experience instantly forgotten as he leapt to his feet and charged forwards, “Fuck off, you stupid lizard-”

Aymeric knelt there for a few seconds, then quietly stood on weak legs and gripped his sword hilt with a trembling hand. He took that moment, boxed it up, and put it into the back of his mind for later. He followed his partner a moment after, grip steady and sure on his blade.

---

It hit him when they were back in Ishgard.

He was sitting on the sofa of their living room, well, sprawled more like, bone-weary and his shoulder aching. He’d lightly torn a muscle, according to the chirugeon, and whilst a dash of healing magic recovered the worst of it, he was told to do only light exercise for a few days. Aza, of course, acted like his arm had been ripped off and stitched back on again, and refused to let Aymeric handle anything heavier than the house key.

Despite the fact he’d been the one to almost die today.

Then, it hit him.

It hit him that Aza had almost died.

This wasn’t anything new. Aza almost died all the time. But it was always out of sight, something he heard about and never really saw with his own eyes. He saw Aza, injured and limping, wincing from serious wounds but alive and well enough to grumble and whine about it. It was different to hear ‘Aza almost died again’, different than actually, physically, holding his partner from the very jaws of death, to know that if he had been too slow, or if his grip slipped, or if he fell over too, or if the dragon had turned its attention to them, or if, or if, or if.

It hit him, that Aza could have very easily been one of those. Aymeric saw many of them, during the height of the Dragonsong War. Of knights plucked up and dropped several hundred fulms, to dash against the rocks. Of ‘heretics’ forced to leap from Witchdrop and having their bodies paraded through the Holy See, lauded as loyal martyrs who proved their faith by willingly leaping into Halone’s halls (as if they weren’t thrown, begging and pleading for mercy). As Lord Commander, Aymeric had stood and watched far too many of those, seen to many of those, scraped up too many of those, and even after twenty years of witnessing them he still felt clammy and nauseous whenever he had to look at those broken things.

Because, they were never bodies at the end. They became smears, stains, pulp, rather than corpses. Even just thinking about it made his pulse unsettlingly fast. To imagine it as Aza-

Aymeric shifted to lie down on the sofa instead. He felt a swell of nausea rise in his throat, and he clasped his hands over his belly, feeling the fingers tremble as he very carefully prodded at that bone-deep fear. He understood himself. He knew how he worked through moments like these. He had a system to compartmentalise his trauma and feelings and emotions and work through them piecemeal by piecemeal. Only. He did that by himself. Normally.

There was none of that here. Aza was in the kitchen. He could hear him lightly singing in that lilting, odd language of the Steppes. For some reason hearing it made his throat clench up and he had to take a very deep, long breath. Eventually Aza will have to come out of the kitchen and will know something was up. Aymeric wasn’t hypocritical enough to hide it from him either.

Something prickled at him uncomfortably – Aza was messing up his routine, something said anxiously, but that wasn’t meant to be a bad thing, was it? No, it wasn’t. He should be relieved and fucking happy Aza was here and not a Fury-damned smear somewhere. Still, anxiety lingered and gave birth to guilt. It just tangled up together in a very confusing jumble and he found himself unsure on how to pick it apart. This was going against his usual system and he didn’t like it.

He didn’t know how long he spent staring up at the ceiling, very carefully pushing down the burning tight feeling in his throat and chest. It was, rationally, a silly thing to be getting upset over now. Aza didn’t die. Dwelling over what ifs was useless. He should just be content that it all ended well and, honestly, he needed to get a fucking grip.

Still, emotions and rationality rarely, if ever, went hand in hand.

It took him a moment too long to realise Aza wasn’t singing anymore. The very second he noticed that, his partner leaned over the back of the sofa and into his line of sight. He looked worried.

“Aym?” Aza said warily, “I called your name like, five times. Did you fall asleep with your eyes closed?”

“…no,” Aymeric said roughly, “I’m having a moment.”

“Um,” Aza wavered, clearly not expecting that, “A moment? Like, a bad one?”

“Yes.”

Aza said nothing for a moment, then went, “Okay. Budge over.”

Aymeric budged over, but there was barely any room on the sofa anyways when Aza climbed over the back of it and wedged in the narrow space. Aza was half-sprawled on top of him, but Aymeric curled his arms around him and pressed his nose into Aza’s hair and smelled the lingering smell of metal, oil, sweat and brimstone. It wasn’t a very nice smell, but it was an Aza smell. That was enough.

Aza gently nosed at the crook of his neck, his hand resting on his aching shoulder and very lightly pressed his thumb against the tense muscle. It ached, teasing slightly into pressure pain, but Aymeric didn’t mind. His breath caught in his chest, shuddering audibly.

“You upset about today?” Aza asked him quietly, tilting his head enough to kiss the pulse point in his throat, “About us nearly falling?”

“A little,” Aymeric murmured, hating how his voice came out all strangled, “I almost dropped you.”

“But you didn’t,” Aza told him gently, “You caught me. Okay? You caught me, it’s all good.”

“I know. I shouldn’t be upset, but…” Logically, he understood that he caught Aza and everything was fine. Emotionally, he kept imagining Aza as one of those smashed up corpses and felt ill and clammy at the near ‘what-if’. It was exhausting and annoying. Around this point he would find some work to tunnel-vision on and work himself to the point of falling into a dreamless sleep. Probably not a healthy way of dealing, thinking on it.

“… Lucia tells me,” Aza began after a short pause, “That sometimes our brains are dumbasses and makes you feel stupid things, but those stupid things are still valid. So, you might feel dumb for feeling upset about me almost dying, because, well, I’m obviously not dead, but it’s still a valid feeling. If… that is what’s worrying you.”

“Lucia said that, in those exact words?” Aymeric asked, finding a whisper of humour in him somewhere.

“Shut up. I’m paraphrasing, you asshole,” Aza muttered, then continued in a slightly nervous tone, “I just mean, um, I don’t think you’re stupid for being upset about it. And, I won’t judge. I’ll just keep reminding you that I’m okay, in case your brain forgets, and you deal with it at your pace, okay?”

Aymeric was quiet for a moment, briefly stunned. Lucia was a very good influence and an effective pseudo-therapist, what the hell. He needed to give that woman a raise.

“Alright,” he said, “I’m very upset.”

“About dropping me?”

“Imagining you… if you dropped.”

“Mn. That sounds like it’d be messy.”

“It is…” Aymeric said a bit listlessly, “I’ve seen many knights or supposed ‘heretics’ die from fatal falls. It is… it is never a clean death. Some, they must have died on impact. A grim fortune for them, I suppose, but the afterwards, is… for those who needs to pick up the pieces…”

Aza nuzzled his throat, distracting him from the very uncomfortable, queasy clench in his gut, “Let’s not talk about that,” his partner murmured against his skin, lightly kissing his fluttering pulse point, “It’s making you all clammy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Aza sighed, “S’okay, Aym. Maybe we should talk about something nicer? You need a break, it sounds like.”

Aymeric took a moment to consider if he wanted to do that. He felt too tense and weary to really… no, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He was too tired and sore, too mentally drained. A break was needed.

“…did you see Lord Dounon’s atrocious hat the other day?”

“Ugh, you mean that ugly fucking pancake that’s sitting on his head?” Aza scoffed lightly, “Unfortunately.”

“I almost broke a rib trying not to laugh whilst staring at it.”

They spoke a little longer on a few Lords’ unfortunate fashion choices, but eventually exhaustion began to win its war against Aymeric. He failed to stifle a yawn mid-sentence, his eyelids drooping shut. He was so tired, and he grumbled when Aza laughed and cooed at him and kissed the tip of his nose.

“Take a catnap, handsome,” Aza told him, “Then you can shower the stink off you, eat something and face the day a bit more refreshed. I can call Lucia over too, if you want.”

That actually sounded tempting… and leagues better than what he would’ve done if left to his own devices, which was work himself to exhaustion and wake up hungry and groggy and unhappy, “Are you cooking?”

“Yup. Gonna make pancakes – if you go to sleep now.”

Aymeric muttered about tyrants, but Aza just laughed at him and kissed his nose again.

Like this, it was easy enough, to compartmentalise, take a breath – and relax. The anxiety was still there, but… it was better. Just a little. Just enough.