FFXII Fic: Embers and Other Words, Chapter 2 (Ashe X Vaan)
For the ever-radiant ladyassassin, following her extremely intriguing prompt of jealousy. And I promise, one day, I shall actually write a happy piece of fiction involving Our Lady of Perpetual Anger! Today, however, is not that day.
Title: Embers and Other Words, Chapter 2: Howling
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Embers and Other Words
Characters/Pairings: Ashe/Vaan, One-Sided
Rating: Hard R, sexual situations
Summary: Fantasies are meant to be consensual, not fulfilling.
Chapter 1: To the Start.
Whenever he does this, he always thinks first of her eyes.
He does not do this often. He cannot allow himself to do this too often. If he did, if he let himself too often indulge in this sort of deed, he would probably snap and, sometime in between one hunt and another adventure, probably set off to see her in the gilded and pad-locked tower he had helped place her within four years past. If he did, if he let himself picture how beautifully the broken pieces of their bodies could snap together if only she were willing, he would merely prove himself to be every inch the fool so many others had always thought him to be. If he did, he would probably fly all the way back to her on mechanical wings, only to have them burned off quickly by her scorn and her sorrow and her slow, subtle smile, made hopelessly brittle by her nation’s weakened state.
(“Are you… are you sure, so very sure, there‘s nothing we can have here?”
“You know why just as well as I do. You didn‘t even need to come and see me.”)
But for all his bluster and false laughter and womanizing, he always finds himself eventually kneeling once again before her memory. And for all the flights he has taken halfway around the world to forget her, he and his hands always end up worshipping her ardently.
So whenever he does this, however infrequently to soothe his own wounded pride, he always thinks first of her fine, wide, ever-burning eyes. Somehow, it doesn’t seem quite so hopeless and sordid this way.
Whenever he runs his raw knuckles over his body like this, he first thinks of her lashes and fine, bright eyes, their hue and circumference even larger and darker and lovelier in his mind than in reality. So lovely they were, wide-framed and gray-toned and resolute even in the face of horror, and he has long since lost track of how many times he has walked the streets of Rabanastre hoping to catch even a glimpse of its loveliest resident’s beauty.
Whenever he finds himself reduced to a half mad huddle on the bunk of his bed, his mind goes over the exact shape of her lips, the exact character of her laugh, the exact pitch of her cries. It has been so long since he has heard them, since he has had her by his side (brows lifting lightly at his every provocation and lips curling up at his every moment of cupidity)-- and still he can remember all her particulars so well, as though the recollection of it were pounded into his very being.
Whenever he found himself muffling the cries of her name against his rough blankets, he imagines fine hands gripping an even finer blade in the midst of battle, a back set against his as they squared off against more opponents, the adventures she has won and even worse concluded, the smile that had once been brilliant and had faded into exhaustion as years of politics had passed them both swiftly.
And when he finally finishes the deed, fingers clenched against himself and imagination running wild, he breathes in the taint of his own sickness and corruption, of the stain of base human desire and need. He always lies shuddering in the aftermath that comes all too swiftly, that reduces him to nothing more than an animal rutting hopelessly, howling at stars it can never hope to reach.
And he knows full well that there will be no happy ending for the either of them, not for a life they in which they could be content in each other‘s company. Because she has always had her purpose and her kingdom, because she will always have her power and her presence, because she will always keep close to herself her reasons for holding herself aloft from lesser beings such as he.
And of all the reasons he has to be jealous of when it comes to her,
(her prince, her past, her future posterity-- all that lay in between, that would never let a pirate openly love a seated queen)
That was perhaps the most hopeless of them all.
Title: Embers and Other Words, Chapter 2: Howling
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Embers and Other Words
Characters/Pairings: Ashe/Vaan, One-Sided
Rating: Hard R, sexual situations
Summary: Fantasies are meant to be consensual, not fulfilling.
Chapter 1: To the Start.
Whenever he does this, he always thinks first of her eyes.
He does not do this often. He cannot allow himself to do this too often. If he did, if he let himself too often indulge in this sort of deed, he would probably snap and, sometime in between one hunt and another adventure, probably set off to see her in the gilded and pad-locked tower he had helped place her within four years past. If he did, if he let himself picture how beautifully the broken pieces of their bodies could snap together if only she were willing, he would merely prove himself to be every inch the fool so many others had always thought him to be. If he did, he would probably fly all the way back to her on mechanical wings, only to have them burned off quickly by her scorn and her sorrow and her slow, subtle smile, made hopelessly brittle by her nation’s weakened state.
(“Are you… are you sure, so very sure, there‘s nothing we can have here?”
“You know why just as well as I do. You didn‘t even need to come and see me.”)
But for all his bluster and false laughter and womanizing, he always finds himself eventually kneeling once again before her memory. And for all the flights he has taken halfway around the world to forget her, he and his hands always end up worshipping her ardently.
So whenever he does this, however infrequently to soothe his own wounded pride, he always thinks first of her fine, wide, ever-burning eyes. Somehow, it doesn’t seem quite so hopeless and sordid this way.
Whenever he runs his raw knuckles over his body like this, he first thinks of her lashes and fine, bright eyes, their hue and circumference even larger and darker and lovelier in his mind than in reality. So lovely they were, wide-framed and gray-toned and resolute even in the face of horror, and he has long since lost track of how many times he has walked the streets of Rabanastre hoping to catch even a glimpse of its loveliest resident’s beauty.
Whenever he finds himself reduced to a half mad huddle on the bunk of his bed, his mind goes over the exact shape of her lips, the exact character of her laugh, the exact pitch of her cries. It has been so long since he has heard them, since he has had her by his side (brows lifting lightly at his every provocation and lips curling up at his every moment of cupidity)-- and still he can remember all her particulars so well, as though the recollection of it were pounded into his very being.
Whenever he found himself muffling the cries of her name against his rough blankets, he imagines fine hands gripping an even finer blade in the midst of battle, a back set against his as they squared off against more opponents, the adventures she has won and even worse concluded, the smile that had once been brilliant and had faded into exhaustion as years of politics had passed them both swiftly.
And when he finally finishes the deed, fingers clenched against himself and imagination running wild, he breathes in the taint of his own sickness and corruption, of the stain of base human desire and need. He always lies shuddering in the aftermath that comes all too swiftly, that reduces him to nothing more than an animal rutting hopelessly, howling at stars it can never hope to reach.
And he knows full well that there will be no happy ending for the either of them, not for a life they in which they could be content in each other‘s company. Because she has always had her purpose and her kingdom, because she will always have her power and her presence, because she will always keep close to herself her reasons for holding herself aloft from lesser beings such as he.
And of all the reasons he has to be jealous of when it comes to her,
(her prince, her past, her future posterity-- all that lay in between, that would never let a pirate openly love a seated queen)
That was perhaps the most hopeless of them all.