NOT FOR THE GLORY // DOUBLE-JOINING

[SILVER]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;"]Really, they should have expected this kind of shit from the start. Maybe they had. The rare situations where they fought in sync tended to ended well, but Silver could blame himself for that being rather infrequent. However harshly he may word it, Baby wasn't wrong to say that it was his own damn fault. Not even a lifetime of training could fully prepare him for letting someone have everything, and his adjustment — or lack of it — had screwed them over from before they could try. It was a tear at the very beginning, where they should have been growing together, and now whatever issues come afterwards stem from that single mistake. Baby's impatience doesn't really urge him towards taking the same leap he had, but there's still some knot in his stomach over it. It was a show of faith, the whole bond thing, and Baby had taken it in stride, but Silver — just hadn't. Where metal had wrapped around the other lion in moments, it crept up on him slowly.

He'd wake up to the streak following his throat having inched closer to his jaw, or to his paw making the strangest creaking noise, even when it was the only one still completely flesh and bone. It wasn't too different from normal. He still felt pain, he still got hungry, still felt his lungs expand in his chest. It's just cold now, piece by piece.

That's part of the reason he worries after Baby's injuries like he does. However much they may look like it, they're not robots. He has a history, a childhood, a pain threshold. A rather high one, but Silver can still feel slivers of pain through their bond, like shattered glass is clogging up their thoughts. His own injuries feel like thorns in comparison, a few slices cutting through ebony and white. The red that stains metal doesn't come from those areas, thankfully or not, but it still stands out sharply on cold steel. Baby kept his color when he gave himself up, a rainbow of in-your-face himself. Silver hadn't. His already dark, simplistic coloration was slowly bleeding away to cool grey, and he knows that Baby can see it taking over, stretching from his spine and hips. Always forward and always up. It sounds silly, but his heart makes all sorts of anxious noises, clamoring over what if when he thinks about it finally reaching his eyes.

He asks if he's alright more as a formality, which is quite clearly a mistake. As soon as Baby's weight disappears from his shoulder, the larger lion is fighting a sigh, blinking coolly at him as he stumbles off. What had faded to a manageable yet sharp throb of shared pain skyrocketed, his own heart rate speeding up with something more than sympathy. Silver's teeth grit at the same moment as Baby's, frozen in the spot as a flash fire of agony shoots through his veins. His breath caught in his throat, strangled tight with an urge to shout out. Their bond was a comfort, sure, but when they got like this it just ended up as a feedback loop of bad things. With a short, displeased hiss, he makes up for the few short strides that the other had covered and nudges him back towards his own shoulder. The gesture is rougher than it is kind, but if Baby can make sense of anything beyond the chorus of his own pains, he'll still feel the worry in it. "We're not doing this today," he snaps. "You're going to get yourself killed."

edit: missed a word lmao