kinkfest | Shells [Final Fantasy XII, Basch x Balthier, PG13]

manic-intent.livejournal.com posting in

Title: Shells
Author:

manic_intent
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Spoilers for whole game.
Word Count: 4,823
Summary: Two years of imprisonment changes a man.
Prompt: June 4: Final Fantasy XII, Balthier/Basch: intoxication, role reversal, “Do you need me as much as I need you?
Author’s Notes: Couldn't fit smut into this! : (

June 4
- Final Fantasy XII, Balthier/Basch: intoxication, role reversal, “Do you need me as much as I need you?”

[A/N: Keys – from John McCain (Republican nominee 2008), about the aftereffects of his incarceration as a prisoner of war, that they reminded him of incoming jailers. Walking the spiral: Warhammer 40k, Horus Heresy.]

Shells

It takes Basch a week to willingly bear another’s touch, and even then, he would only allow Fran’s, with her skittering, long claws that are quite unlike a human’s, as she checked the scars on his back for healing. It takes longer for him not to flinch when he hears the rattle of keys, longer yet for him to accept small confined spaces for hours at a time. At night he would sleep restlessly, fitful, choked in dreams, until he takes the edge off weariness, and then he would leave the inns to stretch his legs, ostensibly for air.

He feels little, and it frightens him. It is as though his jailers, in the two years he had spent oscillating between the interrogation rooms and being suspended in a cage, had somehow excised from deep within him the very quality that once made him human, that gave him empathy.

Instead, he feels a cold emptiness focused around his driving instinct to serve, to protect; he has little interest in anything else, and it frightens him. He goes to Bhujerba to speak with the Marquis about his Queen, not to aid the frantic child seeking to save his friend; he finds it difficult even to be upset about Vossler’s anger and mistrust. Basch clings to abstractions of honor because it is easier.

He pulls the hood of his cloak further over his eyes as he turns a corner eastward of the merchant plane in Bhujerba, and flinches as he hears a scream (there, for a moment, the heavy clang of rusting iron). It’s a woman, and to his shame, he hesitates for a heartbeat before instinct catches him, too slowly, and he runs. His sandals clap too loudly on the flagstones as he rounds into an alley, narrows his eyes at the two men crowding a woman into the wall, their designs all too obvious: one has his hands curled tight in her shoulder, the other pins her wrists to the brick, his free hand fisted in her robes.

“Leave her be,” Basch says quietly.

His voice was never built for menace, and the two bulky toughs look him over, lingering on his scarred shoulders and his skin, still stretched thin over wasting muscle. One saunters to him, drawing a dagger from his belt, and Basch regrets leaving his blade in the Cloudbourne.

“Walk on, old man,” the tough drawls, and the way he holds his dagger and swipes it wildly in the air makes Basch tense, his knees bending, all habit; once the tough strides into range he walks the spiral in a memory of Dalmasca, circling, ducking the swing, catching the tough’s wrist and wrenching it hard behind his back. The dagger drops with a harsh clatter.

“Leave her be,” Basch repeats, applying pressure, twisting, and the man squeals like a gored pig. His companion snarls, darting towards him, another dagger swinging wild, then jerks back instead with an oath as a gunshot chips the flagstone at his toes.

Balthier ambled into view under the streetlamp in perfect poise, his rifle tapping against his shoulder, his smirk young and handsome and lazy, and Basch supposed idly that two years ago, his heart would have skipped a beat or two.

“You heard the man.”

Basch straightens when the thugs make off, and they walk the woman to her home, Balthier responding with increasingly outrageous charm to her effusive thanks; Basch with as polite a silence as he can manage. Her thanks make him uncomfortable: accepting them makes him uneasy.

On the way back to the Cloudbourne, Basch murmurs, shoving down the disquiet loud in his mind, “Were you following me?”

Balthier eyed him with a glance that made him feel decades older than six-and-thirty, and Basch smiled automatically, lopsided and embarrassed, and adds, self-consciously, “Thank you.”

“Better.” Balthier says, with an enigmatic little grin of his own. “You are a good man. ‘Tis quite refreshing.”

“I am?”

“A knight to a damsel’s aid, all unarmed?” Balthier arches an eyebrow, and something about the pirate’s sly tone, his cocked head, tells Basch amply enough that Balthier knows.

He admits it anyway. “Not as quickly as I should.”

“I’ll have found it all the stranger had you emerged from Nalbina unscathed, Captain.” There’s no forgiveness in that, only (attempted) understanding, and he’s grateful – he can be grateful for that much.

And yet, and yet, t’was such a pity, that he could read the invitation clear in Balthier’s manner and eyes and tone, and still feel nothing. He smiles, instead, in apology, in thanks, for the sentiment.

“Mayhap ‘tis so.”

Balthier looks him up and down then, brazen, searching, then he sheathes his rifle against his back and his hands by the thumbs in his heavy belt. He looks sober, and Basch hopes, hopes Balthier wouldn’t ask anything now about Nalbina. It’ll spoil the mood, the quiet pleasure he can still vaguely feel walking down an empty street in one of Ivalice’s most gorgeous cities, lit to mellow honey by delicate street lamps, on a warm night with one of the most beautiful people he has ever met in his life by his side.

“Do you drink, Captain?”

“I am a soldier.”

He hasn’t, not for two years, and he hasn’t missed it. He recalls, idly, strong, cheap spirits being poured on his hands and set on fire, four, five months ago, his wrists held firm in stocks as he screamed, remembers until he can smell the scorched scent of his seared flesh and has to breathe deep, through his mouth, out in a noisy snort, through his nose. He has scars yet on the back of his palms that he wears fingerless gloves to hide.

It had been whisky, perhaps. “Yes.”

Balthier watches him closely, but Basch manages only to smile, and add, from rote, “And like to drink a boy as you under the table.”

“Oh-h. A challenge.” Balthier follows rote with rote, though his sensuous lips twitch to show he knows, his mind too quicksilver for Basch to evade. “Not the Cloudbourne, then, Captain. I know better, and I’ll not have the children wake in the night to bear witness to your defeat.”

“Not the Cloudbourne… then, the Crystal Aeri?” He remembers fragments upon fragments of places, names, slowly, the remnants of memories. “They had a good… they had good madhu.”

“Aye, aye. So you are familiar with Bhujerba.” Balthier grins, as though satisfied, though for the life of him, Basch cannot discern why. “So you remember. There are quite a few pirates who frequent the Aeri, however. Are you quite so the virtuous knight I am led to believe?”

“A soldier,” Basch corrects automatically. As Vossler has told him, in harsh and grating terms, the Order had long disbanded. “A soldier.”

Balthier proves a good drinking partner. He has the capacity, and what’s better, the pirate talks, talks enough for the both of them that Basch need not feel embarrassed by only offering silence. He’s drinking wine (Vossler would have laughed to see him drink just wine), in the company of someone obviously interested and so very good looking, so young, and he can only feel polite companionship. Basch feels damaged, feels it keenly, but curls his lips wryly around the rim of the glass and takes another bitter sip.

One glass, another, another, half the bottle, one more, two, and Balthier is slurring out of his carefully maintained Balfonheim dialect to Archadian consonants, drawing a few idle heads in the Aeri as he does so, and only a stern, steady glance from Basch dispels curiosity. The pirate leans closer, closer, and soon there’s a hand splayed on his thigh and lips slanting close to his ear, and Basch is frozen, stock still, caught between the pleasant companionship of just drinking and a wish not to offend. He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t react when those beautiful, aristocratic fingers brush down, lower, over his groin, and then Balthier’s delicate chin is on his shoulder, his throat pressed over the curve of his bicep, and his breath is heavy with wine and spice.

“How strange,” Balthier murmurs, and it’s the lack of pity in his voice that makes Basch smile.

“Your ego is far larger than I thought.”

“Oh, oh, a jest, a quip!” Balthier grins unabashedly and looks all of two-and-twenty, less a pirate. “Smile, Captain. It turns you more than passing fair.” The fingers are groping in his lap again, and this time he shifts politely to displace them. The soft caress isn’t unpleasant (though he’d thought it would be, memories upon memories of cracked leather gauntlets), but he has enough pride yet to be embarrassed in public.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, and the smile fades briefly, a heartbeat.

“Were you interested in my lovely partner, I would have been somewhat more willing to concede the matter,” Balthier drawls, but it’s all jest now, he can tell. Fingers are dancing up his thigh, ticklish rather than sensual, and Balthier’s throat works as he swallows a gulp of wine, so very ungentlemanly. Basch gently takes the goblet from him and sets it away from his reach.

III

Ashe has taken to asking him more and more about Nalbina, and giving voice to the details cut him in a way he is careful to hide. He answers, of course, patient and slow; she is his liege and this is the least she can ask of him. But the questions are digging deeper, further, and the wounds are slow to scab, slower now, with recollection. She worries, he knows she worries, but Basch does not have the words or heart to ask her to stop.

They are one night away from the mines, camped on the plains, when Ashe approaches him again, and he recognizes by now the curious mix of determination and guilt writ clear on her features that she wears whenever she wishes to speak with him about the past two years; braces himself, then blinks instead, flinching, as Balthier drapes over his back, his long, sleeved arms slipping down his chest, warm lips pressing against his ear, and there’s a soft, whispered purr.

“Play along, Captain.”

Basch can still recognize compassion when he sees it, and he hesitates, unsure whether to accept it, but long fingers turn his chin, teeth nip playfully at the scruff on his jaw, and he can hear Penelo laugh, startled, distant, the children falling quick to murmurs. The periphery of his vision marks Ashe, stock-still and likely as stunned as he felt.

Then she’s blushing, bright red and all but fleeing to the far end of their camp, as Balthier glances up, up at her, smiles slow and lazy and lascivious, and runs a pink tongue up the shell of Basch’s ear.

“Balthier!” Basch’s hiss is part horror, part sheer amused astonishment at the audacity of the pirate’s whim; embarrassment reddens his ears.

“Too public, my sweet?” Balthier purrs, likely just loud enough to carry to his liege’s ears, one hand splaying under his vest; catching it, Basch hastens to drag the pirate well out of earshot, though, on the plains, not out of eyesight.

“What are you doing?” He knows, of course, but the words skitter from his lips nonetheless.

“Saving you from yet another painfully awkward conversation?” Balthier quips, and a hand plays up his vest to his shoulder, tucking up against the curved plate of the guard, the other stroking up to his unshaven cheek. “And giving everyone else something to talk about other than how sorry they feel for you.”

Basch catches Balthier’s palm in his gloved hand, but doesn’t pull it away. He tries, he tries to enjoy the warmth of another person’s skin, but he can barely tolerate it; it seems to burn. “Thank you.” He knows it’s expected.

“I have to confess I was fair bored of it myself,” Balthier shrugged, with a little wink. “After all, I do so have to be at the center of attention.”

“You hide your compassion but poorly.”

“Ware, Captain, I am not as altruistic as you imagine.” Balthier shifts his hand forward, further, to cup his skull, and pulls him down; startled, Basch does not resist, even as the soft lips press hard against his. It’s not unpleasant, but this intimate touch sparks a coil of anxiety in his belly that makes his fingers anxious over Balthier’s shoulders. He doesn’t pull away – the pirate does, with eyes that don’t quite reflect his mischievous smile.

“The more you show disinterest-”

“The more I pique your curiosity?” There’s no resignation or irritation in his tone, and if he looks far enough, there’s probably an element of wary relief. He has no idea about Balthier’s motives, he’s sure it’s not altogether sympathy or pity or lust, and it’s refreshing. Balthier appears to have no interest in him as anything other than an intellectual puzzle.

“Oh yes. It’s my indefatigable ego, I am afraid. I just simply cannot stand being rejected, it breaks my heart.” Now the humor is in Balthier’s eyes as in his grin, and Basch has to smile in return, it’s automatic. “The children are watching. Look this way, if you please.”

As Basch turns his head, towards the camp, Balthier hides his hand in the shadow of his cheek and presses a thumb between their lips, his mouth to the finger, and makes quite the show of enthusiasm. Basch forces himself to relax, folds his own hands carefully on the pirate’s hips, and to his own surprise his shoulders shake once, in mirth.

“So,” Balthier inquired gaily when he pulled back, “Do you want to play the lovesick fool, or should I?”

“Is that not quite the reversal from a leading man?” Basch murmured, tentatively leaning down to press his nose against Balthier’s shoulder, against the polished leather. The acrid, lingering scent of gunpowder is sharp and fresh and clean against the leather, against Balthier’s spicy aftershave and the pirate’s own musk.

“I can be rather flexible.” The double-entendre doesn’t escape him, and the playfulness makes him grin, makes him rise to the bait.

“Then you do it.” It’s a game. He can handle games. And Basch feels even this little make-believe is better, better than constant sense of pity he can feel from the rest of their party. “But if ‘tis not altruism, and you know I am… that I cannot be interested, then why?”

“Right now I think you,” Balthier tickles him playfully under the chin, making him twist to pull to the side, “Need this more than I do, so I’ll trouble you to ask fewer questions.”

He runs into the tail end of a conversation that has him flatten himself against the wall of the corner he was just about to turn, and Basch surprised himself (yet again, in this matter, how odd) by having to grit his teeth to prevent himself from chuckling.

“… he is not yet recovered from Nalbina, Balthier, I hope you are not toying with him. He is a better man than that, deserves far better than that.”

“So says the young lady who slapped him across the cheek as a first response,” Balthier’s response displays the young pirate’s remarkable talent as an actor: it’s harsh, skittish, raw and quick, with all the defensiveness of a person new to love.

“I regret that. I have apologised,” Ashe shot back, though she sighs. “All right. I know, I know I am not – but I cannot but feel responsible, and, well, I do not know if you are, well…”

Basch wonders if Balthier is enjoying Ashe’s uncharacteristic stammering, and considers rescuing his liege, when Balthier snorts. “I am not, so do try not to pry further. He has little enough privacy as it is, and I think he needs it.”

“Oh, oh, of course.” Ashe sounds highly uncomfortable and all of her age. “I am sorry, if my concern has caused him discomfort.”

“I am not the one you should be apologizing to,” Balthier retorts, and that’s when Basch turns the corner as though he just happened to do so; Ashe starts, her cheeks coloring pink, but Balthier arches an eyebrow and smiles with a warmth so sudden that it’s difficult to believe it’s feigned. “Oh hello. Find anything you like around hereabouts?”

“No.” Basch says dryly, “Though fair several of the shopkeepers asked me questions about you.”

“I may have let slip a few words or two, to keep those who might be otherwise interested at bay,” Balthier drawls, his eyes half-lidding in brief warning as he steps light and quick into Basch’s personal space, sensitive from Nalbina, and he places his hands on the pirate’s hips, hesitant, lets himself stay pliable as fingers tug down his chin tenderly and lips brush against his. There’s a giggle from behind him, girlish, and he closes his eyes to the gaggle of busty, scantily dressed women watching them behind the cover of glazed vases for sale; to his left, a Bangaa snorts, in the whistling laughter of its kind. Balthier is well-known here, Basch notes. This is less for his benefit than the pirate, that much he can tell, from the faint tension he can sense from the supple muscle under his touch, but he can’t quite understand why. Surely if t’was simply a matter of unwanted admirers, the pirate and his partner were fair equipped to drive off all and sundry.

Then there’s a dry cough right beside them, sarcastic and amused, and Balthier pulls back, his arms yet on Basch’s shoulders, and smirks at Reddas, who rolls his eyes at Ashe.

“Are you ready to leave?” Ashe studiously avoids his eyes, casting her glance fixedly on the general goods’ stall’s array, and Basch has to grin even as Balthier slumps boneless and heavy in his arms.

“Aye, tomorrow morn, though I am not so sure if these two are.” Reddas looks him up and down, the searching stare more of a father’s suspicion than a prospective admirer’s curiosity, and abruptly, he grins. “The fon Ronsenburg name is a dangerous one, hereabouts. Some of us from Archades have longer memories.”

“Oh aye. Rest assured that is not what made him attractive,” Balthier purrs, and Basch consciously makes himself lean into the palm stroking up his sideburns. He’s uncomfortable, but then again, they are in public.

“Quite unlike the brother?” Reddas murmurs, soft and only for their ears; he frowns, but Balthier shrugs lightly.

“Aye, this twin is quite the gentleman.”

“So I have heard you tell half of Balfonheim, you little brat,” Reddas shakes his head slowly, and in the term is affection and exasperation both, and suddenly, Basch understands. This is indeed at least as necessary for Balthier as it is for himself, the most fundamental indication of normality, and he wonders, wonders how far, in this gorgeous, laughing boy lithe in his arms, how far the canker is seeping.

“You need this,” he murmurs later into Balthier’s hair, “At least as much as I do.”

The pirate chuckles, and there’s little mirth in that sound, little of youth; the boy’s curled against him, like a cat, on the bed, his hands to himself and his clothes loose over his shoulders. The white shirt gives to a compact, lean body marked by blades and shot, and Basch can see ribs, though not quite so stark as his. They share a room nowadays, for appearances’ sake, and Basch finds himself easily used to Balthier’s presence: ‘tis comfortable, at the least, and in private, the pirate makes no move to touch him.

“Mayhap so.” Balthier’s tone makes it clear that he won’t invite prying. Basch takes in a breath, to apologize for even pointing it out at all, but he looks down into a growing smirk and hesitates. Long fingers flash to his waist – he sleeps shirtless, out of habit – and scratch lightly up his flanks; his words turn into a yelp of uncontrollable laughter. Balthier crows in triumph, in sheer mischief, and sets to tickling him in earnest. Soon Basch is growling as he wrestles Balthier, counterattacking, and as he makes a swipe for long arms to pin the pirate they tumble down onto the wooden floor; without thinking, he rolls, pulls Balthier in his arms, to cushion the impact against his back.

Balthier stills, his eyes concerned, but Basch grins and is quick to roll them over, push hands under Balthier’s open shirt and tickle his ribs, under his arms, and the pirate gasps, bucking and shoving; Basch is on his back again, the boy snaked atop him; then there’s a loud staccato knock against the wall, from the children’s room.

“Hey you guys, some of us are trying to sleep here.” Vaan’s sly voice is audible through the thin plaster walls, as is Penelo’s giggle; less so his Lady Ashe’s horrified shushing. Basch blinks slowly, before realizing exactly what the laughter, the sounds and their breathing, made heavier from exertion, must have seemed like, and blushes, is surprised he could just from that, and the pirate slumps atop him, shaking in silent mirth, his caramel eyes dancing, daring, and he levers himself up with palms against Basch’s shoulders.

“Oh yes Basch, just like that,” Balthier pitches his voice low, husky, breathy, and Basch feels his cheeks heat further even as he has to bite the pad of his palm to keep from laughing. There’s another giggle from the other room, then silence, and Balthier’s grin turns almost manic, the shadows long from the half-shuttered lantern on the table (he sleeps poorly in the dark).

“I cannot believe you,” he murmurs, when he recovers his voice.

“T’would be odd were we to share rooms without e’er further enjoying each other’s company.” Balthier’s arch reply is whisper-soft against his ear.

“T’would be odder yet were our room yet fresh in the morn,” Basch retorts, if softly, and Balthier rolls his eyes.

“Leave a soldier to think of that.”

That reminds Basch, finally. “You knew my brother.”

“Aye, Reddas too.” Balthier’s tone becomes inflexible again, but Basch persists.

“In Archades, in the… Akademy?”

“Aye. He was a friend.” The pirate’s tone is now wintry.

“Was he the reason you-”

“Nay.” A pause. “Not entirely.”

“Ah.” He’s now sorry he brought it up, but for the first time since Nalbina Basch feels intensely curious about something unrelated to his quest, and, wryly, he realizes the void within him is contracting (if but a little).

Balthier watches his father die, and the cast to his pretty face is unreadable, so unreadable; there’s little grief in that – there’s nothing, only an expression more akin to a lost child. Fran’s words give Basch notice that the Viera knows keenly what ails her Hume partner (but of course), and her hands are protective over his shoulders as she pulls him to safety, starting for the long descent out of the Pharos. The children hesitate, then scamper after the pair; Ashe watches him steadily, then the crumpled form of his brother, then turns delicately and determinedly on her heel.

He stands, watching them begin the descent, then a slow rattle from his brother’s armor and a deep rumble from beneath his feet start him to Noah’s side, to pull an unresisting arm over his shoulder and half-drag, half-support him to his feet. He can’t do anything for him with healing magic yet, not with that mangled armor, and the weight seems crushing over his back as he limps his brother to the stair.

“You should… you should leave me here,” Noah mutters, his voice hoarse and wet. He coughs; blood specks Basch’s vest. “I am no longer your brother.”

“Sadly, Noah,” Basch keeps his tone mild, “That is one fact of life either of us would be hard pressed to change.”

“I did not mean… I did… you are not angry,” and there is wonderment in that, wonderment and growing realization. “You are too calm.”

“Aye.” The steps are slippery in the mist. “Thank Nalbina for that, Noah.”

His words sting: Noah tenses, and Basch is, at least, surprised at that. There’s another, wet cough, then another, then a low sigh. “Gods. Gods, what have I done.”

“What you had to.” Without resentment there is nothing to forgive.

“Nay. Nay.” The coughing grows worse, and Basch knits his brow.

“You will worsen your condition yet. Hush.”

Noah doesn’t listen – he never did. “Ffamran. Ffamran, he was… he also, he was different.”

“Aye.” And curiosity asks, “What did you do to him?”

Noah doesn’t answer: he closes his eyes, instead, his ruined armor shrieks with every step.

VII

“First loves tend to linger longer than most,” Balthier says without preamble, when Basch enters the room. The pirate’s seated cross-legged on the bed, playing with a deck of cards, dealing, shuffling, then dealing again, his fingers quick and easy with sleight. Basch feels tired: Noah had refused to speak further to him, of anything, save asking them to drop him off on the beach some ways from Balfonheim – to his (and everyone else’s) surprise, Balthier had agreed without question or comment.

“Ah.” He can think of little else to say. Basch sits down on the foot of the bed and watches Balthier’s hands. They seem to the safest.

“He thinks what happened is his fault? I could feel him staring.” The cards shift faster, fan out on the bed, to be scooped up again in a dry slither of hard paper.

“Aye.”

“You Ronsenburgs.” Balthier smiles, but his tone is harsh. “T’was not his fault. But I’ve no mood to salve his guilt, when he has done far worse than break a boy’s heart. At least the latter act had no malice.”

Basch says nothing.

“Though I suppose betraying his own friends out of a sense of ‘duty’ – even that paled against destroying his twin brother.” Balthier murmurs, almost as an afterthought, and the ace flashes to the top of the deck with a deft flick of his wrist. “Like to play a hand? I can deal Sovereigns, or Dark Horse, or Old Maids.”

“You’ll cheat.” Basch feels a visceral relief as the loaded tension seems to cede, knows he should press Balthier, out of empathy if nothing else, but cannot find the effort.

“Aye, aye, nothing up my sleeve.” Balthier leans forward, tugs him closer, kisses him on the edge of his mouth. It’s a questing, brushing touch born of a need for reassurance; he can sense that much, at least, and Basch circles awkwardly, shifting to sit behind Balthier and spoon the pirate as politely as possible against him, curling his long arms under crisp sleeves.

“Show me how you deal.”

“Keep a sharp eye, old man.”

VIII

He finds Balthier lounging against his brother’s bookshelves in the Bureau office, studying privileged correspondence, and looking quite unperturbed despite being a wanted pirate sitting amidst the heart of Archadian Law, and Basch has to laugh, has to pull off Noah’s horned helmet, shut the oaken door, and pull the pirate up against him.

“You do not seem surprised.” Balthier sounds slightly irritable at that.

“I didst think you would appear sooner or later, on the tail of Penelo’s letter.”

“Feh.” Balthier wriggles until Basch lets go, placing the report on his desk and leaning against the wood, crossing his thighs. “You seem well.”

“Aye.”

His brother has worn a comfortable groove through life, within which Basch need not struggle to fit: his associates aid him with every task, and his grasp of the discipline of Law yields to determined study. He is busy enough, and the associate team that once adored his brother seems to have transferred its affections easily enough, and Larsa is a gentle master. Going through the motions is easier when one fits a make-seem within another larger, armored shell.

“Still need…” Balthier’s tone trails, but there’s invitation enough in that, and a query hesitant enough to be wary (so he’s not the only one to have begun to heal), and Basch smiles, runs a gauntlet through his short-cropped hair, and steps to the pirate’s side, pulls the glove off his hands to carefully, gently, cup his rough palm against a soft cheek. Balthier blinks owlishly, then inhales sharply as Basch pulls him closer, and the first real kiss Basch enjoys in nearly four years tastes of gunsmoke and spice and wine.

-fin-

[Final Note: no porn in this, sorry! ;o I wanted to do something a little different, write something a little subtler about the line between playacting and reality. I probably haven’t engaged the prompt well… sorry!]