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Bellyachin'	By : WonderMint Category: Final Fantasy XIV > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2106 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy FFXIV: ARR is owned by Square Enix and based on the creation of Hironobu Sakaguchi. May they ever walk in the light of the crystal. I own no right to the characters and settings herein and seek no profit therefrom.

Chapter List
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A/N: Tropes ahoy! Warning for sensitive readers, this chapter contains mild blood and pain.
*Edit: this chapter has been re-worked and expanded in light of my increased comfort with the characters. Nothing has really been changed, merely added. Conversation has been slightly expanded and feelings have been enumerated where once they were merely implied. Hopefully subsequent chapters will flow better as a result.

Several days passed in the quiet of the snows, the fresh white blanket that always covered the ground seeming to absorb sound as well as heat.
Alphinaud was a practical young man, but he would not have risen to the heights of his political career, nor fallen from them, had he not possessed a fair degree of stubbornness. Even in summer, Coerthas never thawed, and the occasional storm could still bring daily life to a standstill. Even so, it seemed unseasonably chilly. Alphinaud could feel the cold licking directly against his skin, not just convection but the kiss of frost, conducting his heat away while he walked about as if he were in the Waking Sands rather than the land of Garuda and Shiva. But it was not only his perception, not merely the vain complaint of a man dressed for the deserts of Ul'dah and the cicada summers of the Twelveswood. He could also hear the smallfolk complain of it as he passed from his small room to his temporary office in the Intercessory, where he heard updates from Tataru and met with contacts still loyal to the Scions.
He had but reached the door tucked into a quiet corner of Camp Dragonhead when a commotion broke out behind him. The sound of chocobo claws against stone and shouts for medics announced the return of group of soldiers from the Eastern front. A common enough occurrence, though this time it sounded as if their battle did not go well.
In a way it did not concern him, but in a way he had made Ishgard's battles his own already. There was nothing that he could do, in all likelihood, but that did not stop his feet from moving and his heart from beating. With a sense of foreboding, he climbed the nearby stairs to the Aetherite and looked over the wall at the arriving soldiers.
It seemed as if the entire unit had sustained some manner of injury or another. Even the chocobos looked bedraggled as they were relieved of their burdens and led back to the stables. The camp's medical staff had all turned out, loading the worst-injured onto stretchers and bearing them back to the chirurgeon's knives, others supported by a shoulder or an arm, or limping stoically to a nearby wall to rest and wait for aid. Bringing up the rear was Ser Aymeric, a dark wet substance smeared across his cloak, handing over the reins of his large war chocobo and conferring with someone. He placed his hand on the man's shoulder briefly, then turned to walk stiffly towards the living quarters.
Something did not seem quite right. Alphinaud slipped down the stairs and wound his way through the jumble of exhausted men, women, and birds, waylaying his quarry just before he reached the door. “Ser Aymeric, you do not look well,” he said gently as he approached. “Are you certain that you do not require aid?”
Aymeric looked back at him, startled and perhaps not quite pleased. He stopped, and as Alphinaud approached he seemed to sway just slightly. Instinctively the smaller man reached out to steady his arm, helping him to lean against the exterior wall. “I am just... a bit tired,” said the knight, quietly and with effort. Looking up the youth noted the other man seemed to be trying not to show any pain, but the muscles of his face were drawn taut and he could hear his breaths coming quick and shallow.
“You are an excellent diplomat and a terrible liar,” Alphinaud answered. He frowned as if he were addressing a misbehaving child, though he didn't remove his hands from Aymeric's tensed biceps. The other man moved to clasp his own arms in return, completing the circle and seeming to derive some stability from it. Alphinaud felt an odd restlessness at the contact, unable to settle between feeling awkward from the intrusion upon the commander's space, or drinking in the slight warmth as proof against the chill air.
“Alphinaud... I appreciate your concern. But they are mere scratches and bruises. I will not distract from the care of mine people.” Pale eyes met his own, set and determined. He took a breath and winced again. “Please let me rest, I want only for sleep.”
The young diplomat sighed and rolled his eyes, a move he had learned from the adventurers and vagabonds he saw so much of. He was irritated in place of worry, but in truth, he could sympathize. It was rather like their last meeting, only their roles were reversed.
Alphinaud knew just how it would make the other man feel were he to offer aid. In fact, it was partially for this reason that he did precisely that.
“Then I shall attend to it,” he said resolutely. Not a request or a demand. Merely a fact. The hint of a smirk that played along the corner of his lip was merely a coincidence.
Aymeric tried to object, but all he could manage was a strangled, choking sound, followed by a great deal of shallow coughing. He released Alphinaud's arms to shrug away, turning aside in politeness but looking instead as if he were cowering miserably against the stone.
That sobered the younger man, conjuring his frown back into place as he imagined what could ail the knight so. The thought of broken ribs, crushed and jagged and tearing into his lungs caused him a moment of bright panic before he reigned himself in. That was ridiculous and not supported by the symptoms. But he had to make sure that there was no greater damage. Internal bleeding was a serious matter, the sooner ferreted out the better.
The fit subsided, Aymeric finally found his voice, hollow and tired as it was. “Thank you, but no,” he said simply. He was serious now, no note of play or friendliness. The battle had not diminished his strength so much that he could not wrest free from Alphinaud's grasp, though he did so with no roughness or anger. He simply walked away as if the smaller man were no obstacle, all pretense at politeness having sublimated directly into action.
And had he not shown such weakness a moment before, Alphinaud would certainly have let him go.
“I am afraid it is not a request,” he said instead, finding the knight's blank refusal to be of little importance in the face of potential injury. “I am not convinced that you are sound, and it would be remiss of me to allow you bleed to death in your room for the sake of your pride.” He backed his words with action, falling into step behind the larger man and attempting to duck under his arm. Aymeric's body betrayed him once again and he stumbled against the wall, as if the confidence of his steps had been the most he could manage, and the complex task of either altering his stride or shrugging away was quite beyond him.
Aymeric glared at him. It was the coldest look he had yet received from the man, and he found he felt it viscerally. Suddenly the knight was commanding the very frost in the air.
And yet it only lasted a moment before he turned away, hiding his face from view as he leaned against the wall with one arm. “It has nothing to do with pride,” he said after a short pause. His words did not match his glare somehow, too soft and sore, as if they came from too deep from within his pained chest.
Alphinaud shrugged to himself, sensing that his resistance was largely spent at least. The remark seemed not to have been intended to communicate anything at all except to relay the knight's discomfort, one last token objection so that they could both pretend he had not agreed. “Then until you can name a valid objection, my insistence still stands. I yet have need of you. If your wounds are as trivial as you claim, then my skill shall be quite sufficient to tend them and you can be rid of me in a trice.”
This time when he looped his arm around the taller man's waist and pulled his gloved arm to rest on his shoulder, there was no further objection. Together they walked the rest of the way to the knight's guest room, Aymeric quiet and tense and refusing to look down at him even once.
The room Aymeric occasionally occupied looked much like his own, and was only a few doors further down the hall. He eased his charge into a sitting position on the bed, then began to consider the task. The other man still would not look at him, suggesting that Alphinaud had in fact underestimated his displeasure. But he supposed he would still have felt similarly. A meal delivery had been quite enough of a blow to his own pride, but a shared meal was not nearly so invasive. Aymeric had viewed his grief, and he had feared that he had seen it for weakness. Alphinaud was about to do far more.
Even knowing that, he did not even think to reconsider. The knight had brought it upon himself with his own stubbornness, just as Alphinaud had earned the man's reproach with needless self-pity. The cure for foolishness is never a pleasant potion. “I am no conjurer. I will need to see the wounds, please remove your armor,” he said firmly as he set the kettle on the fire. The water had been intended for tea, but would do just as well for cleaning wounds.
There was a short silence as the demand was considered, then rejected. “Please, this is not necessary. I need only rest,” pleaded the knight. It was an uncharacteristic tone, his voice seeming to rebel against the very sentiment. Surely he had known this would be necessary. Alphinaud looked back at him scornfully, but Aymeric again turned away. Was it just the sudden heat, or was the knight blushing?
Playing nurse came with its own challenges, he realized. Truly, he might not have been able to bear such an indignity himself. He wouldn't back down, of course. He would bean Aymeric with the tea kettle if that's what it took to secure his compliance. So he tried another angle. Alphinaud Leveilleur would argue the commander out of his clothes.
“That is your own blood, yes?”
Aymeric nodded reluctantly, frowning as though he could sense the trap ahead but placing his foot in it just the same. “Some, at least.”
An image flashed through the younger man's mind of the man locked in combat with a wyvern, blood-lust burning behind his eyes as his great blue sword was plunged through the creature's stomach. Savage teeth snapped ilms from the man's impassive face as wings beat at the air, struggling to stay aloft but only rending great bloody furrows in the snow. Then the creature went slack and the knight wrenched the sword free with contempt, looking only for the next victim of his wrath.
Alphinaud shivered involuntarily, though he sat by the roaring fire.
He collected his thoughts again as if he had dropped a basket of them on the floor—quickly, efficiently, and with no small measure of annoyance. Now was not the time for silly distractions, and he had long outgrown bedtime stories of adventure and heroism. “Alright,” he said, rising again and drawing a chair from the desk over to the bed, then sitting facing his charge. He rested his chin against the knuckles of one hand and peered up at the knight intently, not allowing him to shy away from the logic of his words. “And I suppose the Dravanians keep their claws clean? You don't think their blood and ichor will cause your wounds to fester?”
The mention of a dragon in the same sentence as the word 'clean' had worked wonders. Wide-eyed disgust followed, then another choking and coughing fit, which Alphinaud had honestly not intended but felt he deserved nonetheless. Finally the knight fixed him with a pointed glare, then began removing his clothing. He tossed each successive piece on the floor, checking some of them for damage before moving on. “Help me with the boots?” he asked in small voice, undoing some kind of clasps on the back of his legs. The youth slid out of the chair and knelt, pulling surprisingly hard to liberate the knee-covering armored boots. When he looked back up, the older man had finished removing the last layer from his broad chest, and was clad only in thick ankle-length black trousers. Their eyes met for a brief moment, Aymeric looking down at his kneeling form, eyes flashing with some unidentifiable emotion, lips parted slightly as if tasting the air. Then the moment passed, and he looked away and eased himself onto the bed.
The kettle sounded, and like the shrill call of a cavalry bugle it caused all of Alphinaud's thoughts to snap crisply into place. He rose quickly to retrieve it, looking over the other man discreetly as he passed by. His lower abdomen was a mess of shallow cuts and dried fluids, and a large yellowing mark on his chest explained the difficulty breathing. Nothing looked life-threatening, and he felt suddenly calm, not having realized the full extent his worry until it was gone. He set the brass kettle on the stone floor to cool and went to the bureau to retrieve the clean linens he knew he would find there, then rummaged through another cupboard until he found a bowl. Finally he sat down on the bed, dimpling the mattress with his weight just ilms from the prone man's stomach.
He had expected Aymeric to be halfway to sleep, but on closer examination his eyes were shut a little too tightly. He was truly nervous. The commander would most certainly not have flinched beneath he gaze of Nidhogg himself, but undressed beneath the eyes of his friend and rival, he was as a child afraid of the healer's drought.
It was almost endearing.
Where to begin? Looking more closely, the wounds were indeed less cuts than scratches. Nothing that would need stitching, it appeared. Globules of black ichor and fibers of cloth were stuck to it, so it was well that he would be cleaning it. He was more worried about the bruise.
“It will hurt, but I must needs examine your ribs,” he warned. Or he thought it was a warning. Apparently it was a request, as his hands stayed still, waiting for permission. Perhaps the one mercy he could afford the man. For one brief moment, the illusion of control.
The knight groaned briefly, popping an eye open. For operating at half its strength, the glare was surprisingly acid. “Nothing is broken.”
Forget mercy. “I haven't the skills to verify that without checking manually, my apologies. If you would prefer a more qualified healer, I would be happy to let Lord Haurchefant know of your distress,” he said. His stubbornness was setting in, digging a hole and making itself at home. If the knight objected much more, he might forget his sympathy entirely and neglect to be quite as gentle as he had planned.
The other eye opened, now in alarm. “You wouldn't,” the knight nearly squeaked, as if Alphinaud had suggested the lord would himself perform the examination.
That had not been his intent, but his face was scrubbed briefly blank of thought as he considered it. Surely the man would merely send for his own physician with blinding haste, but the idea of the blue-haired lord himself poking and prodding the stoic knight had him chuckling instantly behind his hands. He had not known Lord Haurchefant long at all, but something about his enthusiasm or the wild look in his too-blue eyes made the idea seem somehow plausible. He fixed his amusement back on his reluctant patient, his grin less threatening than he intended if only due to the fairness of his youth. “Of course I would,” he said, mischief dancing in his deep sapphire eyes. “We only want what is best for you, after all.”
Unexpectedly, Aymeric laughed. It was a harsh, choking guffaw, and more than enough to reduce him to another coughing fit. But then he ceased his challenge, all fight going out of him as he relaxed his limbs and looked away. “With friends like you,” he whispered vaguely, gravel rolling beneath his voice, defiant even in defeat. “I yield. Do as you will.”
All the amusement left Alphinaud with the knight's labored coughing. He did rather enjoy jousting with the knight, but there could be no pleasure in moving him to laughter when it brought him pain as well. So he simply went to work, worrying the corner of his lip beneath his teeth as he considered the problem at hand.
Even with permission, one did not simply touch Ser Aymeric. It seemed wrong somehow, almost an act of theft. Alphinaud lifted his hands and held them over the knight's stomach, not even touching him yet, merely letting his fingers twitch as he planned his attack. The larger man was lithe, but muscular enough that his ribs would likely be difficult to locate, and Alphinaud hardly had the experience to make up for it. He would need to wing it, sound around for his pain like dowsing for water in the desert, and hope that the knight's mortification would distract from his own shyness and clumsiness.
He started by splaying his fingers across the hollow his stomach, below the ribs. A known location, a point of comparison. Aymeric seemed to flinch at the contact, startled out of his avoidance to look down at the probing fingers that Alphinaud was having to work to keep still. Instead he registered the sensation clinically. Soft, stretched over hard muscle but still yielding beneath the pads of his fingertips.
The knight seemed to breathe harshly, a ragged sigh, as if he needed to remind himself to breathe. It served to remind the younger man as well, remind him to carry on, even if it would be to cause the man pain. He swallowed nervously and dragged his thumbs upwards, over the barely perceptible ridge of bone that marked the start of his ribcage. He could feel it move, lifting and retracting as Aymeric breathed shallowly, driving the expansion of his lungs and his striving for breath.
His eyes flicked upwards, watching the knight as he pressed softly against the bone. Aymeric seemed to take a moment to realize that he was being watched, instead following the younger man's movements with a dazed expression. He pushed slightly harder, watching closely for any sign of discomfort and feeling for the slightest give or wiggle of solid bone. There was none, the knight finally breaking from his trance to meet his eyes and give a small nod. There was only the slight rise and fall of the older man's chest, and a curious, guarded expression on his face.
Alphinaud let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He could do this. He raised his thumbs a half-ilm, unsure of where one rib stopped and the next began. There was less give than over the man's stomach, he could feel the presence of unyielding bone for certain. But other than that, there was scarcely any way to tell one rib from the next. So he settled for pushing, lightly at first, and then moving his thumbs back and forth as he pressed. Aymeric narrowed his eyes at him, the movement perhaps being uncomfortable in itself, but would do no more than that. Only the beginnings of what might someday become a glare, save for the blankness behind his eyes. So he continued, another half-ilm, another press and wiggle. No response. Another movement, tracing his eyes down now to the pale skin stretched over solid bone and muscle, returning again to the icy-blue eyes that watched him impassively, steadily.
He was trying not to think. But Alphinaud had never been particularly skilled at holding his thoughts still. They fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird, ever at work, ever beating for their next sip of nectar. It was a mechanical task, of touch and sense and sight and empathy. He could not help but observe the tremor in Aymeric's breath as he traced his fingers toward the next spot, a soft touch in an attempt to soothe and reassure, but seeming to have the opposite effect. He could not help but wonder if that was fear he saw behind his eyes, flashing briefly as he pressed, searching for pain and finding naught that made any sense. He could only speculate distantly on the reason, the hummingbird never coming to light on any real answer, never darting forward to perch on his tongue. Only... wondering, deep in the meadows of his own mind, while the rest of him worked at his task. Touching, feeling, watching.
At length he reached the bruised area. It stretched diagonally from his right side over the left pectoral, the discoloration uneven and turning slightly green in some places. Aymeric had been wearing a breastplate beneath his cloak, which would have absorbed and redirected a portion of any strike. The blow was heavy indeed, to bruise so much over such a large area. “What did this to you,” he asked, voice neutral and even. In reality, he was not neutral. There was a small place deep within him that keened low with anger, fuzzy around the edges and wild, as if he had drunk too deeply of the knight's thoughts and was now feeling emotions that did not belong to him.
Carefully, softly, he positioned his fingers over the lower edge of the wound, a hand on each side of his chest. Aymeric winced even from the light brush of skin, and he truly regretted that it was his job just now to cause pain rather than heal.
“Tail, I think an Aevis,” answered the knight, the reply cutting short with a hitched breath as Alphinaud pressed still harder, verifying that despite the pain, there was nothing that would warrant a skilled healer. He continued upward, continuing to lock eyes with his patient. The gaze had begun tense and guarded, but it had become less so as he had moved. Now it seemed simply a form of communication, data to collect, like the beating of the knight's heart and the movement of his lungs.
“Come to think of it,” the youth said, pressing again in a new location, “what was the Lord Commander doing on the battlefield?” Not that he doubted the man's strength. But he had thought his office rather more... political in nature. Leadership was about more than waving a sword around, after all, no matter how skilled one might be at the task.
In response Aymeric grunted and winced in pain, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth visibly. Alphinaud flinched as well, in sympathetic reflex as if he had been plugged into the other man's nerves and felt the pain himself. Still, nothing seemed to move under the assault. The bone was sound, it was the flesh that was weak. Regretfully, he continued, though his fingers trembled slightly as they moved.
The knight recovered after only a moment, speaking through the pain. Perhaps he needed the distraction. “We believed we had located a heretic of key significance.” He paused to breathe, opening his eyes again to meet Alphinaud's own, restoring the severed contact and steadying the younger man's will. “They refer to him as the 'Geomancer.' He is said to be developing some new magical weapon, of tremendous power.” His voice was low, and he took his time in forming his words. “We thought we had trailed him to Providence Point, but it was an ambush. They are too often a step ahead.”
Alphinaud frowned in thought, remembering how Iceheart had suddenly stripped the Steps of Faith of their outer magical wards, wondering at what new stratagem such people could devise. His fingers traced soothing circles on the other man's side as he paused, distracted.
The wings had ceased to beat. Thoughts turned to vivid battle, leaving Alphinaud alone with the knight, touching him without feeling and looking without quite seeming to see.
The knight's eyelids lowered subtly, and his heavy gaze no longer seemed to quite communicate, fascinating but opaque like polished opals. A wavering discomfort returned, and Alphinaud blinked it away as if he had kept his eyes open overlong. It was like that he had, staring too much and too avidly, sifting for the knight's pain like a miner panning for gold, finding all manner of flotsam and nonsense instead.
He reigned in his thoughts and his gaze both. Instead he brought his palms up to press on the thick pectoral muscles that obscured his access to the rest of the ribs. The wince was less severe this time, and he moved his hands only once more before deciding his patient was sound.
When he had finished, he found himself once again trapped by the knight's gaze. It was no longer tense or fraught, nor open or pained. It was almost... curious. Appraising. As if the man below him, having borne up all his own secrets, sought now to catalogue Alphinaud's own trove of hurts and pains.
He was suddenly aware of a warmth in his chest and face that must have been growing for some time as he worked, catching him unaware. Without thinking, he looked away, hiding from those eyes that threatened to expose all his thoughts, even those to which he was not privy himself.
“Forgive me,” Aymeric said, startled from his trance and turning away as well.
Alphinaud noted the growing feeling of embarrassment, without quite knowing why. He felt like a child caught stealing a honeycake. “For playing target dummy for a dragon's claws?” When in doubt, redirect. “Just this once. The next time you shall not be so lucky.” And he meant that part. Truly he did.
Quickly moving back to the nearby chair, restoring distance and professionalism both, he reached for the kettle and some cloth. The water had cooled just enough not to burn him as he wet a small towel and wrung it out, then applied it gently to the edge of a large scrape. A sharp hiss alerted him to the stinging pain of the raw flesh beneath. After a moment Aymeric relaxed, closing his eyes as if soothed.
“This helps?” The question came out more softly than he had expected. The younger man was not accustomed to spending effort to achieve his aloof demeanor. Being near Aymeric seemed to have the effect of keeping him off-balance, as if he were trying to place a marble in the bottom of a bowl, and the knight was flicking it away with his fingers every time it settled in the center.
“Stings but... it's warm,” came the mumbled reply. The voice was quiet and echoing and deep, and it made him feel strangely warm himself to hear it. He found himself resisting the urge to stroke the man comfortingly, as he might a child. Instead he reached for another cloth, wet a larger area and applied it gently to another scrape. Another hiss of pain greeted him, followed by a small whimper. It was a tiny, weak sound, catching in Alphinaud's ears and making him feel strangely guilty for having heard it.
It was easier to bear now that he no longer had to meet the other man's eyes. It no longer mattered that the hummingbird had given up and gone to sleep, leaving him no explanations for his discomfort. Instead he moved with deliberate care, the sure, quick movements of one who wasted nothing, not even grace. Alphinaud was skilled at taking on the appearance of confidence. With luck it might fool them both.
He lifted the first cloth to examine the wound, immersing himself into his role, finding that he could, in fact, be fooled by his own surety. Much of the dirt and blood came away with the cloth, leaving a series of shallow cuts and patches of skin scraped red and raw. He poured more water over the cloth and wrung it out, frowning at the discoloration that pooled into the bowl, and replaced it to press gently into the skin once again. He repeated the same treatment with the other cloth, mindful not to look the other man in the eye as he made another soft sound of contentment, relaxing subtly as if he were slowly merging into the mattress below.
After a moment he judged the initial area clean enough, picking out a few small pebbles and bits of debris from among the tiny droplets of fresh blood. And then he moved on to the next scrape, his confidence no longer an act now that the physician had established a procedure, and the patient had ceased to unseat his calm.
This time the knight made hardly a sound, his breathing deep and even. Alphinaud risked a look upward, expecting to see that the man had finally nodded off. But he was still watching his movements with half-lidded eyes, like a coeurl kitten on the cusp of sleep.
A tiny smile touched the younger man's lips, alighting just for a moment before he could chase it away. He continued his ministrations.
When he had finished there was not a speck of foreign matter in the wounds, merely angry pink skin where the knight's body was already beginning to reject infection, clot the tiny red pearls of blood, and stitch the wounds gradually closed. Alphinaud reached for his grimoire, able at least to speed the process and increase the chances of success. He looked up one of his most basic spells, considering it carefully, making sure there was no mistake in his mind though it was well familiar to him. Then, with a flourish he cast it, allowing the aetherial energy to cascade free. It passed from his body to his grimoire, running through the conductive ink and gaining form, before echoing out through his fingertips to channel into the resting man's wounds. Immediately they seemed to pale, angry red and yellow patches fading and cuts closing almost completely.
He let out a nervous breath, more relieved than he should have been to be clear of the ordeal. “That is all I can do with my meager magicks,” he said. “You should have no chance of festering now, and a shorter recovery. How is the bruise?”
Heavily-lidded eyes snapped up, blinking as if waking from a dream. The knight breathed deeply, pressing a hand to his chest. Then he coughed, though not as violently and hoarsely as before, no longer causing Alphinaud to ache in sympathy. “It seems much improved,” he said. “Sleep shall mend what little you have not. Thank you. You should not have troubled yourself, but I am grateful.”
Alphinaud was half-way to a teasing grin, but could not be bothered to sharpen it fully. It came out more as a vague warmth, softening his words rather than tempering them to bite. “You should not have troubled to bring me supper, yet here we are. Consider the debt re-payed.” And there was that feeling again, he was dimly aware, the feeling that he was missing something. As if there were an imp in the room, glamored in shadow, making rude gestures and laughing at his ignorance.
“I shall take my leave, then,” he finished, standing and stretching his arms over his head, un-boxing all the tension he had stored up and discarding it completely. “Should you have need of me, I shall be in my room. Pray do not hesitate to call.”
“Yes, mother,” came the mumbled reply, and a moment later it seemed that Ser Aymeric had fallen completely asleep, one hand draped carelessly on his bare stomach. Alphinaud grabbed a discarded sheet from the floor and threw it over him before letting himself out. He was losing a pitched battle with a smile that fought for possession of his face. And he didn't really mind, in the end. As long as his rival could not see it, he could bear the burden of a little shard of contentment, for just a little while.
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Bellyachin'