Cooking up a stew from others' scraps.
Word Count: 1469 (835 Faustite / 634 Umber)
Faustite groaned as he watched the thin strand of bloodied spit sluice from his lips. He swallowed and his jaw ground in response, like sand caught between bones. He wondered, then, if Umber broke or dislocated it. But soon the pain caught up with him, and there weren't words enough in the space of a breath to express it all for how it agonized him so. There wasn't time, either - Faustite soon felt Umber's hand on the back of his uniform, pulling him from his unseeing view over the edge of the parapet. The string of bloodied spittle snapped and flecked over the front of his vest.
Faustite stumbled backward with the assistance. He froze then, his back pressed against the general's chest, and closed his eyes to the whorl of pain that claimed all sense of reason. Pressure reached fever pitch in his skull and he wanted the lot of it to burst, to rain bloodied bone fragments onto his general's uniform and preserve him from the further experiences of grilling by his parents, or the mornings of waking up to pools of spittle and suffering. All his intellect, all his drive, all his world condensed into his jaw alone, where the worst of the hurt originated.
Furious pain bolted through his jaw again at the brush of fingers and Faustite's hands shot for the offending grip. He seized his general's wrist with all the strength he could muster and bore down with fingernails into the falconer's glove. Had he found flesh, he surely would have left the lunular marks of self-defense. "Don't --" He eked out around a mouthful of blood.
With the lieutenant collected against his body, Umber felt the vehement strain lacing Faustite's muscles. His body hewn of marble against his own, Umber half-expected the younger man's form to give out entirely and lapse boneless in his arms. Even with the hours of training passed, he fought to remain present. And even now, as ginger touches mapped out the damage in Faustite's jaw, he struggled against all form of contact. Muscles jarred and gnashed beneath Umber's touch. The body before him moved and writhed, all heat and vehemence from the pain of the last two hours. "Hold still." Seldom did he offer commands - and the notion came so rarely that Faustite learned obedience when they arrived.
"It hurts," Faustite seethed, and he knew not to speak any further. He still felt Umber's fingers crawl over brutal pain, the very agonies inflicted by his general, and Faustite's mind wrenched and churned to throw out vitriolic predictions of Umber's behavior. Maybe he wanted to map out his handiwork. Maybe he expected to drill pain so viciously into the core of his being that he might fundamentally reshape Faustite for the Negaverse's purposes. But pain clouded his judgment, and blood cloyed his mouth. He could speak no further.
Umber's hand slipped away from the teen's delicate jaw, though the arm that braced around his waist remained. If he loosed the lieutenant now, he expected Faustite would find a way to hurt himself further. "It's almost broken." His free hand darted for one of his coat pockets. "You need a starseed." They often provided the staying power for their long training sessions, he found.
Though the longer Faustite remained isolated against Umber's chest, the more quickly adrenaline slipped through his grasp. Pain grew in intensity to fill all gaps, and soon overfilled him. Too tight his skin became over all the hurts, bruises, and gashes. He felt the weight of all his failures pressing down on him with more urgency to improve, and fast. It wasn't the squire that trashed him so, but his general - someone vying for his continued survival in this war. Someone who, theoretically, wanted to see him make something of his wayward involvement. He knew nothing of Umber's motives, though he expected the enemy would excise far more of his person than the tolls Umber exacted.
Slowly, black eyes opened to see the world doused in lurid pain. Stars encroached where they wore holes in his consciousness. "Let me go," he tried, and quickly reached the limit on what his jaw allowed him to articulate.
But Umber remained unmoved. He bit through the brittle exterior of a starseed with relative ease and worked his jaw enough to reduce it to a wet gravel over his own tongue. Instinct yearned for him to swallow, yet discipline denied such an act. Instead, with one hand leveraged against Faustite's nape and the other pressed over his forehead, Umber leaned in to pass the starseed chyme between them.
And while he could not initially reject proffered restorative mash, he could hardly bring himself to swallow it, either. Faustite knew a vehement revulsion upon tasting spit foreign to his own. He wanted nothing more but to spit upon the ground, but the hand that moved from forehead to mouth allowed for none of it.
"Swallow," Umber bade him in a neutral tone.
Faustite found no alternatives. He swallowed down the mess of shattered shards while his throat remained open enough for him to do so. On their way, Faustite felt the burgeoning invigoration that promised him enough energy to get home, enough restorative property to take the edge off the damage to his jaw. Soon the hands released him, and Faustite coughed instinctively, though only to find the reaction unconscionably painful. His baleful gaze settled on his commanding officer as he half-hated him for the pain inflicted, even at Faustite's own behest. The unwanted rush of energy coursed through him, muting over pain, washing beyond all sense of hurt to stir in his soul. He distrusted how clean it felt, for all the love and experience and history built up in a life now gnashed between teeth not his own.
How bold of you, the lieutenant thought bitterly. All that power gives you the tantalizing ability to take what you want from who you want. And if that choice is within your repertoire, why wouldn't you take advantage of it. How foolish would you need to be to back from such prowess? All the world should take the knee. He wanted to smirk, but couldn't justify the further punishment of agonized muscles.
Umber cared little for romanticism, idealism, and humanitarianism. "Training is over today." He stepped beyond his lieutenant and turned to face him. A disheveled mess Faustite was, with hair mussed and blood spattered from the ever-present trail down his lips. Bruises would form beyond the cover of the uniform. Starseeds only repaired so much so quickly, but Umber held faith in the choices he made. This one's moral systems proved nigh unbreakable, but Umber knew one patent means of circumventing such hurdles. Faustite would feed into other avenues of experiment, however. There weren't sanctions against such methods in the Negaverse.
"Go home. Ice your jaw. And stop powering up at night when I warned you against it. Your life isn't yours anymore.
"The Negaverse invested in you, Faustite. Metallia conveyed her essence into you. Don't waste it on childish ventures. There are enough senshi around that can kill you without trying." He searched the boy's face, but found little more looking back at him than the same fixed intensity as before. Faustite never once struggled with meeting his gaze, and while Umber thought it strange, he knew no answer would come of his questioning. Faustite lacked physical prowess, but retained a strong mind - one that Umber suspected would require more than simple tempering to bow to Metallia's will.
No, this one required a crucible, and Umber knew the blueprints to such a feat. "We'll finish your energy draining tactics tomorrow. No more spars for a few days." Umber reached for his hood, pulling its feathered exterior up to shadow his face.
Faustite recognized it as a sign of departure. But Faustite's world still struggled to expand beyond his jaw, and the teen developed a maddening habit of prodding injuries out of unflagging interest. "Why?" He could only manage the single word.
Umber paused in his movements, then looked to his charge. The boy looked pathetic. If he continued to complain of his parents' suspicions, then Umber would need to rectify another loose end. More work, more effort, more investment for a lukewarm charge added to the pool. He was supposed to be more selective. Perhaps the tides of planning would change that.
"Your jaw needs time to heal. Two days, then we'll resume."
"That's it?" His jaw popped in the ask.
"You're developing a working method. I don't want you losing momentum in the learning curve." He caught Faustite by the arm. "Two days," he reminded again, and the pair blinked out from their solemn vantage point above a mess of scrap metal.
