#loyalrite

Cor listens to him wheezing, sees the tube the nurse had put under where Gladio’s lung is punctured, thick syrup-like black is draining into a bowl on the floor beside his bed. Cor sits by the window, watching. He hopes Gladio will die, now suddenly, randomly, swiftly and painlessly as possible, and it will be taken well and nobody has to hurt anymore. But death is already a luxury they can’t afford, and it comes only through suffering. They know what they have to do.

“You have to walk.” Cor spoke, low and quiet. “You want to do this you have to walk.”

“…I know…” He wheezes, unable to speak properly. “Are you… keepin up your deal?”

“I will.” Cor replied. “If you can walk. If you can not look sick, if you can get out of the house without your heart hammering so hard you feel like you’ll pass out… then I will.”

Gladio shuts his eyes, and squeezes them tight, brow furrowing, hand slowly coming out from under the blanket to touch the tube in his side. “I’ll try…”

“Go to sleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just go to sleep.”

Gladio nods. His eyes are still shut tight. Cor can see greyish tears running down his face.

“Thank you.”

Cor nods, and shuts the door behind him.

He can’t do it. Cor is almost sure of it. Yet Gladio somehow manages to get out of bed one day, only to collapse on the floor, crumpled up. He looks hollow inside. His eyes have bags because even bedridden Gladio can’t sleep. He needs to do something, and there’s nothing that would find him worth their time.

Iris cleans the bed, and changes the bandages and the drain and empties out the bowls in a safe place, and Talcott brings Gladio food, and both of them help Gladio out of bed to get to the bathroom, and he cries himself to sleep because he feels guilty, because someone whose whole life is made to shield someone else cannot devolve to being cared for. It never should’ve come to this.

On good days, Gladio can get out of bed, get a cup of water, or something from the kitchen, lean on the countertops, and hobble back to bed, having to lean on the walls to ease the pain he feels in every step he takes.

“Cor… soon…” Gladio is urgent as Cor visits him, and Iris and Talcott take note of the fact that Gladio doesn’t want anyone in the room when they speak… so they have constantly stood by the door, and Cor can see the shadows of their feet, and hear the sound of a cup pressed tot he wood.

“You want to see the world?” That had become the code.

“Tomorrow.”

“There’s not much left of the world to see…” Cor looked to the door, seeing feet shuffling. “Can you make it to the car?”

“I can.”

“If you can’t?”

“Then leave me to die in the parking lot.”

“Gladio.”

The shield says nothing for a long while.

“Tomorrow.” Gladio told him. “Please.”

The night, and all of next morning consists of Iris and Talcott and Prompto and Ignis all wondering what Gladio is talking about. And Cor explains. Gladio wants to see the world before he dies. They grow quiet when Cor so blatantly says ‘before he dies’ because they didn’t want to think about it. Talcott is very adamant they shouldn’t. Iris tells Cor that Gladio can get better, that he will get better, he’s an Amicitia. And knowing those are the regurgitated words of her father he doesn’t reply. Prompto tries to help, suggest he take photos and bring them to Gladio. Ignis just weighs the options, but he seems to be thinking a lot, and not speaking, and Cor has a feeling he’s on to them.

It doesn’t matter. The next ‘morning’ Gladio is in the bathroom, by himself, trying to wash his hair, and he sinks down onto the seat they have in the shower, and he’s panting, gasping for air, he’s so out of breath, and his heart is beating so hard it’ll leap out of his chest. The thin lights of Lestallum are faced into the city, to denote that it is ‘morning’ and the lights will get harsher in the ‘afternoon’ and they will fade in the ‘evening’ and face outside the city at ‘night’. That had become the rhythm the town was used to.

Iris helps Gladio dress. He wants something nice. His Crownsguard uniform. It’s a task all in itself to slide on his own pants, then Iris helps him put the shirt on. He already wants to lay down and rest, it has exhausted him, but he cannot. He puts the chain on, but his hand is trembling so hard Iris must clip it for him. His hair is dripping wet still.

“Gladdy.” She whispered to him while Cor is watching, because everyone has gotten antsy around Cor. “Please…” She knows she can’t convince him not to go. “At least take your cane.” She gestured to the wooden cane Gladio had used to get around the house.

“No.” Gladio huffed. “I feel like an old man with that thing.”

“You are an old man.” Iris returned.

Gladio smiled. He tried to sigh, and not looked tired out. “It’ll just be a little ride around Lucis… Cor’s a good driver… I don’t need a cane. I’ll get to the car and we’ll go.”

“I can’t come with you? Are you sure?”

“Iris.” Cor cuts in. “He wants to be alone. I’m just there to drive him. This is just for him.”

“It’s like you said, the world is hell now, what’s left to even see out there?”

“Iris… please.” Gladio huffed.

She looked between them. “I’m still walking you to the car.”

So she did. She was urging Gladio not to go. He barely made it out the door, and had to lean on the railing. They made it down only a couple sets of stairs, and he sank to the ground and she followed her brother there, cupping his face and his wet hair and telling him to stop forcing himself. And Gladio looks so pained, but he still pushes her away. He has to gather himself. He stands up, and he starts to slowly limp out. She follows behind.

“There’s more pipes and drains and a bowl in the backseat.” She tells him. It’s about half an hour later that they reach the car.

“I know.” Gladio is panting, wheezing, but he collects himself, clutching his side because it stings worse than ever before.

“Please, take it easy.” Iris told him, clutching the car door so tightly.

“I will.” Gladio replied.

“See you later.”

A long pause.

“Yeah…” Cor answers for him, and Gladio shuts his eyes when the car starts, because he doesn’t want to see his sister as they drive off.

They drive. Gladio leans on the car door for a bit, but the pain is too much, and he reclines the seat back a bit until he’s eye level with the bottom of the window. They put the top down, and the wind howls through the car, and Gladio feels it in his hair, and in his wound as well. He wheezes. That’s the sound Cor hears for the most part. Wind howling, and Gladio’s slow harsh breath.

They pass the Disc of Cauthess, and drive, and Gladio is looking up, up into the Pleiades, and sees them, parting from the sky which is so dark with soot, but sometimes the sky opens up, and people can catch a glimpse of how the stars used to look. He looks, and sees the stars, and sees there are so many and he wonders how he ever got to live in a world where it was always there for him to see, and how he did not cherish it enough, and how he lost it… and how he would never see it again.

Cor assumes they might not go through with their plan, but a long drive out of Duscae, they’re around the Three Valleys, close to Hammerhead, and Gladio is still staring at the sky and he says “Here. This spot. This is good.”

Cor doesn’t ask. He slows down, and eases to a stop, quietly he turns off the road and into the dusty Leide desert. The sky out here is open tonight, and Cor can see stars, and it mingles with the soot, black and deep blue. He unbuckled the seatbelt, and gets out of the car. He gets on Gladio’s side, and helps pull him out.

“I can’t bring you back.”

“Nobody can.” Gladio replied.

“I mean your body. I can’t bring it back.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I tell them you turned on me, you would turn into that–” Cor points at the gaping wound dripping black out of Gladio’s side. “Like any other daemon. You’d just turn into that. Into sludge and blood.”

“So you’d leave me here?”

“I’d have to.”

Gladio blinks, he nods his head. “Okay.” He doesn’t sound scared, just sad. He pulls off his dogtags, and offers them to Cor. “Take this at least.”

“No. Afterwards. I’ll take them. Let them get scuffed up in the fight.”

“Right.” Gladio mumbled.

It’s embarrassing, but Gladio knows the truth. He hasn’t summoned his sword in months now, and he can’t hold it. He’s so weak, he feels himself, frail and starting to fall apart, and he hates every moment. He summons the greatsword, bracing, and it clatters to the ground, and Gladio follows it to the ground, and he feels his wound tear – and he cries out. “Fuck.” 

Cor just watches. It’s pathetic. He can’t turn his eyes away and he wants to so badly. Gladio can’t even lift the handle high enough off the ground for him to get a good grip around it. So he’s uselessly scrounging around on the sand until finally he starts digging… and the sand is too hard, and it’s too much work to even dig, and Gladio is panting.

“Will you bury me here?” Gladio huffed.

“I can’t very well leave your body out like that. Someone will see.”

“You prepared to do that?”

Cor gestured to the car. “There’s a sheet and a shovel in the trunk… and some flowers.” He admits, he cut some of the plants in his house… just for the occasion. He had brought a few flower bulbs from Iris’s garden too, but he never let Gladio see any of this.

“Cor… please just do it.” Gladio huffed. “I can’t fucking take this.”

“We made a deal. You uphold it. You know how this is supposed to go.”

“I can’t…”

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t do it…” Gladio hits his fist into the ground. “I can’t– fuck, I can’t fucking…”

“Stop. Don’t cry. You’ll tire yourself out if you cry, and your nose will get clogged and it’ll get harder to breathe. Don’t cry.”

Gladio wheezed. He’s shuddering. He tries not to cry. For a long while he knelt there, clutching at his sword’s handle.

“Get up.” Cor told him.

“I can’t pick it up.”

Cor feels a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“I know. Get up.”

“We have to do this.”

“I know. Now get up.”

“I can’t keep living like this.”

“Gladio, get up.”

The shield sits there, he puts his hand on the sand, but he’s worried he cannot push himself up. He gets off one knee, and then pushes, and quickly puts his foot under himself, and somehow, he manages to stand up.

Gladio feels all the stars in the sky are behind his eyes now, he’s so dizzy. The sword fades, and Gladio summons it again, and lets it go blade first into the ground, and Gladio leans on it, feeling the engraving, the chips and dullness, and knows it has served him well, and he will use it one final time.

“Good Gladio…” Cor tells him. “Go. Come on. You remember warp summoning… strike me with it. You don’t even have to hold it tight… just swing down.”

Gladio phases out, a streak of red light remains for a second, and Cor sees a greatsword coming over him, and Gladio at the other end, like he is falling through the sky, and Cor covers his face with his arms and doesn’t do anything more than that.

It’s like a sword falling on him, if it wasn’t so heavy, it wouldn’t have done any damage, because Gladio just dropped it. There’s a large cut on his left and right arm now. Cor huffed. “Good. You did it.” Gladio is wobbling, he’s panting, shaking.

“Please…” Cor doesn’t realize until he speaks that Gladio is crying again. “Please… isn’t that enough… just do it, I can’t…. I can’t do this…”

“I’m scared.” Gladio’s voice just sounds so harsh, and it aches Cor, because he has never said it in his whole life, Gladio had never said something like that, has never admitted it before.

“You don’t have to want this, Gladio. I know deep down inside you don’t.” Cor whispered. “You don’t have to like this. You don’t have to want to do it… but don’t be scared. I’ll be with you. The whole time. I’ll be right here. So don’t be scared.” Cor speaks with more conviction that he has ever spoken before, and Gladio senses that. He wipes his eyes, gathers his strength and his breath, and he fights.

It’s not a fight. Nobody would call it that. Cor will. He’ll retell them how Gladio scarred him, and how he died strong, and put up the worst fight he’d ever seen, a fight big enough to have the Immortal himself stumble away limping.

Yet it’s just the two of them, standing in front of the headlights of the car, the light blinding them, while Gladio just drops his sword on Cor, and Cor would hit back, but then Gladio would be too weak to fight. So Cor is scarred all over his arms and his foot is crushed by the weight of the sword, and Gladio is panting and gasping… and he can’t even speak to Cor when he dies.

Cor slashes him a bit, makes sure the dogtags are charred, and cut, and Cor delivers them to a crying Iris. He slashes one of the tires, and cracks open a headlight to make it look like Gladio turned while he was sitting in the car, like Cor could not control him. 

It was a wild and vicious fight, and Cor doesn’t tell them anything of how pathetic Gladio looked when he cried, and how peaceful he looked when he finally died. They grieve, and grieve, and Cor has to console them, and explain what has happened over and over, and he knows that this would happen, he was willing. Iris carries her brother’s bent and charred dogtags with her, always. Cor takes the greatsword, and they decide to retire it, and make a small cenotaph for Gladio in Lestallum’s graveyard, melting the metal from the sword to make the plaque with his name, and all the loving things Iris and the others can say for him is written into it.