#WriteFFXIV2019

[eremiss]

29. Heal

Thancred is no stranger to bad days.

Everyone has them, particularly the Scions, particularly since the banquet in Ul’dah.

Even after they’re reunited and life begins to flow again, they all have days where they snap or glower more than they should, more than they’d like to, more than they used to. But they all work on it in their own way.

Thancred has most definitely had a lot of bad days since the Bowl of Embers, since Urianger’s machinations came to light, since he betrayed the Ascian they thought he’d allied himself with, and since Warriors of Darkness left for their world and took Minfilia with them. 

It isn’t every day, somehow. Even though Minfilia’s absence clings to him like static, tinging the edges of his awareness with emptiness that aches if he makes the mistake of thinking about it, every day isn’t necessarily a struggle.

Some are, though.

Thancred soldiers through them all despite, of course. How could he not? He rises when he doesn’t want to and goes on about his life, distracting himself with work when he has to. He does what he should, for his sake and others’, for the sake of Minfilia’s memory. Sometimes he can hide when his mood is dipping and no one is the wiser, but other times his words are too clipped or the smile he pins on isn’t convincing enough to make up for the shadow in his eyes. Sometimes another’s words will mellow him out, as will his for them on their rough days. They check, they balance. It works. They all work through it.

Either way, ilm by ilm, he’s making progress back to being himself, even when the bad days almost feel as though they drive him back rather that stop him in place.

Despite progress, however, some days are just...too much. Too hard. He doesn’t have the energy to crawl out from beneath them. Those are the worst days.

Gwen helps with those. He never asked her to. And they don’t talk much about it after the fact, passively avoiding the topic of that pothole on the road to recovery. 

On the better days when he’s himself, it’s all fine. And the two of them are fine, going about their lives and poorly concealing their relationship. 

On the rougher days, she’s patient. He’s reminded of the time after Lahabrea, when he’d been returned to the Scions and was struggling to put his life back together. She didn’t do anything beyond simply being there, but it was enough. She does that for those days, too.

And on the worst days, the ones that are too much, Gwen becomes a master of being what he needs rather than what he wants. She bothers him out of bed, talking and asking and cajoling, and she gets him up when others steer clear. She makes him move, even if it’s just to go through the motions, rather than leaving him to wallow in this newfound pit.

When Thancred is too worn, when he can barely lift his head, she’ll coax him into an idle, meaningless conversation about something or other. The kinds of conversations that don’t require thinking because they don’t matter, the kinds that are easy associations, random thoughts and spontaneous replies, the kind that’s just noise. Thancred winds up speaking and chatting even when he feels like he doesn’t have it in him, when he wants to do nothing more than just lie in his bed and wait the day out. Because otherwise Gwen won’t leave him alone, he knows. He won’t get any peace and quiet, and she’s too stubborn to be discouraged and dismissed by being ignored. There’s a little sliver of his own better judgement that her presence riles up, too, that pokes at him and frowns at his laziness until he finally does something just to prove it wrong.

Gwen finds ways to get him out of bed while they talk, sometimes with touches sometimes with glances or gestures. She finds ways to get him dressed without mentioning it, and doesn’t even acknowledge when he glowers at her or grumbles about it. And then, somehow, she gets the two of them walking. Thancred doesn’t know how she does it without him noticing, seeing how she’s no good with subtlety and he’s supposed to be a master of espionage and spying and being aware of himself and his surroundings. He blames magic. He doesn’t know where he gets the energy, either, because he would swear he doesn’t have even an onze in him. 

Often as not they’ll be halfway through some circuitous route around Revenant’s Toll before he realizes she’s gotten him out of the Stones or wherever else he’d holed himself up. 

When Thancred’s mind feels too slow, when even fitting two thoughts together is beyond him, Gwen will ask for his help with something she most definitely does not need help with. It’s always something minor, something small and menial that’s just shy of mindless, something that doesn’t actually need him but that he could make easier. Something that, on a good day, would be easy as breathing. Gwen always manages to coax him out of his hole because he already knows arguing with her is a waste of time and he doesn’t have the mental capacity for it anyway. She drags him along so he can suffer through helping with a task that’s perfectly doable with two hands but easier with four, or one that’s fine to do alone but made a bit better with company, even when said company is surly and tired.

Sometimes the ulterior motives are painfully obvious. She makes no effort to disguise them anyway.

Like when she asks for help gathering vegetables and herbs when she knows that he’s skipped some meals --because of course she does, she’s got a sodding sixth sense for the health of her comrades. And then when they go to put it all away in the kitchens she finds a way to keep him there while lunch or dinner is made because, hey, they’re already there, right? Failing that she at least forces some water on him and some food that requires no prep, no time, no cleanup, so he can’t use any of those excuses to refuse it, like a piece of fruit or a stolen muffin.

And dear gods, he knows she won’t believe him if he tries to say he’s not hungry or insist that he’s fine. He knows he’ll never hear the end of it if he admits how long it’s been since he’s last eaten, or fesses up to the fact that some nights he doesn’t sleep for no reason beyond the fact that he just doesn’t. He knows she’ll get that worried little glint in her eye that makes something deep in his chest sink and throb like a headache. So he waits, and grouses and taps his foot... And he eats, and that night, usually, he sleeps. 

Gwen knows him too well is the problem. And she’s too sodding clever when she wants to be, and too stubborn to be driven off by his bad temper and gruffness. 

Thancred learned early on she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, though that doesn’t always stop him from trying. He learned that getting up and just getting her request over with, no matter how aggravating and galling it was to be forced into conversation or dragged out of his room to do something inane, is far easier than trying to argue with her and convince her to leave him be.

And then his pride winds up rankled somehow, grumbling at him, Are you really going to say you can’t rearrange a couple of books? Are you really going to lie around in yesterday’s clothes and not even get out of bed? Are you really so far gone? until he spites himself into submission.

He knows, deep down, that Gwen’s refusal to be shaken, to be dismissed, to be ignored, comes from experience. She knows what it’s like to be stuck in a low place and need a hand out of it, little as said help might be wanted in that moment. He doesn’t know when she experienced such a thing, or the cause, but that tinge of knowing and understanding behind her words makes it clear enough.

Gods and the way she asks drives him mad.

Gwen asks like it’s any old day and she simply needs a hand or could do with a bit of small talk, like he’s not wallowing or grumpy or unpleasant to be around. She doesn’t come in ready to bargain, she doesn’t come with the intention to bribe, she doesn’t start with her heels already firmly dug-in ready to goad him. She doesn’t bat her eyelashes or simper ingratiatingly, she doesn’t wink slyly at him or make teasing promises or allusions. She doesn’t ask out of pity, nor begrudgingly, because she knows she should check in on him and keep after him.

She just asks, simple and genuine, because she simply and genuinely wants his company. She simply and genuinely wants him to get out of bed, get dressed, and be a person despite whatever hollowness is aching in his head or in his heart, despite the hole that opens up under him on the worst days. And then she stands there, watching him with those loud deep-green eyes of hers that know, on some level, what he’s going through and refuse to leave him to suffer like he deserves.

It pulls at him like a magnet pulls iron. She just… Treats him like he’s still himself beneath whatever crap decided to pile on him in his sleep, like it’s simply a bad day that he’ll get through rather than his new, terrible state of being. She treats him like she always has, though perhaps a little gentler. It makes his heart and chest swell and tighten uncomfortably, no matter how much he tries not to think about it.

Thancred is always tempted to argue, to be firm and refuse this time, despite her good intentions, despite his better judgement, despite knowing it’ll be like pulling teeth because she isn’t going to just leave him be, because she never has before and she’s not going to start now. He’s so tempted to say ‘no’ and stick with it, then just ignore her when he’s too tired to argue, because some days he doesn’t want to and some days he just can’t. 

The words, the dismissals, the arguments, always form in his head and sometimes makes it so far as the tip of his tongue.

But then he gets thinking, because no matter how tired and crappy he feels, it’s never so much his own mind can’t turn against him. And Gwen just stands there, caring and patient and quietly expectant and so godsdamned empathetic and understanding that sometimes it makes him want to scream. 

It’s not fair. 

Thancred always tells her so. He tells her as he pulls himself out of bed, and then peppers it into whatever conversation she manages to pull out of him. He tells her as he reluctantly follows her to whatever menial task she has decided she needs help with. He grouses and mutters and sighs plenty about all manner of things while they walk, talk, work and eat. She takes it in stride, chatting and joking with him like he isn’t being something of an arse. 

He’ll get his comeuppance for it, he knows, but some other time. On a better day when he’s himself without effort, without help, he’ll take it on the chin with a sigh and sardonic smile. She saves her snark for days when his head is clearer, when his mood is higher and steadier, when he has the fortitude to withstand the jeers and jabs and retorts he’s owed. 

Sometimes she saves it for a day when he’s too sharp, to bitter, too angry, and it sobers him up like a bucket of cold water. Those are the hardest, when he’s angry rather than just empty, but she’s a cure for those, too, like iodine on a wound. 

It all evens him out.

Whatever Gwen does to get him out of his room, and whatever grievances he might air for being made to suffer her goodwill, the rambling conversations and bells of light work in the open air always leave Thancred feeling...lighter.

Maybe not ‘better’, precisely, but the invisible weight that grates and tears at him doesn’t feel quiet so heavy when it’s all said and done. He has more energy, for some reason, and the day doesn’t feel so long. His smile and eased mood aren’t so fake. 

At the end of the day he goes to sleep saying he did something, however small, and it’s more than nothing. 

At the end of the day he feels like himself on a bad day. It’s a strange thing to think about when he notices it. At the end of those days, the days...felt like a day. A single bad day. A single bad day that’s ending, and tomorrow might be different. The creeping shadow of dreary uncertainty that might otherwise whisper that every day will be as hard as the last is pushed back a little, and he can rest more easily.

At the end of the day, when Thancred slips into Gwen’s room or draws her into his despite all of his earlier grousing and put-upon sighs, he doesn’t feel so much like an intruder or a nuisance. He knows he is one, that he’s a bother, a burden, and that she has to be getting tired of putting up with his low points, occasional as they might be. He knows all of that, but she’s never said anything of the sort. Never even hinted at it. 

Gwen never seems to mind him stealing even more of her time, even though he knows she should. She breathes a comfortable, pleased little sigh when they crawl into bed and cuddle together, sometimes talking, sometimes just listening to each other’s breathing until they fall asleep. She giggles and smiles in the dark when he finds the will to be his old self, when his hands wander and they keep each other up for another bell or two. And when he can’t manage either of those she’s content to merely sleep beside him, so he can have the comfort of not being alone.

Everything she does is...In the moment, it’s annoying, it’s irksome, it’s a pain in the arse. 

And it’s always baffling and bewildering. Her time is so limited, why would she waste babysitting him? Because that’s what all this is, he knows it is.

It’s necessary, whatever annoyance it may bring. It’s healthy.

He needs it. He needs it. More desperately than he’ll ever admit to himself, let alone anyone else. He knows that. That’s part of the reason, he thinks, that he always gives in. She’s giving him what he needs, not what he wants, and he’s not quite fool enough to refuse it..

At the same time as he feels guilty for his neediness, he’s grateful beyond measure for her concern, for her patience and stubbornness and the affection she freely gives him. He’s grateful for her steadiness and kindness, and for the snark and retorts and looks that remind him when he’s misstepped and hold him accountable despite his mood. He doesn’t deserve all this...this gentleness and care, he knows he doesn’t, but he can’t bring himself to push it away. 

Thancred doesn’t give voice to his gratitude, at least not directly. He knows he should, but...

Gwen isn’t always there, of course. She’s the Warrior of Light. She’s busy. There are dozens of things that take priority over him in the first place, obviously, but she definitely has more important things to do that put up with his gloom.

He’s always kept himself informed of her travels, long in the habit of keeping tabs on where she’s off to and when, as well as what she’s supposed to be doing there. But on his worst days he can almost feel that she isn’t there the same way he can feel when a room is empty and he’s by himself. Her absence is strangely palpable even before she doesn’t knock on his door to bother him out of bed. He dreads those days, but not just because she isn’t there to get him out of bed. He...misses her.

At the very least, it’s not quite the detriment he’d feared it would be. Because by the times he has one of those worst days while Gwen’s not around, she’s gone and gotten him expecting things about himself. 

The nerve of that woman, raising his expectations and getting him into good habits.

Even when Thancred doesn’t want to leave his room and Gwen isn’t there to make him, he finds a way. The idea of just sitting around like a bump on a log, the notion of just being useless, the thought of her coming back to hear he’s been brooding alone all day, bothers him when it hadn’t before. It eats at him, to loud and persistent to ignore, until he rolls out of bed and gets up. 

At the very least he gets himself out of his room. Sometimes he gets all the way out to that little park towards the back of the Toll, simply strolling around and people watching. Sometimes he organizes files or does a bit of manual labor, a small task anyone can do, including someone in the mood to do nothing.

It’s all little things, baby steps, but he does them himself, on his own. 

He feels better for it, in the end. As do his friends, watching him stand on his own, with a bit of help every now and then, and move forward rather than slumping like he has before.

There are bumps, of course. No road is perfectly smooth, even when Gwen is there with a guiding hand. Some of the worst days are somehow even worse.

There are days, with and without her, that he barely makes it as far as the aetheryte plaza before he’s spent. There are days that whatever little chore he’s started is left half-finished, or completed to just the barest minimum. There are days even a slice of apple and a glass of water feel like too much.

However it ends up, he at least starts it, and getting started is more than nothing. Doing something, even if he doesn’t finish it, is better than doing nothing. He repeats that to himself like a mantra.

Eventually enough time passes that the sheer distance of it is healing in itself, soothing aches and softening hard edges that have taken shape in his thoughts. After a time the worst days lessen to bad ones, and he’s afflicted with them less and less. Thancred finds himself again, just with a few more cracks and chips than he had before.

That’s fine. 

He gets back into his work, his assignments, his routine.

After a time, ‘should’ and ‘knowing’ are enough to combat bad days, enough to get him up and moving in his routine, just like he’s used to.

Thancred is inexorably closer to Gwen now, without the fog of unsorted, tangled emotions and thinly-veiled grief in the way. How could he not be after all that time, all that talking, even though he spent most of it with a frown? How could he not feel something for the one who worked so hard and did so much for him when she didn’t have to, when he hadn’t wanted her to? He wants to make up for being difficult, but he doesn’t know how. She never asks him to.

He knows she’s been changed by everything she’s endured, just as everyone has been, but it’s not so obvious to him as his changes are to her. 

Something like guilt twists and kicks when he realizes that, how he thought he knew her so well and now, a year later, he’s realized he barely knows anything. Or anything of substance, at least. She’d hidden much of herself from him, the same way he’d hidden much of himself from her, he was just too blind, too cocksure and conceited, to realize it. He vows to change that, though figuring out where to start is a bit of a stumbling block.

Thancred knows she has her bad days, too, and he works to notice them and help, just as she did for him. Gwen is more dejected and gray than him on her bad days, but he lets it all roll off him just as she let his bad attitude roll off her, and drags her out of bed.

When she smiles for him it looks...different than it used to, somehow. Warmer, calmer, like something had been teetering, balanced so precariously in her head, behind her eyes, and when Thancred is finally himself again it comes to rest, stable and secure.

As things get better, as Thancred becomes himself again, they settle into an easy and comfortable relationship that they put a modicum of effort into keeping secret. It’s closer and steadier and more assured than whatever they had before the banquet, before everything cracked and fell apart and they had to glue it all back together with some of the pieces missing. 

It’s not too dissimilar at the basest elements, spending time together, talking, intimacy, but it’s malms above the casual, longterm fling they used to have.

They still trade quiet words, share their time, exchange little gestures and gifts, they confide and listen and understand, but there’s something more there now, too. Something with enough weight to stick around. Something that matters. They know one another better, have seen the harder, sharper sides, and they’re both still there. He likes this more, too. Though it comes with more responsibilities and more mutual trust that he has to work to be comfortable with. 

And with all that comes... something else, something deeper that he shies away from every time it starts to swell in his chest, doing his best not to think about it too much.

Time passes. It always does. On the whole, days get easier. One step at a time, sometimes bigger steps, sometimes smaller, one day at a time, as Minfilia would have.

Thancred doesn’t say so aloud, sometimes worried whether or not all this progress, this return to normalcy for himself and the others, is really true, or if he’s just having a good few days. A good week. A  good moon.

But he knows. 

He finds his way back to being himself again.

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:D....?

Yyyeaaahhhhhh.... Some IRL friends are going through some shite and I’m helping them deal with it, and it’s a lot, SO I TURNED IT INTO WRITING because I needed to make space in my head. TL;DR I feel better now.

I feel like both Thancred’s recovery after Lahabrea and how he copes after Bowl of Embers aren’t super covered? Maybe the latter a bit, judging by how he reacts to you if you walk to him between/during MSQ. I don’t remember well e_e haven’t played that part in a while.

Extra credit day weeeeee

#WriteFFXIV2019 #Thancred Waters #Extra credit #Gwencred #Guinevere Ashe #depression #working through it #something is better than nothing #anything worth doing is worth doing poorly #recovery #growing #it gets better #lending a hand #growing closer #helping friends irl with similar stuff #been through a bit myself #its tiring #but it does get easier #vague venting via writing #my writing