Puel, Wrongsexual (puella_nerdii) wrote in kinkfest, @ 2007-09-04 22:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | a: puella_nerdii, f: final fantasy xii, p: ffamran/gabranth, september 03 |
Clever Hands, Idle Thoughts (Final Fantasy XII, Gabranth/Ffamran)
Title: Clever Hands, Idle Thoughts
Author: puella_nerdii
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: A bit of an age gap.
Wordcount: 2,009
Prompt: Experience difference - "a clever boy, but an untried one."
Of all the weapons whose use he is expected to know, Ffamran likes the feel of the Altair best. He’s clever with his hands, or so he used to tell himself after he’d finished adjusting the circuits monitoring the output of the Leviathan’s primary engines, or whatever other task his father might have elected to set before him. He saw the sprawling blueprints arranged in his father’s office and spent many a long and bleary-eyed night trying to reproduce their intricacies, his fingertips singed by the heat rising from a welding tool as tiny chips of magicite glowed within the shrunken engines of his models. He fell asleep with his cheek plastered to the blueprints and his glasses askew; when he woke, his nostrils twitched at the thick odor of ammonia assailing them.
But he stopped waiting for his father’s appreciation years ago, when the venerable Doctor Cid obtained new offices in the Draklor Laboratory, ones smelling of Mist and metal, not leather and old paper. Fframran’s nose protested the change, and the rest of his body voiced its agreement. And in the Academy, his fingers have no outlet for their cleverness; they lock his hands in stiff steel and watch him trudge under the burden of full plate. Stripped of his speed—you try ducking and weaving with great iron slabs belted to your limbs and see how long you remain standing, he thinks—he’s an easy target for the other trainees, many of whom seem muscled like behemoths and reek nearly as bad as those hairy beasts must have, especially after a long day’s training.
Ffamran never knew one person could collect so many bruises. He’s taken to calling them his “badges of honor” in his letters home to his father. Collected three badges of honor from Judge Pascal this morning for my performance in the dawn’s exercises. Received a great golden badge of honor from Judge Rinhardt—I display it proudly on my chest. Given a smaller badge of honor by Judge-in-Training Vanis as a token of my peers’ love and esteem.
He doubts his father reads his letters, but he sends one at the end of each week and doesn’t bother to check his post in the interim. He experiments with the closing salutation. Yours, Ffamran. Your loving son, Judge Ffamran. Yours in duty, Judge-in-Training Bunansa. Your own bloody son’s writing you this letter and does so apologize for interrupting your work but he’d like some acknowledgement that you haven’t locked yourself in your offices and starved to death—and his name is Ffamran, in case you’ve forgotten, which seems a distinct possibility.
He’s never put the last one in writing, but he’s been tempted.
So he goes to sleep at the Academy tired and sore, and learns to affect an air of worldliness after he takes to skipping evening magickal training in order to explore the streets of Archades. In Nilbasse, nobody thinks to be deferential, but nobody barks orders at him, either, with the exception of the occasional street vendor trying to clear the path so he can maneuver his wares through the teeming throng. There’s a heart beneath Archades, though the nobles in Highgarden Terrace are too far removed from the source to hear it pulsing. They prefer everything bloodless, but Archades is pink and glowing, from the walls of a magickery to the cheeks of a young girl running from her nurse to the color leaking into the sky as the sun sets.
He’s not the first Judge to forsake the company of his peers for a night at the theatre—or so he discovers when he first chances on Gabranth at the playhouse in Nilbasse.
The troupe performs The Sorrow of Alyse tonight, based on the old Valendian legend of the same name. The audience shifts forward in their seats not because they wonder how it will end but because they’re counting down to the moment when Lady Alyse pierces the heart of the wight who was once her princely lover Devin, at the very instant when his black blade sinks into her gut. And thus the lovers perish, joined together by steel. It’s never been his favorite legend—he prefers the tales of Triskai the Wanderer—but the story’s ably performed, the actress playing Alyse has a lovely sonorous voice, and the Archadian ladies clutch at their handkerchiefs at the appropriate parts.
Gabranth, sitting two rows down and three seats to the right of Ffamran, has no flimsy scrap of fabric in his fist, but his expression…without a helm to mask his features, he sees Gabranth’s eyes glisten, sees the color draining from his parted lips. He puts the performance aside and watches Gabranth instead.
He knows the man, of course. Most Judges are reasonably familiar with one another, and Gabranth is an outsider. A Landiser. In dark-haired Archades, his blond locks stand out, even when he hides them beneath his helm. Ffamran had—well, not sought him out, not exactly, but he’d watched the man when he could. Might one ichthon out of water have sympathy for another in the same plight? But no, Gabranth keeps to himself when he isn’t in Judge Magister Drace’s company (and that arrangement sets many a tongue wagging: the outlander and the woman! What a spectacle).
He hadn’t known of Gabranth’s fondness for the theatre. When Lady Alyse lifts the visor of her lord’s rusted helm and touches his withered cheek, the muscles in Gabranth’s throat work soundlessly. And when the two of them begin their theatrical descents to the ground, his fist covers his mouth. Ffamran catches the quick downward jerk of his gaze. When the actors take their bows, he applauds them dutifully, but when Gabranth makes for the door as soon as the house crystals begin to shed light on the audience once more, Ffamran follows him.
Of course, he can’t follow anyone without making far more noise than anyone intent on remaining unheard strictly should; he loses sight of Gabranth as he tries to navigate the alleys of Nilbasse only to find a firm hand clamping down on his shoulder and pulling him into one of the district’s many nooks. “You’d best find another purse to steal,” Gabranth says in his ear. “Better yet—” He presses his thumb into the base of Ffamran’s neck—which is one advantage of full plate, Ffamran realizes as he hisses; gorgets block this sort of move most effectively. “Go home,” Gabranth continues. “Return to your family. You have one, I hope.”
“Loosely speaking. He’s not much of a father.” Ffamran twists in Gabranth’s grasp and prays that his features are recognizable enough. “I’m not a pickpocket or a cutpurse, though I’m sure Archadia’s enemies account me as such, and worse besides.”
“Judge-in-Training Bunansa,” Gabranth says after a moment’s study. “Doctor Cid’s son.”
He winces. “Ffamran is fine, if you don’t mind.”
“What are you doing in Nilbasse?”
“I might ask you the same.”
“I am not shirking my training,” Gabranth replies. “As you appear to be.”
“I needed air,” he says. “It’s in short supply at the Academy.”
“Are you hoping to be expelled?” Gabranth asks, but there’s no chastisement in his tone, only curiosity.
“My heart wouldn’t break if I was,” Ffamran says. “But I know I won’t be.” His Judgeship was an imperial gift, and returning those tends to be more trouble than it’s worth.
Gabranth’s hand remains on his shoulder. “You were at the theatre.”
“Yes.”
“Did you follow me there?”
“No,” he says truthfully. “I came for Kait Tyral, not you.”
“She was Alyse,” Gabranth murmurs. His hand is rather warm, Ffamran realizes as his skin beneath Gabranth’s fingers starts to tingle. “She was talented.”
“I never took you for a man who liked the theatre,” Ffamran says, tilting his chin up to look at Gabranth. The cracked crystals set along the alleyway still give off enough light for his fair hair to shine in the darkness. His features seem ringed in a soft silver glow. Spotlighted, Ffamran decides. That’s what he is. No wonder his eyes are drawn to Gabranth as metal filings to a magnet.
“Judge Magister Drace recommended the play to me,” he says, hesitating. “I have always been fond of the legend of Alyse.”
A cab streaks overhead, leaving a bright blue trail in the blanket of night.
“You’re close to her,” Ffamran says.
“You’re impertinent,” Gabranth responds, his lips thinning.
“I meant nothing by it,” he hastens to reassure him. “Merely that…” But he trails off, unsure of what to say. Why did he say it? He always feels the need to say something; it’s a cursed tendency of his, and one he’s utterly unable to control.
“You should return to the Academy,” Gabranth says, removing his hand from Ffamran’s shoulder. His skin still bears the imprints of Gabranth’s grip, though, and he rubs the indentations—they still burn when he touches them, and his neck is still flushed.
“No, I—I watched you,” he finally blurts out, his mind relinquishing any hold it might have had on his tongue. “At the performance. I didn’t intend to, but I saw you, and…” And you were beautiful seems a foolish thing to say, even if it is true, so he chooses the next best statement. “I was entranced.”
“Entranced,” Gabranth says slowly. “I never thought I held that power.”
Ffamran looks at the pink of his lips, gleaming with the faintest hit of wetness, and feels his own mouth run dry. Gabranth’s cheek is close enough to touch, and he reaches out to do just that; his fingers no longer feel deft but clumsy, far too clumsy, as they tremble along the line of his jaw. He tries to picture himself as Triskai the Wanderer, but Triskai would never shake before stealing a kiss, and Triskai could think of more clever phrases than “you were beautiful” and “I was entranced.” Gabranth stares at him, a question written on his features and punctuated by a raised eyebrow. But he makes no move to push Ffamran’s hand aside, and that heartens him enough to lean forward and raise his lips to Gabranth’s; Ffamran hesitates there, feeling the heat of Gabranth’s breath teasing his skin, and then seals the distance between them. Their noses collide, which is entirely Ffamran’s fault—so much for his nimbleness—but he twists his head to the side and corrects the problem. He draws in the scent of Gabranth’s hair, soap and some sort of earthy spice, and reaches for his neck to pull him in closer, to force Gabranth’s lips to play a more active role. And then they do, because he passes his tongue between Ffamran’s teeth and—he’s kissed before, of course, he’s not that unseasoned, but the kisses stolen from maids and fellow trainees never burned him like this, never lit a fire straight down his spine.
His back touches the wall, and now Gabranth’s hand is on the back of his head, pulling his hair back so he can run his teeth along the line of Ffamran’s jaw and bite down at just the right spot. He passes his tongue and teeth over the area again and again, sucking, nipping, making every muscle in Ffamran’s body tremble from the heat of Gabranth’s mouth. Ah. Perfect.
Gabranth draws away too soon; Ffamran tries to grab his wrist, but he pulls it back. “It would be best if we were to continue this elsewhere,” he says. “If you—”
“Gods, yes,” Ffamran breathes as soon as he’s gathered up enough of his wits to speak.
“My quarters are not far, if we take a cab,” he offers.
“Better yours than mine.” Ffamran runs his fingers through his hair and tries to look less debauched. “Will you help me make my excuses to the Academy?”
“I suppose I must,” Gabranth says, a slight smile marking the corner of his lips.
Ffamran reaches for Gabranth again, and finds less resistance this time. “I’ll claim we were seduced by Archades herself.”