"Seventy-Thirty," FFXII (Fran/Ffamran)
Author: sheffiesharpe Title: Seventy-Thirty Fandom: Final Fantasy XII Pairing: Fran/Ffamran Rating: PG Length: 1284 Prompt: March 1: - Final Fantasy XII, Fran/Ffamran: Inexperienced partner - differences and similarities
She speaks to him because he is the right size for the job—slight enough to navigate the space where the stone columns have collapsed on each other—and because he does not smell of drink the way the rest of the patrons do. When she approaches his table, the clear sweet of water cuts through the wine in his cup, diluted enough that the grape is still juicy on his breath, not fermented. He doesn’t offer her any, doesn’t let on he is as sober as the scent of him belies, feigns an indifference that she might believe if she could not hear the new rapid of his blood, his breath. And he looks at her—the first whiff of Hume interest—but when she offers the proposal: if he can get into the last part of the burial chamber, can stomach the staleness of the air and the crush of the space where she has tried and cannot go, she will split with him, seventy-thirty, his interest shifts.
“Sixty-forty,” he says. His voice he pushes down, as though he is not yet convinced of the reliability of pitch. He does not yet know that if he wants sixty-forty, too, he ought call for an even split. She cocks an ear—how he watches that—and he repeats himself, more certain this time. “Sixty-forty. Since there is no profit at all if I say no.” He raises a chin that does not yet need a razor, not properly, though his sideburns seem freshly trimmed, too freshly for him to have been long in Balfonheim.
“Seventy-thirty,” she says, “because if you prefer not to accept, I know she,” and Fran points to a waif of a girl who Fran knows is that dangerous combination of whore and thief, “would do it for twenty.” And she would serve, save that Fran would have to wait first for the drink to leave her system, and it is only a matter of time before someone else catches wind of this prize.
The young man agrees with his hand on his belt-pouch; he needs this work, then. He needs the work, and yet he shows surprise when she says they leave now, though, to his credit, he does not protest. When they arrive at the tomb—some water-chieftan buried with a store of sky-sapphire so old the air-scent of them is waning—he is blessed quick, wrinkling his nose at the cobwebs but not hesitating over the tightness of the space. He wriggles into the tomb-space, only a small grumble at the way the rock scrapes his shoulders. He tilts, lifts one slim shoulder, tucks himself around the fallen stone, and after his feet—well-made shoes—disappear into the dark, Fran is pleasantly surprised to see the warm glow of fire magicite, well-controlled and focused into light streaming from the niche. She directs him to the gems by scent, at the farthest left of the chamber, tries not to gag at the old decay in the air, perhaps too far gone for the young man’s—Ffamran’s—nose to even catch. And he passes the gems out—too, too trusting of her, but she hasn’t got it in her to teach that lesson. He touches her hand when he puts the gems in her palm, and even in the light of the magicite, she can see the flush in his cheeks when she closes her fingers soon enough to brush over his. She can hear, also, the beat of his blood, and he stammers that there is something else, too.
“One moment,” he says, and she cannot help but be fascinated at the curl of propriety on his tongue, even over the sharp scent of his arousal—so quick in this one, and yet so guarded. She is intrigued.
She wonders, also, at what else he is looking at inside the tomb, and though the air is still stale, she crouches to watch as best she can, seeking the fresh breath of him in the fetidness. If she concentrates, he is the same gold smell of the magicite, but then a puff of dust clouds the air, and she draws back, coughing. He scrabbles forward, following her, pushing a wrapped bundle before him through the dust. When he stands again, even his face is gray-brown with dust.
She twitches still more dust from her ears, and though Ffamran is wiping at his face, she catches the way he is looking at her again.
“What have you there?” She coughs, but the weight of the stones in her palm goes a long way toward easing her annoyance. Though they are too old to be of value to the Children of the Wood, Humes do not know the smell of the tears of earth, and the price they will fetch in Balfonheim is the same whether young or old.
Ffamran lifts one corner of the leather wrapping, cracked and nearly crisp with age, but the ink on the pages beneath is still dark enough to make out. “The late chieftan was apparently a bookish type.” He squints at the runes. “I know someone who’d give his left eye for this.” He chews his lip a moment, then his mouth turns up. “Eighty-twenty if you know a good fence.”
He stumbles on the last word, as though trying it out on his tongue. She has never known anyone to actually say that, such a word from farces as it is. But she knows someone who might serve, a rare technicks dealer in Nabudis. “Sixty-forty,” she says. “You would not have found it without my bringing you to this place.” She pockets the stones, listens toward the exit for anyone who might have followed. She hears nothing but Ffamran’s inhale and the dry stroke of his fingers on the tome. She shakes her head, resists the urge to bat at the puff of dust that rises from her hair, runs the flat of her palm over her leathers. She wants a bath, wonders if Ffamran has the coin for one himself, because he needs one even more than she does. The whites of his eyes are bright against the filth on his face. At her glance—he is still looking at the cleaner path running from breast to hip—she can smell the blush on him, though she cannot see it this time.
“Seventy-thirty. Were it not for me, neither of us would have either,” he says. This time, though, his voice does not falter, and Fran is not quite expecting to feel pride at that. And yet she does.
“Seventy-thirty.” She nods, brushes more of the dust from herself, and he looks away when she catches him watching. It’s charming—enticing, if she will allow herself that much—and he shifts the position of the manuscript from his chest to his waist.
He scratches the back of his neck, runs his hand through his hair, tilting his head into his own touch, though he looks at her again, only brief. Fran wonders how long it has been for him.
He looks toward the winding sea-cavern that leads them out. “Have you a buyer for the stones?”
The way he assumes nothing—and yet so much—decides her. “Profits are always better when you can offer your wares with a clean hand. Come. I know of an inn where we can bathe.”
He doesn’t actually say, “We?” but she can hear it in the way his pulse flutters. She answers his unspoken question with her fingers on the back of his neck, and when he tilts into her touch—the moment before the startle hits—she is glad of the choice she makes.