Title: Bleeding Wounds Summary: The Yellow Cat, Cornelius, sees Leshy without his bandages on for the first time. Rating: T, for the swears Ships: LeshyCat Other: For @aniflowersartblog ' LeshCat-pril, week 3, injuries. Short fic. Barely any editing. We post the second drafts like men!
Read it on Ao3
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Cornelius paced outside the camellia encircled shelter. He tapped his foot impenitently. The pleasant floral scent wasn't enough to curb even an ounce of his annoyance. The temple bell rang out twice, announcing that the sermon would be starting soon. He gritted his teeth, tail lashing the grass.
He thought Leshy was past this skipping the daily sermon thing! With a huff, he knocked his knuckles against the wooden panels of the shelter.
"Leshy! Leshy, hurry up!" He shouted. "Do you need help getting out of bed?"
It wouldn't be the first time, but at least this time Cornelius wasn't being held captive in bed by his lover's arms, those nice, sturdy, warm arms… He shook the indulgent thought from his mind. He was not going to get yelled at because of Leshy.
"No! I'm fine!" Leshy snapped back.
At least he was awake. That was something.
"Well, hurry up!" Cornelius grumbled. He'd heard a rumor that today The Lamb planned to do the fight pit, and he didn't dare miss the carnage of two combats duking it out. He considered pointing this out to Leshy, but decided against it. Leshy enjoyed the crunching of a fist to a nose as much as anyone, but without the added entertainment of name-calling and ad hominems, the fight pit didn't interest him as much as bar fights.
From inside, Cornelius heard shuffling and quiet swears. After another few moments, right before Cornelius was about to burst open the curtain and drag Leshy out by his tail, Leshy groaned loudly.
"Fucking dammit!" He cried. "Ok, Cor, come in here and help me. If you need to puke, do it outside, though."
Cornelius raised his eyebrows. Puke? What could Leshy mean by that? He knew Cornelius had a strong stomach. After all, he was the one who praised Cornelius with an "Oh, fuck yeah! That's my boy toy!" for eating the whole bowl of that chewy, grey-green, mystery meat dish that Leshy either made or found--he never admitted with which.
He still owes me coin for that… Cornelius thought as he lifted the curtains to step inside.
Leshy scowled at the ground of his uncharacteristically messy shelter. The bandages that he always wore were no where to be seen, leaving his face exposed. Cornelius nearly took a step back, but forced himself to stay in the doorway and take in the scene.
Four deep wounds tore across his face, blood oozing from them as if they happened just before Cornelius stepped in. The wounds slashed across five eye sockets, each as empty as a field after a wildfire. Blood seeped from the sockets like dark red tears down his face.
"Help me find my clean bandages," Leshy ordered, wiping blood from his around his mouth with his arm. "I had those two kids that always bother me bring them here yesterday, but I never told them where to leave them."
Cornelius nodded in understanding as his stomach did flips in his belly. the kids, Len and Sparky, had been chasing Leshy around all the day before, begging to be played with. Cornelius had been the one to suggest he assign them a menial task to distract them so Leshy and he could enjoy some time alone.
Cornelius looked around the shelter. Leshy had already turned the whole thing upside down. The heap of stolen blankets he slept on was scattered; quilts and large, raw-edge squares of fabric covered the ground like grass. The the short desk Cor made him as a gift was on its side, the contents stacked precariously next to it.
As Leshy felt around the ground, Cornelius looked over his shoulder to see the pristine, white bandages hanging from a nail right behind him.
Cornelius carefully stepped around Leshy and reached out for the bandages, though his eyes never left Leshy's face.
"Here. I have them," he said, praying Leshy didn't hear the quake in his voice.
"About time!" Leshy held up his hand. "Give them to me.
"Do you need help?" Cornelius offered without thinking.
Leshy paused, titled his head, then snorted. "I've been changed these damned things for more than a thousand years. Give me more credit than that." He gripped his hand around the bandages the moment Cornelius dropped them in his palm.
As Leshy began to wrap the bandages around his bleeding wounds, Cornelius tried to force his gaze away, but not matter what he focused on, his eyes went back to the empty sockets and seeping blood.
When he was part of The Darkwood cult fifteen years ago, he had been told that Bishop Leshy lost his eyes in a glorious battle defending The Old Faith from a heretic that wanted to destroy it. Of course, after his escape from The Darkwood cult and indoctrination into The Lamb's, Cornelius knew the truth. Leshy had been the heretic for fighting against the will of The Red Crown, trying to deny its previous owner the right to use his power how he saw fit.
The Lamb in their sermons presented the wounds inflicted upon the Bishops as a just and proper punishment for chaining the god who saved The Lamb from slaughter, but despite that, Cornelius found his chest aching for Leshy.
"Wounds that always bleed," he muttered to himself as he watched the blood stain the new bandages.
Leshy froze with the last of his bandages half tucked in to place.
"What was that?"
Cornelius started, blushing. "Oh, nothing, nothing, it's just…" He frowned, trying to figure out a way to cover his tracks. He tried not to talk about Leshy's past. It was an uncomfortable topic knowing he was whispering sweet nothings or sneaking off at night with someone who had hurt so badly the god that saved Cornelius' life from a sacrificial blade.
Leshy snickered, finishing up. He pulled the leafs free from the bandages so they popped out at the top of the wrappings.
"What? Did you expect my eyes were just blind?"
"No, of course not!" Cornelius scoffed. "You wouldn't need bandages if you were just blind."
Leshy nodded. "Then, lemme guess, you just thought dearest Nari just," he hooked his thumb in his cheek and pulled it out with a pop sound, "popped them out?"
Cornelius shuffled, staring at his own claws. He had, actually. It never occurred to him that Leshy's eyes had been torn out by Disciple Narinder's own claws, which were so uncomfortably like Cornelius' own. He shook the thought from his head. It was hard to see Leshy as a god, but even harder to see Disciple Narinder as one. Thinking too much on either made his head hurt.
"Sorry," he whispered.
"What? Why? I think it's funny." Leshy pinched his thumbs and pointer fingers together. "Imagine if Narinder did pop them out instead of clawing them. My head around have been flat."
Cornelius sucked in a breath at the thought, and Leshy flinched.
"Yeah, ah, bad joke, I guess." He chuckled without mirth. "Sorry. If I don't joke about what happen sometimes, I might cry, and I swore to my sister I wouldn't give Narinder any more tears."
Leshy's face twisted suddenly in a emotion Cornelius couldn't quite place. He touched the injuries hidden just under the thin wrapping of bandages and pursed his lips.
"The last thing I saw with my real eyes were Narinder's claws. The last thing I saw with my eye through The Green Crown was Narinder's usurper bringing a hammer down on my skull." Leshy's hand fell limply to his side. "Despite having been handed down judgement twice by The Red Crown, I still have these ugly, damnable wounds constantly bleeding and aching." He lowered his head. "And the only sibling I have here is the egotistical pussy that gave them to me."
Before Cornelius could reply, Leshy jumped up and shook his whole body. "But enough of this lousy emotional shit. I think we have time to sneak in at the tail end of The Little Lamb's sermon. It counts, and The Lamb won't yell at me!" He started to pick his way through the mess he made towards the door when Cornelius grabbed his wrist.
He pulled Leshy into a hug and squeezed him tightly. He kissed the top of his head and breathed deeply the forest scent that somehow still clung to him.
"I'll take the blame," he mumbled. "Why don't we just…stay here for a bit? I think you could use it."
Thinking or talking about what Leshy had been, the things he did or that happened to him a millennia ago, was too much. It made Cornelius' head spin and his stomach twist with emotions he didn't want to face. He would rather forget he or Leshy ever existed outside The Paradise that The Lamb created, but he knew that wasn't possible. He couldn't fix the wounds Leshy received in righteous judgement, but he could make sure he didn't have to suffer alone.
Leshy paused then muttered into Cornelius' chest. "I don't appreciate pity, Cor," he sighed, "but I'll accept it this time, since it's you."
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AN: A short fic, but the comic version of this didn't turn out how I wanted so…switcheroo from last week, I guess? Anyway, Cor very much is a 'we're going to put these complicated feelings about my boyfriend doing war crimes and other terrible things into this little drawer in the back of our head and just not talk about it" kind of guy. Leshy is a 'the less I have to think about how my family fell apart, the less it will hurt so we're gonna ignore it with jokes and japes' guy.
