Looking Up [FFXII, Balthier, Fran, R/NWS]

[threewalls]

Title: Looking Up
Author/Artist: threewalls
Rating: R/NWS
Warnings: mild spoilers (Ogir Yensa, party plus one)
Word count: ~1100
Summary: "At this time of morning, the night's chill beginning to warm, the desert was almost pretty. At least if one looked up."

Beta by lynndyre.

LOOKING UP

If there were tricks to keeping sand from mixing with the sunscreen, Balthier's preferred method was to eschew both as much as humanly possible. He was a pirate of the skies, not the waves, and one found precious few irritating particles of silicon dioxide floating in the high aether. Dressing to impress also made the latter an insignificant concern; where leather and cotton and rubber cover the skin, there could be no need for sunscreens. Such were his preferences.

However, he was unfortunately at present a pirate on retainer, bound to the whims of a certain Her Royal Hoyden-ness, tramping up jagd-bound hill and down dune. For the promise of treasure and ballad-worthy adventure, Balthier had resigned himself to sand between his toes and at the crease of his elbows, to the unwelcome if necessary addition to his morning routine of brushing sunscreen across the back of his neck and ankles.

He was also a pirate with a partner, whose lovely, dusky skin gave her a level of natural immunity from the sun that permitted her pursue a sartorial strategy the reverse of his own, yet equally exclusive of manufacted sun protection-- at least anywhere but here. Fran needed sunscreen to cover most of her body, and he would be quite remiss as her partner to leave her to that tedious application alone.

At this time of morning, the night's chill beginning to warm, the desert was almost pretty. At least if one looked up. The sky was like a tapestry of rich blue velvet, the sun approaching but its rays still for the most part beyond the curvature of the planet. Fran had cast Float before bending to remove her stilettos, shin-guards, and those that bracketed her thighs, re-casting as the spell wavered. Ordinarily (and for present purposes, ignoring the length of her ears), she had an inch and a half over him, and Float would have left them eyeball to nipple, if he had been standing rather than crouching by her feet. Looking up, the view was very pleasant.

The long muscles of Fran's left calf were like rock. Balthier did his best, first slicking the expanse of her skin with the cream while probing for knots and kneading along the grain of those he found. Her right had been much the same. It seemed a contradiction that skin so suede-soft to the touch could cover such hardness, but there were her shoes, another necessary evil, and, well, he remembered that the army had thought well of training hikes over sand, build up muscle.

"This would be easier if you were lying down, you know."

Balthier spoke in so low a whisper he could not hear himself, but only feel the vibrations in his throat at pace with the movements of his lips and tongue. In less than thirty minutes, the sun would cross the horizon, silhouetting Fran with a burnished glow. The day would start, Captain Number One would return to camp with the children and news of how the sand surrounding them had changed solidity in the night, and Captain Number Two and the princess would emerge from their tent. For the moment, he didn't feel like attracting attention. Balthier worked on Fran's knee-cap with his thumbs.

"And there's that water-based oil the moogles make that smells of nothing--"

"Cinnamon," Fran murmured. Low, but not as low as he. Balthier didn't have her ears.

"So say you and they, but I must continue protest my doubts."

Fran's ear flicked, but she said nothing. Her forearms complete, she held aside the veil of her costume to stroke cream down her belly.

"Scented or no, I was thinking of the way it takes the heat from one's hands, or the chill from one's pursed breath. The chill, perhaps, being of particular interest."

As his hands pressed their way up her leg, Balthier spun a story that could have taken place in any civilised port town, of broad, bought beds with fresh-pressed linen and feather pillows. A large room, well-swept, lit by only stray, liquid ripples of light, when the curtains shivered as cool breezes passed through open windows. Soft light falling on soft skin, laid completely bare on the cool, clean sheets, hands that were oil-slick and strong.

"And when I reached the centre of your legs--"

Fran inhaled sharply, hand coming to grip his shoulder. A knot high in her thigh, he had felt it. Balthier moved to shallower pressure, but Fran's grip only tightened.

"No. Hard."

He did as she asked, thumbs, and then knuckles into the tight spot, Fran's bent feet braced against buoyant air. She grunted against the pain, panting between, or was that his own exertion? When the knot released, Fran made a keening sound Balthier had heard before in happier contexts; his cock didn't appreciate the difference. Her grip loosened as well. She touched the side of his face.

"I am sorry to interrupt." Basch looked a little flushed, but no amount of sunscreen seemed to help completely with that. To think the man had lived in Dalmasca these many years. "We've found a path to that rig to the north. We should move out shortly."

He left quickly enough, making for the only tent still pitched. No matter, the sun had risen.

"He was watching us." Fran slipped on one thigh-guard and bent to reach the other. Balthier thought the dawn-light did wonderful things to her colouring.

"Was he? Once we're out of this desert, you should put the poor man out of his voyeuristic misery."

Balthier held up her greaves. Fran took them from him one at a time, hitching them on.

"He was watching us both."

"You were thinking--?"

Fran looked at him, and then over his shoulder. Balthier turned to watch one captain argue with the other. Basch had filled out since Barheim. Penelo was serving breakfast. If they didn't move, Vaan would eat it all.

"Both of us, Fran?"

It was a peril of their dashing lifestyle that they got approached by people with the idea that two pirates might be better than one. Balthier usually took the women, Fran the men.

"You do like him," she said. "And he looks stronger now."

"After the desert, then," Balthier agreed. Fran took hold of his arm as she stepped down from the air.

It would be something else to look forward to for after they'd finally reached this desert tomb. Royal treasure would buy a very big bed, in a room with a door that locked, and all the oil they could need.

---

MC
04/6/08

Comments

[ellnyx.livejournal.com]

Captain Number One and Captain Number Two made me laugh. So Balthier.

Very sensual, even tempered with Balthier's particular kind of intellectualised justification.

[threewalls]

*g* I think everyone in the party has nicknames that only Fran knows about.

(Balthier sometimes denies his metrosexuality to himself.)

[lassarina]

mmmmmm *rolls in lush descriptions and sensuality*

[threewalls]

Thanks.