Cat's Cradle [Final Fantasy XII, Basch x Balthier]

[manic-intent.livejournal.com]

Title: Cat's Cradle
Author: manic_intent 
Rating: NC17
Warnings: AU
Word count: 4343
Summary: Basch and Balthier trade stories.
A/N: Using one of my old AUs. Prompt: June 17: Basch x Balthier: Shyness – Soldier Battle Scars

[A/N: I used one of my old AUs for this prompt: laziness, I am sorry: all that’s needed to know as background is that Basch is blind in this AU: the scar over his left eye is healed only enough for him to see shapes, the right eye was put out in Nalbina.  If you are curious, the AU is in my memories, ‘Textures in the Dark’.

 

Thank you very much to Russ for offering to beta, but real life and that monster little kitten that shares your name conspired to make this almost late.]

 

Shyness – Soldier Battle Scars

 

Dark Mirrors AU

Textures

 

Cat’s Cradle

 

He reaches for the guttering taper, but this time, Balthier is too quick; the red-orange flicker he can make out in what is left of his irreparably damaged vision shifts sharply to his left, then down, to the gray-white blur that is the bed, besides the darker shape of the pirate’s crossed thighs.  Basch hesitates, his hands falling to his side; perhaps it had been presumption, after all, that the pirate’s pretty words had been anything more than a snare for Balthier’s temporary curiosity. 

 

“Ah… I beg pardon, I did not think-” and that was his damned problem, he still did not think, “I did not-”

 

“Sit down.” Balthier sounds amused, and Basch wishes he could reach forward and map the pirate’s expression ‘ere it faded.  The pirate would smirk, mischievous: he seems the sort, small little quirks to his lips that could so quickly turn cruel.  Still, Basch sits, though his back is to Balthier, his feet flat on the tiles, freezing under his toes despite the heat of the brazier beside the bed.  Another day to the snowstorm, and they could be away from the Temple, away from this.

 

Fingers cross up his back, tugging lightly on his robes until he lies down, his feet still on the flagstones, trying not to hope, to take this for granted; unlike before, with his sure, deft touch that tended to tease and excite more than satisfy, the pirate now seems merely playful. 

 

“I would have thought you would need light, any light.”

 

It takes Basch a moment to realize what Balthier is referring to.  “No.  And if you think closely, in the tunnels…”

 

“Aye.  Aye.” The pads of the pirate’s fingers are cool, tracing the edge of his blindfold with a pianist’s delicacy.  “But you do not fear it.”

 

“Nay.” The conversation is fast growing odd, but in the pirate’s case, he and his partner, that was common enough occurrence.  “Why should I?”

 

“It seems strange,” Balthier observes, one hand now toying with the knot of the robe at his waist, “That you wouldst not disrobe until the taper is guttered, and if the moon is too bright or the sun still in residence, you wouldst do so only under the sheets.”

 

He catches the slender wrist, his thumb pressed against the soft flesh that ceded so quickly to corded muscle.  “Ah.” He coughs, embarrassed.  “Does it matter?”

 

“That is for you to tell, Captain.” Balthier’s tone is silky, now, so close to his ear that he could turn, turn to take his lips, but experience has taught him that the pirate seldom appreciated spontaneous liberties.  “Vanity? How unlike you.”

 

“Aye.” It is easier to agree than to try to find the words with which he could explain.  He wants this now, wants it for as long as the pirate will give him, with an urgency that makes his throat ache, knows even that would not satisfy, but Basch is an old friend of disappointment. 

 

When the pirate’s hand does not move, he adds, “I beg pardon.”

 

“Let me.” Balthier’s voice is a fine instrument, threading both command and pleading, low, with a sly promise of ecstasy upon concession; Basch swallows, he wants to obey, but his fingers tighten.  “I will have seen worse.  You think little of me, Basch, if you believe mere scars will turn my belly.”

 

“No, no, that is not the reason,” Basch protests, though his hands weaken over the knot and the pirate slips his to the ties.  He gives: he has so far always given far too easily to this boy, and he sighs, loud and resigned, his head lolling to the side and his hands to the sheets.  Let Balthier look his fill of his damnable curiosity, then.  Basch has no illusions about the state of his body, but it would be the questions that would hurt him, remembering. 

 

It takes him a moment to realize Balthier has not moved. 

 

“Balthier?” His voice sounds more wary than he wished, and in response, the pressure from the pirate’s fingers disappear, and the flare that marks the taper shifts back to the bedside table.

 

“If you refused me I would have stopped,” Balthier said, a little reproachfully, and now Basch feels guilt for thinking in the shallows; the pirate has already shown a canny empathy beyond his age, and his actions were not quite worthy.  Basch sits up on the bed, drags his feet under the covers, and works his fingers at the knot, only for Balthier to catch them sharply. 

 

“Get the taper, then.”

 

“But you want-”

 

“This happens to work both ways, Basch.” The room darkens, with a whisper of breath: Balthier has blown out the candle.  He is about to apologize, or stutter thanks, but hands press on his shoulders, callused and warm, and he sinks down on the bed with an incoherent murmur.  Fingers work under his skull, at the pressure of the blindfold’s knot, and Basch bites down on his lip to stifle his protest, but it chokes in his throat as he feels the rasping pressure lift.  Cool fingers skitter lightly over the scar on his left eye, then skitter carefully around the right, spidery and uncomfortable, then warm lips replace them, only fractionally more welcome.  The fabric whispers to rest on the pillow beside his cheek, and Basch curls his fingers into the sheets to prevent temptation.

 

Instead, he begs.  “Please.” His throat sounds dry, harsh, and his pride stirs uneasily in its tattered slumber.  The pirate’s weight is desperately welcome over his frame, and Basch realizes, belatedly and dumbly, that he is not quite sure when Balthier had removed shirt, cravat, vest; though the large buckles of his heavy belts press uncomfortably into his belly, under the knot, and the tight leather of the pirate’s breeches creaks as he slides a thigh between Basch’s legs.  It stops, an inch away from friction, and he groans.

 

“The problem with you, dear Captain,” Balthier’s tone seems playful again, but Basch’s ear is quick to spot the edge, “Is that you are far more willing to give than to ask; ‘tis almost as though you have forgotten how to undertake the latter.”

 

“I did just ask.” He sounds awkward to his ears. 

 

“Nay, nay, and you misunderstand my meaning.”

 

Balthier’s thumb scrawls a crescent over his jaw, and he turns into it, worries his teeth against the callused pad, relaxes a fraction when he hears the soft hiss the pirate sucks.  A tongue draws a tight, wet curve over the shell of his ear, spiraling in to press and taste, loud over his hitching breathing, and as he shudders, his hands rise to flex and fist tight in the air over Balthier’s hips.  A creature as wild as the pirate startles easily, and startlement translates quickly to ire; that much Basch has learned, for all Balthier’s talk of asking over giving.

 

“Then explain it to me.”

 

“I doubt I have the words to do so that could actually reach you,” Balthier says, cryptic as his lovely partner, nipping sharply at the lobe of his ear when he draws breath to protest.  “A game, instead.”

 

“The prize?”

 

“Oh, I daresay Fran and I could tarry a day or so longer after the tomb we are set to ransack.” Balthier sounds facetious, and Basch finds his cheeks flushing as pride flashes a spark of anger.  His lip curls, but the pirate’s fingers drop to his, dragging his wrist upwards, until the back of his forefinger brushes against something cold and thin.  One of Balthier’s earrings. 

 

“And I will give you that one.  You will have to keep it well: I cannot quite wear a set with one missing.  After matters are resolved, you may return it to me after I find you, if you wish.”

 

Basch knows better than to take such promises at face value, particularly with Fate conspiring as it has, to pit him and his liege against one of Ivalice’s two great Empires, but he appreciates the sentiment.  “And my forfeit?”

 

“Mayhap you could give me something that you would seek me out for.” Balthier’s tone is cavalier, but there’s an odd note of solemnity Basch cannot discern; to that he nods, and the pirate smiles against his neck.  “My stories against yours.  We’ll make up little narratives for each other’s scars; first one to run out of ideas loses.  You’ve far more than I, that would be my handicap to you.”

 

“I…” he swallows his instinctive protest, but it voices yet in the air, loud enough for Balthier to understand.

 

“I have no need of the taper.” Balthier taps his nose sharply in rebuke, then his hand strokes down in a light caress that ends on the thin scar at the base of his right bicep; a thumb traces it, rough over his skin, and Basch shivers.  “This, you earned this, ser, on an orange tree on the shores of Dawn, trying to protect the fruit of wisdom from an iridescent serpent.”

 

“This game is…” Basch falters, uncertain about giving offense; Balthier, however, merely chuckles.

 

“Go on.”

 

“It is somewhat childish.”

 

“And quite ridiculous and e’er the waste of time, aye?” Balthier drawls.  “Yet you’ve quite the store of poor memories stitched tight to your scars, Captain, that you have yet to purge from your nightmares, such that you would not suffer even sight of them under the light; mayhap this poor, ludicrous game may be of some help yet.”

 

“I do not think this would heal me, as much as I would thank you for trying.”

 

“So very stiff,” Balthier nips at the tip of his nose, and despite himself, Basch smiles, lopsided and wry.  “You are always quick to remind me of the difference in winters, between us.”

 

“Aye.” He almost apologizes.  “Mayhap ‘tis fair necessary.”

 

“If you do not wish to play-”

 

“Only making observation.” Basch rubs his palms up Balthier’s back, and the pirate arches into his caress with a low purr that stirs warmth low in his belly; he is not in the mood for a game so trivial, but Basch humors him (so he always does, of late).  He takes his right hand down, to Balthier’s ribs, seeking the ridged tissue of an old burn scar. 

 

“This you earned stealing a dragon’s egg, from the Old Kingdom.  Its mother was wroth, and you could all but escape with your life, the egg forgotten.”

 

“Your stories are not so flattering,” Balthier feigns hurt archly, resting his chin on Basch’s chest, tracing fingers in weaving knots down his legs to his inner left thigh, just above the back of his knee, the long scar from his childhood that had come from a boar.  “From the shore of Dawn you heard a siren’s song, and the last fragment of your mind that resistant drew your dagger over your flesh; it was the pain that allowed your leave.”

 

Basch flattens his palms over Balthier’s back, to the odd series of knotted tissue just under his shoulder blade.  From touch alone he cannot discern their origin, but as always, the pirate shifts uneasily once he brushes against them.  “In the river you used to escape the dragon there was a mermaid, all entranced you followed her deeper, deeper, and only a fisherman’s hook that dragged hence rescued you from drowning.”

 

“Choose your own themes,” Balthier chides.  Lips press against his, and Basch leans into the kiss, opening his mouth; the ridiculous game forgotten as he sighs softly, his palm wreathing into the pirate’s short, silky hair, the younger man’s tongue sweet against his.  Better, this was better, and-

 

“You wandered west along the shore, took a joust with a Knight in green and silver over a lock of maiden’s hair that hung over a branch of a white elm close by, this he gave you.” It takes him a moment to register the words, longer to realize a hand had pushed beneath him, and a thumb has been stroking the scar from a brand seared low on his spine. 

 

“From a joust, that would have rendered me unable to walk.” Basch observes, a little breathless, his thoughts a-scatter; Balthier laughs, pure mischief, and Basch frowns, as he belatedly perceives the pirate’s intent.  “Cheat.”

 

“And you would lie if you tell me you expected better.”

 

“Merely to note that you were its herald,” Basch retorts, and there’s that smug little chuckle again, as Basch nips at his lip.  His left hand drops, to Balthier’s hip, to the faint friction of a healed gouge.  “This from a gull on the dock the fisherman left you, as you took from him the salmon that had eaten the nut of wisdom.”

 

“Aye, yet I am no wiser,” Balthier snorts, and he knows the pirate is smirking without feeling his mouth against his skin, thinks this less altruism and more the pirate’s personal amusement, yet cannot begrudge him. 

 

Basch raises the knee Balthier straddles, rubs it upwards, and the pirate purrs, deeper and inviting, into his ear as he pushes against the pressure.  Basch’s cock jumps at the seductive sound, and he growls, rolling them over and pulling up a thigh to grind himself between Balthier’s arched legs.  “Your game, ‘tis your turn.”

 

“Ah.” In that soft, hungry sound pressed against his shoulder Basch almost relents, but then parted lips curved yet again into a small smirk, against twitching muscle.  “This then, ser.”

 

Fingers splay against the patchwork grid on his back, from a cat o’ nine (he remembers he did not scream that day, the whip a relief from branding, from the waterboard or the rack or rape, the myriad other, nameless tortures more than a mere flogging).  “You met the maiden the hair belonged to, before an ivory tower to the west, yet she was no maiden but a… a wicked barrow wraith; this her spell left upon you.”

 

“Not too creative,” Basch teases, glad for the opportunity to tease, even as he buries his mouth in Balthier’s neck, biting, tugging at the skin and sucking until the pirate groans, urgent now, his hands in claws against Basch’s back.  “This.” He strokes the tips of his fingers to Balthier’s neck, and they tremble as they brush against the thin, pale scar just under the pirate’s bobbing apple.  Instantly, Balthier stills, with a soft, harsh breath, and Basch wonders if he has yet gone too far – this scar had always been off limits.  He was not the only one marked with poor memories.

 

Then the pirate surprises him.  “Aye, what of it?”

 

“Uh…” Caught flat-footed, Basch hesitates, and speaks the first myth on his lips, a children’s tale from Landis.  “A witch turned you into a cat for her familiar, and a shard from the crystal collar across your neck that you shattered against the wall to change back cut you to bleeding.”

 

“Close, close, Captain.” There is mockery and self-mockery in the pirate’s sing-song drawl, and Basch frowns again, deeper, but fingers slip behind him, over his shoulders, to the overlapping map of thin scars, some old to white, some raw, all from riding crops; he flinches, remembering the words, the grit of his teeth, the violation that oft followed, but did not pull away.  Balthier kisses his ear, as though in comfort: without his eyes, he knows not empathy from mockery. 

 

“This from a steel web, a mechanical spider’s weaving, that you were slow to break through on your way past a forest of thorns.”

 

They play story after story, their clothes, his necklace, and Balthier’s jewelry slow to divest, yet the night chilled darker, words long between caresses.  The last scar he touches (low on Balthier’s thigh, past the knee, a gunshot graze, mayhap) makes the pirate shiver; he wreathes the lithe body in his arms and drapes his weight over him as though to warm; Balthier nuzzles under his jaw in appreciation for the graceful out offered, and his thighs arch higher, under the sheets; his fingers close tight around their arousals, flesh to flesh and already slick. 

 

Basch’s first breath stutters, his second catches; ‘tis his third that finds the words.  “This… this a manticore’s sting, at the end of your labyrinth-”

 

“Mine, mine now?” Balthier queries, so very amused, and the question is double-edged and his undoing; he growls, and the pirate’s answering laugh is too old, too worldly even for one as he; Basch wishes the sound away, but it only harshens as the pirate snaps his hips upwards.  The friction steals rote from his breath and what little pity left from his voice; Basch grinds down, holds the slender neck in cupping fingers and bites the pirate’s lip hard enough to draw blood.  Balthier laughs, laughs, and smiles into it, manic and wild, pulls him down and they kiss, their tongues slick with the rogue’s coppery taste; he would gag, would pull away, but drinks instead, sucking on the wound (it would not scar, not this, not on this boy).

 

“Your game,” he says, and it’s quite the snarl.  “Yours.”

 

He expects it, but he has to fight not to hiss when cool fingers press against his eye, his right, the one cut away on a table of rusting iron caked with old blood deep under Nalbina; the last he had seen was a silver dagger, descending, a glove behind that, the edge of a gauntlet’s scale, and he shudders, his breathing turning short, panicky and anxious, his hands going tight on the sheets as they had against his palms, he remembers the slide and the feeling of his eye beginning to-

 

“Basch, Basch, Basch,” He feels Balthier’s breath against his eye more than he hears the repetition of his name, and he’s dumbly gratified to hear a distinct thread of alarm in the pirate’s tone.  “Basch, Basch, I am sorry, Basch, please.  Calm.  Listen to me.  Calm.”

 

The pirate speaks repetition, slow, steady like a sleeping man’s heart, and Basch’s own begins to soothe, skitters warily to pace, and he takes a deep breath, then a shallow one that breaks into a sob, and Balthier is pressing soft kisses on his jaw, his nose, his mouth, avoiding his eyes.  He breathes. 

 

Then he leans up, pushes the pirate back against the bed with his weight, and the kiss is awkward now, Balthier’s hands wary on his back, and Basch whispers, “Aye.  Aye, what of it?”

 

Balthier twists under him, experimentally, but Basch does not give.  Fingers tug down his chin, and the brush of lips against lips is confident now, common, a crude, wet caress with seeking tongues, and reluctantly, Basch opens his mouth to it, crushes the pirate to the bed and draws his fingers into slender ones, pinning one palm to the bed.  The other creeps up to his cheek, and stops.

 

“It seems this game is your win,” Balthier murmurs.  “I am quite out of stories.”

 

“I will not suffer a lie given even of sympathy.  Especially of sympathy.”

 

“And your pride, ser, serves you ill.” Balthier, however, fumbles in the sheets, and when his hand next surrounds them it is slick, cool, then it quests away, downwards, and from the pressure against his thigh and Balthier’s soft, whispered gasp he can guess what the pirate is doing; he groans, curses his blindness for the second time since Nalbina, and strokes down Balthier’s arm, to his wrist, to the knuckles pressed between the pirate’s own thighs.  “You frown.”

 

“Aye.” He strokes his own fingers over the slicked, stretching pucker of muscle, and smiles wryly.  “An eye back, just one, even for a heartbeat.  I wish I could have so much.”

 

Balthier’s smug little laugh hitches as Basch sucks at his own finger, one, then another, and he draws his hand back down under them, to the pirate’s own fingers still within him, and as he pushes his forefinger carefully within, sliding over a slick knuckle, the pirate moans, pushing his hips down and making to pull out his own digits.  “Leave them,” Basch whispers, his voice thick to his ears, and Balthier inhales softly, surprised, but obeys; his legs splay wider and he arches, his groan deeper, as Basch adds his middle finger and begins to pump.  One heartbeat, another, and the pirate’s fingers follow suit. 

 

The hand pinned under his jerks, and he lets it free, twisting his own into the pillow beside Balthier’s head.  He hears the pirate spit, then a hand curls tight around their arousals yet again, squeezing as they rub against each other, his fingers scissoring, then curling up, and the pirate cries out in wanton ecstasy.  He groans, ragged and hungry, in response, thrusting harder against the friction and into the deft pressure; he feels Balthier’s fingers twist against his, in clenching, slick heat, words in High Archadian mingling with the foulest gutter curses.  Basch brushes his lips against slack cheeks until he finds what he seeks, then closes his mouth over the promised twist of metal, sucks hard, a growl rumbling deep in his throat, and Balthier’s cry pitches low, broken and trembling; fingers still against his and tighten over their arousals, and Balthier’s come scents the air acrid. 

 

He waits as the pirate’s breath shortens, shallow, his arousal uncomfortable and throbbing, then there is a soft sigh, a wet chuckle; fingers slip out and tug his to the side, then both hands close on his cock and pull it gently down, stroking, a thumbnail dragging tight over the fleshy head; Basch moans.  “Balthier-”

 

“Inside,” Balthier whispers, and ‘tis both command and pleading.

 

“But, but you-”

 

A snort, which indicates Balthier’s disdain at gracing his protest with words, and an insistent roll against his prick make Basch grit his teeth and oblige, his hands now fisted white-knuckled in the sheets beside Balthier’s shoulders as the deft hands guide him deeper; simply the feel of the slick, tight heat is nearly his instant undoing.  Balthier marks his impatience when he stills with little snarls choked between gasps, but Basch forces himself to wait, even as the slender frame beneath him writhes and bucks, as inviting and as shameless as a whore.

 

When he feels the pressure give, just a little, he moves; infected now with Balthier’s impatience – the pirate grinds down, snaps his head back and howls his rapture, Gods, and now the final inch of Basch’s self-control withers; he surprises himself with his capacity for brutality. A moan, a curse, and Basch draws one long thigh up his shoulder, presses the other to the bed, and takes Balthier harder, rougher, and all the pirate does is shudder; he presses his lips savagely to Balthier’s and realizes the pirate’s are drawn back in a savage smirk, and his trembling marks silent laughter.

 

“Balthier.” He does not recognize his voice, this hungry growl, and Balthier bites down hard on his lip, bleeds him; he snaps his hips forward, grinds the slender man into the sheets, and his shoulders convulse as completion consumes him.

 

Balthier pulls away delicately afterwards, and Basch realizes he has not been so polite as to even check if the pirate had taken any real pleasure in what he had just done; he sits up, dizzy from exertion, fumbles for a shoulder and presses his fingers instead against a spine.  Balthier flinches, with a low oath, and then hides it poorly in a chuckle when Basch pulls his hand sharply away. 

 

“You constantly surprise me, Captain.” Balthier’s voice is hoarse, and promises to worsen in the morning.

 

“Did I hurt you? I beg pardon, let me-”

 

“Nay.  Nay, far from it.  But I trust no cavalier touches save Fran’s.  You know this.” Balthier sounds playful, but his eyes are likely narrowed.

 

“I didst beg pardon.” The space between them sits awkward now, worse than the beginning, and as much as his body is now sated he regrets it.  He hears the heavy furl of fabric: a robe, thrown over shoulders, and he almost wants to ask.  Balthier never stays after their tumbles.  Basch supposes that in itself is should tell him how matters would ultimately pan, but as always, he does not think. 

 

Then something warm, delicate and hard is pressed into his hand: an earring.  “Your victory, Captain.” Balthier’s words still seem facetious. 

 

“You would return for this?” He manages to smile, but ‘tis not for long.  “A fine story, Balthier, nearly as fine as the one about jousting.”

 

There’s a dry laugh, but when Balthier speaks, his voice is already some distance away, at the door, no doubt.  “Captain, Captain.  Your fair horizon will oft come close within your reach, but you, even if you had your eyes, you’ll not have seen it.  Perhaps that lover’s token would help you find your way.”

 

He no longer has the innocence to take such words at more; he knows.  “You’ll leave, right after the tombs, you and Fran, and you will ask me to come with you.”

 

“Aye.”

 

Basch smiles, closes his hand tight over the earring.  “I thank you, but that choice was never within reach.”

 

Balthier’s answer is a chuckle, and he chooses not to hear the pity in it as the pirate’s footsteps recede.  Instead, he weighs the earring in his hand, his lip twisting at the edges, then gropes for and picks the twine with his pendant from the dresser and threads the silver against its eagle.

 

-fin-