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lumikatdraws · 5 years

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Prompt #20: Bisect

(”T,” Estinien/Aymeric, tentative slash over an established friendship. Takes place several years prior to canon [before the Winter of Coerthas]. Estinien POV. Minor warning for implied headcanon about Ishgard being homophobic.)

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“The hour is late,” Estinien muttered, glancing at the clock on the mantel. Still, the twilight lingered. In the summer months, the sun stretched on. “I will need to leave the manor ere long.”

Even in the warm weather, his voice always caught like a growl in his throat. Why, he was uncertain. The sound it made was rough and grating, morning and night. People often made note of his timbre, the way it conjured gravel and smoke. Some were attracted. Some were repulsed. Aymeric never paid it any mind. He simply accepted it.

Now, Aymeric’s pale eyes flicked to examine the time for himself. He made a calm sound of agreement and set his half-finished cup of tea down on the parlor table. “Indeed,” he agreed, stifling a sudden yawn. He cast his surly brother-in-arms a mildly reprobative glance. “Go home, my friend. Ser Alberic keeps his vigil until you return, does he not?”

Estinien grunted in acknowledgement but slouched deeper in the settee.

A soft laugh spilled from Aymeric’s lips and he shook his head gently. “He is a good man—”

“I know.” Estinien tossed his head back against the couch; stared at the ceiling and sighed with frustration. “A very good man. One of the best men I have had the pleasure of knowing.”

“Surely he would wish to hear you say that,” Aymeric declared.

Estinien grunted and pressed his lips firmly together.

He could feel the way his friend studied him; the way his pale eyes almost left behind white-hot tracks. Blazing and wintry all at once. “Tell me, Estinien—if you will,” he began. His dark voice was solemn, but kind. “For what reason do you guard your sentiments so strictly?”

The words speared through him like a sword or a lance and he could feel his hackles start rising.

For what reason, indeed. Beyond losing all he loved to the wrath of a wyrmking? Beyond life as an orphan thereafter, besides? Aymeric knew those reasons, but he asked for his own; another effort to reach down into his torment—another attempt to grapple and pull him to the surface.

Aymeric, always picking and prying, wanting so badly to untangle him.

It was a lost cause.

“Sentiment is the gateway to despair,” Estinien muttered, defensive, pulling tighter. He studied a crack in the molding above the dusk-limned window. “Sentiment breeds weakness.” He clenched his jaw. “I would sooner throw myself into the abyss than allow sentiment to control me.”

He felt the heat of Aymeric’s eyes, roaming over him slowly. “To allow it to control you would be a weakness, indeed,” he permitted. “But I would argue that sentiment itself is far from frailness—particularly sentiments like joy, or like love.” He took a thoughtful breath. “Feeling breeds infirmity in reaction, most often to aching. We lash out in pain and anger, or in sadness.”

Estinien knew all these things. He had no need for this homily.

“Treat me like a comrade, Aymeric, not a wayward child.” He tried to keep the bite from his voice, but it still came out sour. He tipped his head to face him, hoping his eyes at least held some thread of apology. “Well do you know how much I loathe being lectured.”

When Aymeric smiled, his eyes crinkled. They were almond-shaped and narrow and the color of ice or diamonds—but Estinien snorted at the thought, because Aymeric’s eyes were far finer than diamonds. Aymeric’s lips quirked in amusement and gentle affront. “Do you laugh at me?”

“Bloody hells, no.” It came out along with a bitter chuckle. “I laugh at my own damned self.”

That piqued his interest. “Perhaps my sermon struck a chord against your will?”

Estinien grimaced with all the force he could muster. “Shut it, Borel.”

Fury, Aymeric was smiling again. Smiling and ruffling a hand through his hair, black and glossy, like the feathers of a raven. Why in the name of Halone was the man so godsdamned lovely? “I shall continue to hope that you listen, somehow,” said Aymeric, almost shyly.

Estinien huffed and stared at him sternly. “I always listen to you, you sodding dimwit.”

Aymeric grinned wryly, and—was he blushing? “Thank heaven.”

He was.

He was blushing.

Aymeric was blushing, and Estinien was frozen.

The clock tick ticked on the mantel. The sun continued to set. The gentle summer wind whispered on the window and Estinien tried to breathe, to move, to do anything but keep staring. But he was transfixed by the flush on his face and the something else in Aymeric’s eyes; something new and very brittle, gently rising, like a dove on the surge of a thermal or a white cloud of rainfall in the Highlands— “Estinien?”

The way he said his name made every ilm of Estinien prickle. “What.”

Aymeric took a thin breath. The tips of his ears were red now, eyes half-veiled by black lashes.

Hellfire burned in his blood as Estinien thought he almost looked edible.

“Might I ask you—one thing else?”

Did Estinien dare to invite it, whatever was happening? Did he dare?

One thing was for certain. He had not the strength to look away.

The word fell from his lips before he could stop it. “Ask.”

Aymeric gave a breathy laugh—a small, lopsided grin. He managed to keep their eyes locked together despite his palpable embarrassment. “Stop me at once if this disturbs you,” he began, his voice laced with the shadow of a tremble. “Or if it comes at all as a surprise. But I,” his air hitched and stoppered. He cleared his throat once. Twice. Shook his head in evident humiliation. There was a long, tense pause as he struggled. “Words have ever been my strength above actions—” He took another, far more ragged inhalation. “And yet they fail me now.” He looked away then; closed his eyes tight. “I was a fool to think I could ask it—”

“Tell me,” Estinien muttered, desperate to be beheld again.

Long black lashes parted to reveal that light blue gaze of glittering sky and stardust, flicking to inspect him. But now, where the pale, fragile promise had been swelling, something heavy and glacial was sliding into place. “A wave of impulse overwhelmed me,” Aymeric was saying, jerking his head. “It would be remiss of me to mention, in far more ways than one.”

Estinien was ashamed of the way he wanted to yell at him; to take him by the shoulders and force him to tell. He took a thick breath instead. “Say what you are thinking.”

“I—” His mouth trembled. “If it interferes with our friendship—”

“Nothing could do that,” Estinien growled. Somehow, he was leaning closer regardless, hands still itching to grab. Aymeric flushed a bit hotter at the closing of the distance, perhaps a bit hotter at the look in his eyes. Well. Confusing as they were, doubtless Aymeric could see some measure of his feelings. He was always very skilled at reading a room.

Aymeric flung the words from his lips in a rush. “I never thought I would wish this,” he said quickly. “I am—rarely comfortable enough to wish it, but—” The breath he took rasped in his throat, very dry. Aymeric wet his lips. “Would you—perhaps—would you kiss me?”

It was as though the world had stopped. Time stopped ticking. Air stopped moving. The wind outside surely stopped blowing. Perhaps the war was ended, and Nidhogg had finally died, and peace was falling, at last, over every malm of Coerthas— “Pardon?”

Aymeric gulped a small breath, making his shoulders rise and fall. “Forgive me,” he blurted, all the blood in his body surely rushing to his face. “I never should have asked—”

“No.”

He let himself take Aymeric by the shoulders then. He was slim, but powerful, corded with muscles; a knight with formidable gifts all his own. Aymeric said he never thought he would wish this, and as he held him in his hands, Estinien was struck by a parallel musing: That for all the wild gnashing of his desires, Aymeric was perhaps the only man that could tempt him.

And tempted, he most certainly was.

“Never have I done such a thing with a man,” he admitted.

“Never have I,” said Aymeric, at once.

They stared hard into each other’s eyes, and Estinien took a shaky breath. “If that is what you wish,” he said, perhaps his roughest, smokiest growl, “For you, I will grant it.”

Aymeric shook with a visible tremble; made Estinien quake through the link of his arms. He moved an ilm closer and hesitated. “If it feels at all—wrong—you must say so at once—”

Tentative, Estinien moved an ilm of his own. His long hair slipped across his shoulders; began to drape to reach for Aymeric itself. “Rest assured that I will pitch you aside if it feels wrong.”

Aymeric coughed out a laugh; searched Estinien intently. “Thank the Fury.”

Tick, tick went the clock on the mantle. The summer wind hushed against the window, and Estinien leaned their foreheads together. His black hair was exactly as soft as it looked, and he smelled like salt and grass—they had been training afield in the daytime. Estinien brushed their noses together and caught a whiff of the tea that Aymeric was drinking, sweetened with that syrup of birch that he liked. A gaze blue as the sky in the morning held Estinien through the curl of long black lashes and he let himself be taken in. Nothing in the world could be wrong if Aymeric beheld him like that. Nothing in the world could be anything but right.

He closed the distance.

Aymeric tasted like tea and birch syrup—along with the bitters of anxiety. Estinien kissed him very gently, and Aymeric timidly answered. Their mouths found a mesh, new and unfamiliar, and Estinien was amazed at how plush his lips felt; at how quickly his own body was reacting.

They parted.

“Ah. That was—” Aymeric exhaled, face still beguilingly rosy. He grinned and flushed harder and laughed without sound. “That was really very nice.”

Estinien was speechless, but he grunted in what he hoped was affirmation.

Aymeric looked at him in immediate concern. “Are you well?”

Estinien jerked his chin by way of a nod and shifted his hips. Gods buggering damn his all too rousable flesh. Merely one kiss and he was ready to pounce? On Aymeric? Verily?

The other’s eyes were flicking down, perceptive, and Estinien resisted the urge to fold his hands in his lap. In the splitting of an instant, calculations and understanding flashed behind his pale blue eyes and Aymeric raised his black eyebrows in candid surprise, locking their gazes together again.

“Not one word,” Estinien grumbled, leaning away, completely bisecting them.

He could tell that Aymeric bit back a laugh from the way his eyes crinkled again. “You would deprive me of words in this moment—my instrument of choice?”

Estinien crossed his arms and took slow breaths, relieved to find that his body was calming. “I beg you would keep them to yourself,” he mumbled, knowing he would not.

“You are very good at that, you know,” Aymeric began, tongue flexing sure enough. He was reaching for his tea as if nothing at all had happened. “Very impressive, if I am honest.”

Estinien snorted at that. “I have had my share of practice,” he rumbled. “Far more than you have, you cloistered old ascetic.”

“Guilty,” Aymeric readily confessed, tipping his cup to his lips.

The sound of the door in the foyer, creaking open. Heels clicking, distant in the hall. A voice that lilted like a harpsichord and rustled like old damask curtains. “Aymeric?” A pause. “There is a pair of dirtied boots cast sidewise in the vestibule. Is Estinien there?”

Both young men straightened up at once and glanced toward the door to the parlor.

“Aye,” Estinien shouted, knowing the sound would be distinct enough to carry.

A heartbeat of silence and a gentle hoot of laughter. “Praise Halone,” cackled the Vicomtesse, her voice very wry. “I knew no son of mine would make such a fine mess.”

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#ffxivwrite2019 #estinien #aymeric #estinien wyrmblood #aymeric de borel #slash #estinien/aymeric #aymeric/estinien #FFXIV #ffxiv fanfiction #my writing #fluff #Grumblepuddle McEyeballhands #Angsty McEyeballs #Ser Cinnabon #Just Estinien things #Halone bless these beautiful boys #i love them so much

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austinonymous · 5 years

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Coping, Now that You’re Gone

Title: Coping, Now that You’re Gone

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn

Ship: Haurchefant Greystone x Male Warrior of Light

Characters: Artoirel de Fortemps, Emmanellain de Fortemps, Miqo’te Warrior of Light (Ahleh’li)

Rating: T (because I’m paranoid)

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19191988

Summary: The events of the Vault... he'd had barely any time to think about what he had just lost when he'd rushed after the Archbishop. Now, the drinking habits he'd picked up in his adopted home of Limsa Lominsa were coming in handy.

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Ishgard was a singularly cold city; he doubted Ser Aymeric would deny him that.

It was both fascinating and ridiculous to think about- a combination of brilliance and frustration. Those who built the city saw fit to place it on a lonely outcropping of rock, with shear cliffs on all sides that subjected the entire city with near constant freezing winds that whistled by with blistering ferocity. It was one of the few reasons that the dragons had yet to approach from any direction besides the sole connection to the rest of Coerthas that was the bridge; doing so was exhausting for any beast and would leave the weakened creature a sitting duck for Ishgard’s mighty cannons.

�� The citizens of the city were lucky in that the winds had maintained consistent patterns, allowing the Holy See to map them over the years to find the few ways their chocobos and flying ships could ferry people to and from the city.

Of course, that did little to help with the swirling frost that circled the city, constantly seeking any purchase in its walls and towers. The snow tried to claw its way inside, and the only reason the city wasn’t buried under several inches of snow was the updrafts drove the snow away mostly. The sky fought itself every second, miraculously leaving the noble and poor alike safe from the worst of the weather’s attempts to encase them in an ever-deepening layer of ice.

Despite that safety net, when one gazed on it, the city looked desolately cold. While the towering architecture of his home city was grand and its cathedrals and halls still filled him with awe, the endless stonework made living here when in a foul mood near insufferable. He didn’t have the glistening sea at his doorstep like back in Limnsa Lominsa, nor the pure white stone mixed in with the more traditional grey stone quarried from the cliffsides nearby. It was startling how refreshing a simple breeze felt while standing on the terraces of his adopted home, brushing up against him and caressing his cheek like a fisherman coming in from a long night’s work. The salt of the bustling harbor did not cling to his arms and mix into the fur of his tail or ears here, and the boisterous sounds of drunken song from a dozen barely controlled pirate crews could not be heard.

If he was there, across the continent, Ahleh’li would bury his sorrows in booze and drunkenly dance on table-tops with the sailors of the city. Merry step-dances and improvised line-dances as a random sailor played a beat out on the well-worn skin of a drum as the wicks of the candles burned away. His old guild-master from the Arcanists guild would likely chastise him for not spending time on his incantations and spellwork surely, but Jacke would cheer him on before finding a secluded balcony for his other Rouges to share a pint and try and cheer him up.

It was funny- Ishgard was where he was raised, but in this moment of great sorrow it did not feel like home.

His companion shifted a bit to his right, a bit uneasy. Ahleh’li smirked a bit at the young elezen- though to be fair Emmanellain was actually a little older than himself, “Hn- Ya ‘een a wee s’bit antsy there Mister,” he tried to tease the man before frowning as his speech came out in the more slurred accent he’d gained while with the Rouges and the sailors of the port city. He coughed, forcing his brain to focus a bit more so that he wouldn’t appear quite so inebriated.

Really, he hadn’t had that much liquor. Over his time getting into drinking contests with the large and broad-chested Roegadyn, Ahleh’li had learned to stomach enough to topple the seven-foot-tall race. It must have been quite some time since his last drinking contest to be getting this affected already.

Oh yes. His last had been with… with…

Ahleh’li took another swig of his ale, savoring the taste as it burned down his throat, Emmanellain sighing as he did so, “My dear Warrior of Light, I know how you must be feeling- gods, I mean I didn’t know him well, but he was my half-brother still,” He said depressingly as he took a small sip of the Forgotten Knight’s ale. “Is this truly the best way to deal with this? I know the docks of Limsa Lominsa are much different than here but… this seems… ineffective.”

Ishgardian nobility and their weak stomachs- what Ahleh’li wouldn’t give to have Captain Jacke here, or Towering Stone, maybe Thancred too. It was too bad his fellow Scion was out scouting the Garlean’s movements.

“Well, see here Emmanellain, s’not supposed to be effective. That’s the whole point; you drink till your dancing on the rafters and forgetting about whatever it was that got you into the tavern to begin with,” Ahleh’li said pointing a finger at the young noble elezen.

“That does not sound healthy in the slightest,” Came the calm yet dour tones of the older Fortemps brother. The Miqo’te looked back with a raised eyebrow, tail swishing behind him as he gazed up at Artoirel.

He took a moment before humming, “Perhaps not, yet here we all are. Your city is being forcibly changed from a theocracy, discontent and distrust bubbles under its surface, and everyone has dead to count.” Ahleh’li sighed, gazing into the mug in front of him, “What I wouldn’t give to be fighting the Garleans again in Mor Dhona. No secret revelations that complicated your feelings besides how truly massive assholes they all were.”

Artoirel sighed and pushed a black bang out of his face, “Ser Aymeric sent me to find you; he’s quite worried for you, as is young Alphinaud.”

That earned the noble a finger-wagging, as Ahleh’li’s ears perked up at the mention of Alphinaud, “Now now, that young man is only a couple years younger than me, so be careful what comments you make about his age Mister Heir Apparent.”

Scoffing, the noble shook his head and smirked, “Unlike yourself I doubt Alphinaud can down a half dozen of the inn’s strongest ales without vomiting up his guts in the corner. I think I can call him young at least in that respect.”

Ahleh’li nodded solemnly, before snickering. Alphinaud was really just too cute for his own good- not that it was an unattractive quality. It was endearing, and he treasured the other arcanist’s friendship dearly. Especially after everything the both of them had been through ever since escaping Ul’dah.

The mood had lightened for a moment, but Artoirel soon sent it crashing back down again as he raised the issue once again, “I have to agree with Ser Aymeric and Alphinaud however; this is not what you should be doing to cope with the sacrifice of our dear brother.”

His fingers clenched around the handle of his mug, but Ahleh’li managed to hold his fury in, “What should I be doing? Shall I go get revenge and bring those who hurt him to justice? Well, did that already and it did jack shit for me. “

Emmanellain sighed as he set down his own mug and looked at the younger man, “We don’t need to drown our sorrows like this at least. You have many friends around you to take solace in. You’re even slowly finding members of the Scions you lost, aren’t you? Even if Haurchefant is gone, you need not suffer alone.”

Ahleh’li’s breath hitched at the utterance of Haurchefant’s name, his alcohol-addled mind immediately conjuring his cheerful face to mind. Steaming mugs of cocoa in hand as he offered them refuge after being forced to run. A wide smile on his face as he playfully teased the smaller Miqo’te before they both downed another glass of ale. The wisps of frost puffing from his mouth, swirling past a face framed by disheveled hair and shirt hanging dangerously low on his shoulder as he lay over Ahleh’li. The red on his cheeks as Ser Aymeric gave them both knowing smiles as they shuffled in to plan for the combat operations to come. The gentleness of hands calloused from battle, carefully holding his own as they lay in front of a fireplace together in his quarters.

It had been dream-like, despite all the trials they were going through. And like most of Ahleh’li’s dreams, it had ended by turning into a nightmare.

A hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder and Ahleh’li looked up at the sympathetic face of Artoirel, startled. The noble sighed, looking away before speaking, “I know that this is all quite unwanted, and you likely wish to grieve without the rest of us. The Fury knows that Father has been secluded in his study ever since he received the news. This still, still it is not healthy. You, Alphinaud, Haurchefant, Ser Aymeric, and Estinien, have supported each other throughout this ordeal- throwing away their companionship now amid grieving is a mistake I wish to not see you make.”

His tongue darted out and licked his lips to wet them; Ahleh’li did not enjoy this conversation in the least bit. He blinked, suddenly realizing what Artoirel was talking about, “I… I take it Alphinaud is not handling the disappearance of Estinien well?”

The older noble shook his head, grim, “As someone with a younger brother, I know the sort of admiration he had for Estinien. Even if the Dragoon’s absence is not exactly abnormal, the lack of communication from him is. And with the Dragonsong War still going until peace negotiations start, his absence bodes ill.”

That did not sound good. Ahleh’li had grown to respect the Dragoon over their time together traveling Dravania and Albathia’s Spire, and for him to be missing after all this mess with the Holy See went down…

Still, that wasn’t the worst of it. Really, after everything they’d been through, here Ahleh’li was drowning his sorrows in booze while he left his elezen friend and people like Ser Aymeric who had been nothing but supportive to mourn Haurchefant and fret over Estinien’s disappearance alone.

After Haurchefant had passed, only wishing to see a smile on Ahleh’li’s face as his eyes closed forever.

Ahleh’li groaned, staggering to his feet as he dragged his sleeve across his mouth to wipe away any of the froth left there by his ale. The two brothers looked at him curiously and the Miqo’te gave them his best smile, raising his mug in one last gulp of ale, “To the greatest knight this realm has seen, and to a future where his death won’t have been fruitless.”

Perhaps it wasn’t a convincing toast, or smile. But that didn’t matter. If he was to move on, he needed to do so with a smile. Getting through this grief intact would be his personal monument to a man who’d saved his life.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Final Fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv heavensward #male miqo'te #miqo'te warrior of light #miqo'te #ffxiv miqo'te #artoirel de fortemps #emmanellain de fortemps #aymeric de borel #alphinaud leveilleur #haurchefant greystone #referenced character death #post-Heavensward #drinking #drinking to cope #my fanfic #my story

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