( GRAZE ) grazing mine’s shoulders with their fingers.
It had been around a month and a half since their last mission, which in Seifer’s eyes was considered a failure. They lost a member of their team, watched them bleed out right before their eyes as Seifer held them. While this wasn’t anything new to either man, something inside Seifer had broken that night. Since then, Cor had tried his hardest to get him to open up, always met with resistance and a fight.
Seifer had thrown himself hard into training, often being found on the grounds at odd hours of the day or night. He’d been avoiding Cor again to go over the intel they had managed to gather before everything went to shit, and while Cor was a patient man, things needed to be talked about.
As he walked in, he could hear the familiar sound of warping, followed by various amounts of curse words as he saw Seifer panted slightly, leaning against one of the pillars. He made sure his steps were heard, not wanting to take the man by surprise.
Seifer half turned to see who had joined him, rolled his eyes and turned away. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have some paperwork to attend to, or someone to send to the wall?”
Already picking a fight. Cor wasn’t surprised.
“Already sent those to the wall that needed to go. Now I have free time. Thought I’d spend it away from the noise that’s the Citadel.” Cor placed a hand on his hip, shifting his weight as he looked around the area, making note of all the new holes and chips in the pillars surrounding them, before bringing his gaze back to Seifer.
The man huffed out a laugh as he turned around and closed the distance between them, standing just a few feet away from Cor. “This is just another one of your ploys to try to talk to me. It ain’t gonna work. Might as well quit wasting your time on me, and go bother someone else. I don’t need your fucking sympathy.”
“So you’re going to push yourself to the brink of exhaustion instead? End up in med bay, again, and ignore the doctors orders, again, to come back here to do what? You’re not going to improve anything unless you acknowledge what happened.” Cor’s gaze was icy as he caught the man’s emerald eyes. “I’m going to be forced to put you on leave until you talk to me.”
Something flickered in Seifer’s eyes, a mixture of anger, and perhaps a little pain, as Seifer got right into Cor’s face, completely invading his personal space. “Do it, Sir. Put me on leave, it won’t change a damn thing. You can’t fucking help me.” They stood there for a moment, Cor unmoving in his gaze and his stance.
“What? Do I need to give you more reason?” Seifer sneered as he leaned in just a little more. Cor could see the slight shake to Seifer’s body, a mixture of anger and exhaustion he surmised, and shook his head.
“No... But don’t complain when you’ve hit rock bottom and have no one there to help you out because you refused to listen to reason. Your stubbornness to refuse help or comfort from those around you will continue to lead you on a very lonely, broken path. I thought you would have learned this by now, but apparently the only thing you can learn how to do is to fight. I’ll make sure your leave paperwork is completed when you get out of med bay again.”
Cor knew his words were icy, and didn’t care. Cor was a patient man, but he couldn’t continue to chase after a man who only wanted to fight and push people away.
As he turned to leave, he caught out of the corner of his eye Seifer reaching out, unsure if the man would punch him, or try to stop him from leaving. Cor continued to walk away, only freezing the moment he felt the man’s fingers brush against his shoulder, almost as if he was trying to get the Marshal to stop, and then changed his mind mid-grab. Slowly, Cor turned back to look at the blond haired man, searching his emerald eyes.
“You don’t have to keep pushing me away....” his voice was quiet. He could see the conflict dancing in Seifer’s eyes as he battled with himself in his head. Cor knew that asking for anyone to stay with him, to comfort him, even when he needed it, was hard.
“You...” Seifer started, before snorting and shaking his head. “Fuck this, forget it.” he waved the Marshal off, and turned to walk away. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Cor paused for a brief moment, before reaching out and grabbing Seifer’s arm hard, holding him in place. “If you’d give me five fucking minutes, Almasy, you’d know how much I actually understand.” his words had a bite to them, but not of anger. It was hurt and frustration. He knew what it felt like to finally be broken and not know what to do with that pain.
Fully expecting the man to fight him off, Seifer surprised him by stopping, and Cor felt the man relax under his touch. Releasing his grip, Cor slid his hand to the man’s shoulder.
“Let me in, Seifer. Let me help.”