tampered | Log; Complete

Log; Complete

When; Feb. 2 (night)
Rating; PG-13 (language and bloods)
Characters; Boy Blue

playstheblues, the Corinthian

bitingnightmare
Summary; The bluebird gets stood up by a nightmare who's down for the count.
Log;

That was the Corinthian's mistake. He'd managed to stumble back to the studio, where he wouldn't be found by anyone save for a single individual, but that golden boy had a gig tonight. He was sure that Blue was none the wiser about his injuries, and he was sure he could fix it before Lux's opening. The nightmare had been dead wrong. Not long after he'd promised to meet Blue at the piano bar he'd taken to lying down on the (immaculately clean) floor. It wasn't a matter of strength, Cori had a lot of that, Cori had a lot of will, but his corporeal form was rebelling against him. The burn to his side, the patch of glass covering his ribs, had reached his liver, damaging it beyond medical repair. He couldn't die from it, hardly, but he couldn't function with it either.

The Corinthian cursed Tony Foster's name, not for the powershot or the patches of glass on his hand and face, or even for the reaction to October. He cursed his name for delaying his date with Blue, then closed his eyes.

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He was searching.

Eleven, break between his sets, and Cori still wasn't there. Cori was still missing. Where did the nightmare go? He only ran through the streets for a moment before taking wing. He covered more space as a bird - in this case, an owl, to see in the dark - but what if the nightmare was inside?

He banked and swooped not seeing him on the way from Lux to the studio, and he swept in there, his wings transforming into fingers, his hands opening the window that he usually came in through.

He leaned in, legs first, worried, at first glance not seeing the nightmare anywhere. He was about to take flight again when white movement alerted him to the prone shape on the floor, the shape that he he would know even asleep.

"Cori," he said softly once, then moved to his side with an economy of motion that made him almost famous. "Cori. Cori, what happened?" He pressed his hands against the nightmare, but he didn't know what he was looking for.

The nightmare opened his eyes a sliver. What time was it? He could tell it was night now, the studio dark save for the moon outside. His side ached at the barest hint of movement, flesh stiffened from the burn. Blue was here, Cori knew that voice anywhere. He wished he didn't have to see him so incapacitated, but the Corinthian had no way of fighting him off.

"Hnn... shi--"

Bile leaked from the corner of his mouth after his attempt at speech. His internal system was reacting to the liver damage.

Blue was never one for the crying and the gnashing of teeth - he was far too practical a soul for that. That sort of thing wasted time - time that they didn't have, in Blue's narrow opinion.

He pulled the nightmare into his lap and didn't gasp at the glassiness - someone had burned him.

"How do I fix this?" He asked seriously, thinking if he had anything in his cloak, anything that might help, but nothing came to mind.

Cori was incapable of protest and found himself pulled into Blue's lap without issue. He wiped the foul taste on his lips with the back of his good hand.

What could he tell Blue? Dream knew how to fix this, his lord and master, his creator could always fix this, but the Corinthian didn't have the nerve to call on him. He didn't want his ruler, his king, the Endless who placed an amount of confidence and responsibility in him, to have to mend this. What had John done last time? The nightmare remembered gouging the glass from his own flesh and replacing it with ocean sand, letting it mold to his body. There was irony in that method: it didn't work for severed appendages.

"Sand..." he grunted.

He pulled himself closer, and then there they were, on sand, on the beach. Blue watched the nightmare's face and remembered an old rhyme, one never uttered, something about sand and dreams, and then another one, more modern, which he said out loud.

"The Sandman's coming in his train of cars
With moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars
So hush you little ones and have no fear
The man-in-the-moon he is the engineer

The railroad track tis a moonbeam bright
That leads right up into the starry night

So put on you 'jamas and say your prayers"

It was silly. Rhymes and stories, those could help Fables, but not Cori. He thought. Cori was made of sand, sand, all around them, sand.

He pulled out his dagger, cold from the night and touched one of the glassy areas, gentle, not too deep, then filling the hole with sand.

"Cori...will this work...."

He had to strut around in that witching cloak didn't he? Teeth eyes narrowed again though Cori felt incapable of fully opening them anyway. He didn't need to see the sand, he could hear the ocean and smelled its salt on the air. The nightmare was born in two places; on the shores of the Sea of Night and in the heat of War. With Blue here, he had both so to speak.

Hearing the words and the voice that uttered them comforted the Corinthian moreso than any magic. He managed to tug on Blue's sleeve.

Cut it out, his teeth eyes rasped, undamaged and unaffected by his internal trauma. He didn't mean for the golden boy to cease and desist either. That dagger would have to dig deeper. He winced from the pain, from the saltwater soaked gravel that scraped his raw flesh.

Blue nodded, taking his dagger and wedging it under the glass, the hands that were so forceful with a sword and soft with his trumpet doing the delicate work quickly, efficiently. He sang softly while he worked, old lullabies came to him, his voice husky, almost afraid.

"Sleep my child and peace attend thee,
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping
I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the nyght

Angels watching, e'er around thee,
All through the nyght
Midnight slumber close surround thee,
All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping
I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the nyght"

He poured where he could, working fast, sandy grit under his fingernails. He didn't care.

His blood dripped down the soft packed sand now, flowing from the wounds made by Blue's dagger. The glass lifted painfully, torn from his body like rotted meat. He still had nerve endings where his skin became hard, and breaking it there made the Corinthian squeeze his eyes shut. The sand offered no relief, the salt only making it worse as the magic in his corporeal form slowly absorbed it into new flesh. It was a slow process, successful but slow.

My face, Cori hissed, knowing they'd have to take care of it after repairing the major damage, but it was still his face. The image that made him sort of a human man.

Dream could have made it painless, if he wanted his nightmare to go unpunished for the confrontation in Xanadu. That was the other reason he didn't contact his master, his judge.

Blue didn't pause. He finished on the major wounds, then leaned down to cup his face. "It'll be okay," he said softly, putting his dagger away and taking out his silver hand knife, barely longer than the palm of his hand but sharp.

He took his belt off and sliced it, putting wedges of leather between Cori's teeth - all three sets - and starting carefully on the glassed cheek, cutting delicately against the edge of the glass, refilling it with sand, still singing.

He wouldn't stop unless Cori asked him to. It helped him focus - music always did.

He needed that so badly. He could hide his pain, keep it tied up inside himself because monsters, phantoms, and nightmares didn't show pain. It meant weakness. Psychologically Cori still considered himself a phantasm first, a sentient being second. His teeth clenched on the leather, stifling the growl he uttered when Blue cut the glass out of his cheek. The burn as the sand settled felt just as strong as the fire that caused his wounds in the first place. There was a sting at the corners of his teeth eyes and the first signs of actual tears, purely reactionary. Steam rose from the sealed patches, like warm raw flesh exposed to the cold, and then each grain became skin.

It wouldn't matter - Blue wouldn't notice, not once, not ever. He had seen nightmares die in the Homelands, he knew that Cori's pride afforded him more than he could understand.

He sat back on his heels, Cori's head still in his lap as he look the wedges out of his mouths. "There."

He watched as the nightmare healed, sat there in silence a long time, not caring how long it took. He waited.

The Corinthian stayed that way for a long time, curled against Boy Blue, his head in his lap, all his mouths shut. His expression was tired and frustrated, displeased by the events of the day without knowing how to even approach an explanation. The golden boy had come to his aid, even after Cori had broken his promise to attend his performance. All over one fucking night in October.

He curled up tighter, eyes remaining closed.

"I screwed up."

Blue would never abandon the nightmare - broken promise or not. Sometimes people couldn't follow through with their promises, and the trumpeteer understood that lying prone on the floor wasn't a reason to be angry.

"How?" he asked, knowing that the story of what had happened would come out.

His arms circled around Blue's waist so his nose could brush against the younger man's stomach. Still his eyes remained shut.

"I got into a fight with Foster," Cori admitted coolly. Blue didn't like lying and the nightmare didn't like lying to him beyond a good natured joke.

He touched the nightmare softly, petting his hair. He hated being lied to, and he believed the nightmare now. There was no reason to lie about something like that.

"Why?" he asked softly, genuinely wondering. He didn't let any judgment slip into his voice.

"... I wanted to help," his eyes opened slightly, brow furrowed.

It was true, that had been his intention, even if executed in his characteristically caustic manner. The nightmare in all honesty had wanted to encourage truth between a friend and one that friend held close to him. Lee helped him to realize what he felt for Blue, after all. Cori's attempt at reciprocation was shit, and his timing even shittier.

"It was a job well fucked," he muttered into Blue's clothes. The fact of the matter was... he had wanted that confrontation so badly, back in October.

Blue wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but he didn't like that Tony had hurt Cori, not when he never felt violence was the first step in resolving anything. But Cori's vagueness was bothering him.

He leaned down and pressed a kiss against the nightmare's whole skin, over one eye.

"Tell me what happened, Cori. Please."

Cori held Blue to him, encouraged by the kiss and also humbled by it. He was a good musician, a good soldier, and his golden boy. He turned his face downward, to partially hide his expression, so he wouldn't have to see Blue's.

"I fucked Lee, Blue, back in October. He wasn't doing too well with Tony, so I took advantage of it. I wanted it."

Blue did the math in his head, added the dates. John left. Cori had been alone. Did that make it okay? Probably not. The young-seeming fable's moral compass has always been head on direct. But it took two people to fuck, to sleep together, unless rape was involved, and from the sound of it, there wasn't.

Besides, it wasn't Blue's place to judge, or to be jealous, and he wasn't. He had been on the Farm back then, not even remotely aware of this place.

"How did he find out?" Blue asked, his fingers still on the nightmare's cheek, stroking slightly.

"Lee told him. It was my idea," the idiot. It took two to make a retarded decision like that one too, even if Cori still felt the truth was better than nothing at all. But he was above taking Lee down with him, it seemed like the actor had already hit rock bottom anyway. The nightmare had it coming, but the confrontation he had craved from the very beginning came a few months too late. He didn't protest the touch to his cheek.

Blue nodded, even though Cori couldn't see him.

"You're right. He probably shouldn't have done it, but he should have told him earlier. After it happened." He touched the nightmare again, his fingers cold and dry. "Cori."

He said the other man's name, and then whispered, "Will you look at me? Please?"

"I wanted Tony to blow a fucking gasket," he muttered, admitting to his old intentions. They were gone now, but Cori had initiated that night, he enabled it out of carelessness for himself and others, and the Corinthian never forgot. "He finally did it," he added with a slight hint of bitter humor.

The nightmare shifted, to look at the blond in his vibrant blue eyes.

Blue had never been afraid of Cori's eyes, and he certainly wasn't going to start shying away from looking at them tonight. He kept his gaze on them and smiled. "You're an idiot."

He leaned down and gave him a kiss. "A huge idiot. Do you want me to talk to Tony?"

He recalled Tony's words: If I fuck Blue, are you gonna shrug that off?

All that really came to mind now was his assured thought that he could shrug it off if Blue was on top. Even in tougher times the Corinthian's humor was in bad taste. It simply proved the musician's statement. He pursed his lips when theirs met.

"Thanks," Cori huffed, "I don't know."

Blue wouldn't ever have sex with anyone else as long as he was in a relationship - that was a given. He didn't want anyone else. Although if questioned he could admit who he thought was cute.

He pressed his fingers against Cori's hair. "Do you want to go home, or stay here?"

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Log; Complete

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