Nobody Got You The Way I Do

Nobody Got You the Way I Do

Chapter 1: I Will Carry You Home

AO3

Summary: 5 times Corvus tells Soren "I got you." 1 time Soren tells Corvus "I got you."

Note: If you follow me (or just keep up with Sorvus), you may have seen many posts of mine after season 7 about the "I got you" scene. Well, I came up with this idea and decided to make it into an actual fic. Enjoy!

...

Soren had been challenging Corvus to all sorts of weird activities for a few days. Corvus wasn’t sure if there was a reason, or if it was just Soren being Soren. Or if Soren was just trying to distract himself from… well, everything.

Sure, they’d known each other since childhood, but that didn’t mean they’d known each other well. But Corvus was observant enough to know that Soren wasn’t doing half as well as he wanted everyone to believe he was. So, Corvus went along with his schemes, hoping it would bring a smile to Soren’s face.

Soren’s current choice of competition was a race across the field outside of the city that Corvus had wandered to. Soren had somehow followed, trailing behind him like a lost puppy. Corvus didn’t have the heart to tell Soren he’d wanted to be alone. But shockingly, Soren’s company wasn’t as grating as Corvus feared it would be. He actually found himself enjoying it.

Corvus sighed. “Fine. Where do you want to race to?”

Soren looked around them, bouncing on his feet. Even in a full suit of armor, Soren was somehow light on his toes - as Corvus had found out firsthand every time he’d attempted to escape Soren and Claudia and failed. That felt like a lifetime ago, now.

“There!” Soren said excitedly, pointing to a tree across the way. “There and back. Sound good?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really,” Soren said with a grin as he prepared for their run. He stretched his arms across his chest and kicked his knees up. “Okay, go!”

Corvus followed behind him at a distance, used to endurance running more than… whatever this was. Soren turned around, running backwards. “C’mon, slowpoke! I know you can do better than that.”

Corvus focused on his breathing. “Don’t care.”

Soren rolled his eyes, still jogging backwards. Now he’s just showing off, Corvus thought. “Yes, you do. I’ve seen the look on your face when you beat me.”

Corvus did like winning, he just didn’t care in the same way Soren seemed to. So Corvus was fine letting Soren win most of these competitions. The smile it brought to Soren’s face was worth the blow to Corvus’s ego and competitive nature.

“Fine,” Corvus said as he sped up, catching up to Soren and running beside him. How had Soren still been winning even when going backwards?

“That’s more like it! Now -”

“Soren, watch out!” Corvus exclaimed. He’d noticed it a moment too late: a foot sized hole in the ground. He cursed, wishing he’d been paying less attention to Soren’s antics and more to their surroundings.

Soren’s eyes widened almost comically as his left foot landed in the hole. He started falling backward, arms windmilling.

Corvus reacted before his mind could catch up. He reached out a hand, catching Soren’s arm and pulling him upright, his other hand landing on Soren’s shoulder. They ended up face to face, almost nose to nose. Corvus could feel Soren’s sharp bursts of breath across his face.

“I got you.”

Soren’s eyes remained wide, but this time in… awe?

“You caught me.”

“Well, yeah, that too.”

“No, but like… you didn’t let me fall. As a lesson or something. Trying to teach me to not be so…” he waved his hand. “Soren-y.”

Corvus’s face twisted as he backed up once he was certain that Soren could stay up on his own, even with his foot in the hole. Their proximity was making him feel… weird. But he didn’t let go of Soren. “Of course not. Who would do something like that?”

Soren’s face darkened. “My father.”

“Oh,” Corvus exhaled. Corvus hated to speak ill of the dead, but everything he learned about Viren really made him hate him even more. “Well, as long as I’m around, I’ll catch you when you fall. I promise. Okay?”

Soren nodded, still looking at Corvus with reverence. “Okay.”

“And let the record show, I like your Soren-ness just the way it is,” Corvus added as he released Soren and kneeled down to take a look at Soren’s trapped foot. He needed to get away from Soren’s amazed eyes immediately or he might do something he regretted.

Since Corvus looked away, he missed how Soren’s face and neck turned a bright red at those words.

…

Soren watched as Corvus felt around the hole. “Whatcha doing?”

“Checking to make sure that this dirt is packed tightly. If it’s a collapsing animal tunnel or something, we don’t want to get you out of there and then have a bigger hole to deal with getting out of.” Corvus poked and prodded a bit more. “But I think we’re good to go. Put your weight on your other foot.”

Soren nodded, prepping for Corvus to free his boot.

Moments later, Soren grinned and flexed his now free foot. However, he wasn’t prepared for the jolt of pain that would run up his leg as he put weight on it, causing him to try and lose his balance yet again. Corvus quickly popped up to help hold Soren upright. 

“Ow,” Soren pouted, putting an arm around Corvus’s shoulders to help bear some of the weight. “I think I twisted it.”

“You’re lucky that’s all you did, show-off. Do you think you can walk?”

Soren took a tentative step - and his knee almost buckled. “Mm, that’s gonna be a ‘not really, especially if I want to work the rest of the week and not injure it further.’ But it’s fine, you can head back to the castle and send somebody out for me.”

“Soren,” Corvus said exasperatedly. “I’m not leaving you.”

Soren’s heart fluttered. He shouldn’t read into that, but he wanted to. “Okay. Then how do you propose we make it home?”

Corvus didn’t react negatively to his use of “home” to describe the castle, which gave Soren hope that he’d say yes to joining the Crownguard and staying in Katolis - staying with Soren - when Soren finally worked up the nerve to ask.

“I think I can carry you, at least for a little bit. Would that be okay with you?”

Soren’s mouth went dry and he cleared his throat. “Uhm. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds…” he couldn’t say great, even though it did sound great and had his heart doing jumping jacks in his chest. “Agreeable.”

Corvus gave him a funny look, but shrugged off Soren’s odd response.

Corvus got down onto one knee in front of him (Calm down, Soren told his rapidly beating heart, he’s not even facing me.), preparing to give Soren a piggyback ride. “Okay. Hop on.”

...

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! My plan is to upload a new chapter every other week because I don’t have all of them finished quite yet, haha. If I finish them all, I may update more frequently. We shall see!

You also may remember I made this post. So, I had to complete the piggyback set myself.