sarasa_cat (sarasa_cat) wrote in kinkfest, @ 2008-07-07 16:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | a: sarasa_cat, c: final fantasy x/final fantasy xii, july 07, p: auron/basch |
La Petite Mort (Crossover, Final Fantasy X/Final Fantasy XII, Auron/Basch, R, NWS)
Title: La Petite Mort
Author: sarasa_cat
Characters: Basch/Auron, Wakka
Rating: Hard R (NWS at end of story)
Word count: 2050
Summary: This was Basch’s dream … and with Auron, it was inevitable.
Prompt: July 7: Crossover: Final Fantasy XII/Final Fantasy X - Basch/Auron - easy - neither of them need to tell his story when both look like this.
A/N: Wakka invited himself along on this one otherwise this story would be devoid of dialog. It was never meant for Basch & Auron to speak, as they weren’t interested in anything more than a quiet masturbatory experience than quietly getting right to the point. Wakka ended up as the unassuming matchmaker… My apologies to FFX fans for Basch’s biases. He means well but he’s the one who chose to narrate. (Take issue with Basch’s cynicism, not your humble author.).
La Petite Mort
He wasn’t sure how he had gotten there, but a team of men had found him while they were practicing for a sporting event. Their captain was kind man who was friendly and matter of fact. Basch stifled his urge to laugh when this man named Wakka introduced himself as a Captain. What kind of paradise is this where a Captain leads men in a bloodless game of sport rather than an endless series of battles that decide the fate of their men’s lives at the point of sword? But, once the villagers spoke with him and gave him food and drink, Basch learned that he had traveled from one hell to another. Yet this hell seemed prettier to his eye while darker to his touch, as if all the world around him had been made more simple and plain so that this time he would make no mistakes.
As the people talked and Basch pictured in his mind what they said, he could see bright light shining out all that was good and nothing but darkness devouring the hearts of all who had succumbed to betrayal. “But isn’t it plain before your eyes?” Basch asked.
His hosts stared at him as if he were mad, a man touched with insanity. All except for one, one who stood back at a distance: a man dressed in a long red cloak.
“It’s just the toxins.” Wakka covered for Basch’s faux pas before turning to him and putting his hand upon Basch's shoulder. “Are you feeling okay?” Despite his broad frame and bulky stature, Wakka’s words carried the honest concern of child. Basch couldn’t help but to trust him and know that he would not be betrayed.
“My thanks for your concerns. I’m fine.” Basch pushed himself up to stand. Before he could pull himself up to his full height, his vision narrowed and the world went black.
+++++
“You fainted. Seems your legs are still weak, brudda.” Wakka hovered over him, holding a glass of water. “And it looks like your arrival caused some excitement. The legendary guardian wants to see you but I told him to wait until you’re feeling better.”
“The legendary guardian…” Basch’s words were mumbled, barely audible. The bed springs creaked as Basch pushed himself up, still dizzy and ill. He leaned forward, shoulders slouching and his elbows upon his knees. His muscles ached down to the bone and his stomach had been replaced with a hollow pit.
“That’s Sir Auron, the legendary guardian. He wants to ask you something.”
Basch took the glass of water from Wakka as he peered around the large man’s shoulders to study the samuri dressed in red, quietly standing in the other room. “That’s the legendary guardian?” Basch whispered.
“Yeah, that’s what they call him. He defeated Sin, you know. Defeated Sin. That makes him a legend.”
“He defeated man’s capacity for sin? I wonder… is such a thing possible?”
“Yeah… Well, he wants to talk to you…” Wakka wore his concern as plain and clear as the pattern on a tropically colored garment. “You get some sleep, yeah? Talk to him later. I think Sin’s toxins are still messin’ you up. You need to rest.” Wakka’s heavy hands made it clear to Basch that he was expected to lie down under a light cotton coverlet.
Wakka was a good man, no doubt. Basch liked his plainness. But this man named Sir Auron who was hovering near the door had captured the fullness of Basch’s attention.
Auron was the answer.
Basch was sure of this as he lay on his side and watched the silent swordsman carry himself with a familiar strong stance. Just by the way Auron stood, Basch knew deep within his bones what it would feel like to walk in Auron’s boots. This man knew what it meant to sacrifice himself and to always feel the pull of duty. This man also knew — Basch realized that this was the key observation as he thought it — this man knew how to resign himself from speech when no one else wished to hear what he had to say. This man knew how to bottle his painful lessons of experience when he could do little more than watch as the young learned — failed to learn — larger truths on their own. No matter what mistakes the young would make, even those that led to their deaths, at least it was their own choice that had been made, and that was something Basch had said to himself countless times before, not that it made the guilt of watching while knowing any easier. Auron understood this. Just by looking at him, Basch could tell.
They needn’t exchange a word for Basch to also know that this man knew what Basch knows. The samurai dressed in red appeared before him as a strange and surreal photo negative snapped from Fate’s camera: dark hair, not light; vertical scar through the right eye, not horizontal above the left; prematurely graying and aged, not boyish faced as to remind him of what he still has failed to do; overlarge red cloak, not a red vest two sizes too small; sword arm slung in his robe which Basch had heard signaled the loss of Auron’s master, not sword arm hanging free with skin bared to show all of the world the shame that had stained Basch’s honor, the sins that he wore as plain as day for those who chose to look through the surface of his skin to see who he truly was. He was no hero.
And that was their one difference: this man has defeated sin and all of Spira speaks of it.
+++++
It would take a few weeks — or was it days? hours? minutes? — before they came together during the darkness of night. After a bath in the open air, the pool of a hot spring steaming their bones free from the ache of life lost, it was then that it became clear to Basch that they both understood where they were going while they walked with each other in silence back to the inn.
For all of the days and nights that they had stood together, swords in hand while Yuna walked innocently toward the inevitable, Basch knew that Auron knew Basch had walked this path before. Yuna called it a pilgrimage. Yes, perhaps that it could be called that and a pilgrimage is what it had been all along, what Basch had left behind — had he left it? — in another world more tarnished, more real, less easily understood.
Following along with similar innocence as Yuna, Tidus meant well, of course, and in this dreamlike world of bright colors and dark nights, that young man might even receive a moment of luck for his boyish infatuation. Ah, but no, in this world they would call it true love. If only such things were true and if only Basch didn’t find himself wracked with worries and doubts over the fate of his royal charge and what she asked of him. No, that was in Ivalice, not Spira, not here in his journey through a colorful dream where his sin could be eradicated.
Basch nodded at Lulu as he walked past her, already knowing how to make sure he looked politely at her eyes and not at the exposed patches of flesh on her thighs much less the inviting expanse of her chest. Nonetheless, he was certain he had caught a peeking glimpse of the rouge of the skin around her nipples, just above the line of her furs. Or had his mind played a trick on him? He looked again and saw nothing but pale flesh.
Although painted distant and stoic, Lulu nonetheless displayed patience with the thin-limbed frenetic girl who helped repair one of Lulu’s magical dolls. So plainly familiar and yet, was this how he would have described two of his companions? No, not like this, or maybe this was how he wished to describe them, so familiar yet so different as if a dimension of pain and maturity had been taken away from each. It made Basch feel better once he said this to himself. Decisions had already been made, even if neither the woman nor the young lady knew it. That would make it easier for them both. It made his role — and Auron’s — much easier too. He hurried his step to follow the samuri swordsman.
Perhaps this world really was a dream. His dream? A dream that became as vivid as the light of day after a man was knocked down from a blow struck by the arm of a god? Perhaps this is what Basch had dreamt night after night many times before and had never known it: a world where the story was clear rather than muddled, where his sense of nobility would be honored, where he would know with certainty that when he has done exactly what needs to be done he will feel good about his life as the final curtain fell.
He followed the swish of Auron’s cloak as the man marched up a flight of wooden stairs toward a darkened hallway. Even Auron’s posture and footfalls looked familiar, but this was one thing that did not match Basch. Basch knew that his own body walked with a gait that was slowed by injury, that was no longer light-footed, and that his back was somewhat hunched when he ran. Auron walked perfectly tall and straight like a splendid marionette and, for the first time, Basch realized everyone here in this land named Spira stepped forward with the exact same gait.
Yes, this was his dream, but no matter what he had left behind, at least here he could defeat his sin.
+++++
The room was dim and his sense of touch and his judgement of distance felt fuzzy, much like a dream where one isn’t sure whose face they look upon as they slowly move together, groping toward a climax that never comes.
Were they standing? Lying? Near the open window? Moonlight? Night air? The sound of frogs outside in a pond just beyond the window? One minute Basch was sure and the next he did not know. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe all that mattered was right before him and he should look no further.
There was no need to negotiate through words nor actions who should submit to whom. It had long been decided and, for once, that was not what this night was about. Each undressed himself and stepped forward, foot in front of foot, approaching the other in unison. Instinct and prior knowledge wrote which role they would play. One man may be a year younger, an inch taller, dark versus light, plus whatever minor differences in their stories, but none of it mattered, none at all, and there had been no need to exchange these details and dwell in all of the complexity. Perhaps this was just a straight-forward version of himself gazing back into his own eyes, reaching for his calloused hand, speaking one soft word with a gruff voice.
Forgiveness.
A day’s stubble rubbed against a neatly trimmed beard as firm lips met ones that were chapped. Basch lifted his shield arm and placed it around the other man’s shoulder, inviting, accepting, as the fingers of his sword hand slowly played with the other man’s nipple, now standing erect. He could hear Auron’s breath as the man placed both of his hands against Basch’s hips: hips that gently swayed and adjusted to Auron’s touch, so easily, so simple.
A perfect symmetry.
Glans to glans, frenulum to frenulum, softly, lightly, a shivering pleasure ran through them that neither felt any hurry to culminate. To stay on the edge for what could remain an unending length of time, avoiding the inevitable small death that would eventually come if not within the hour, sometime in the next month or two, sometime not long ago in their past.
There was no need to end this now, only the need to let this moment of pleasure endure, this moment consumed by the sensations of life that Basch wanted to dream into being. Let it stay, let it continue without climax, for someday this all must end.