The Things We Do For Love (Dragon Quest VIII, Angelo/Eight, PG-13)
Title: The Things We Do For Love
Author/Artist: queenoftheskies
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: insinuation of sexual encounters
Word count: 2,341
Prompt: Dragon Quest VIII, Angelo/Eight: crossdressing - "The things I do for you."
A/N: This was due yesterday. Sorry for the tardiness.
Angelo’s hopes fell when he looked out from their perch in the rocks high above the bandits’ camp. “No sign of them.”
Eight flopped down on his stomach to peer through a crack in the rocks. “Jessica’s good for ransom…” His voice darkened. “Among other things.” The young knight sighed. “It’s Yangus I’m really worried about. He could have enemies in there, Angelo. It’s not like they just let one of their own desert without repercussions.”
“I don’t see how you could think about…” The Templar bit off the words before they could escape. The boy was right, of course. Jessica had a much greater chance of surviving than the ex-thief, but still...
Eight's hand settled on his arm, firm and comforting. "We're going to get them both out," he said, shoving himself into a squat. "I have a plan."
#
Only the knowledge that Eight’s fingers were wrapped around his boomerang and that his rapier hung at the hero’s belt gave Angelo any comfort as they made their way toward the bandits’ camp. Eight, of course, kept to the rocks and any low brush they were fortunate enough to come across, but he…he kept to the open, taking great care to make sure the brigands saw him.
“Remind me to kill you if we all get out of this alive,” he muttered under his breath. He knew Eight could hear him for now. Soon, though, they’d have to separate and he’d have to trust the fact that the young knight would find his own way into the camp while Angelo distracted the guards and the camp as a whole. “It should be you dressed up as a floozy, not me.”
Soft laughter traveled to his ears on the light breeze. “You’re much prettier than I am, Angelo. They’d never take me for a woman, but you…”
The words could have vanished into the wind, but somehow, he thought his young lover was too smart to have uttered them in the first place. “The things I do for you,” he quipped back. In truth, though, he was doing it more to make sure that Jessica rejoined their threesome and that Yangus…well, he couldn’t let the bloke fall to harm any more than he could allow something to happen to the two he loved.
They’d rehearsed what he needed to do, but he’d come onto enough women to know that it wasn’t always easy to avoid well-placed hands or elude the advances of desperate men. He only hoped he could distract the countless-they hadn’t been able to determine the number from a distance, but there were lots-outlaws long enough to insure the others’ freedom.
Smoothing the skirt around his legs, he flinched, knowing Jessica would kill him if she knew he was wearing her clothes. Thankfully, they’d found something less revealing than her normally low-cut blouse, something that actually covered enough of his chest that they’d been able to stuff the shirt with soft spring melons without any striped pink cleavage actually showing.
When the wind blew stronger, whipping at the white hair that spilled about his shoulders, Angelo wished for the soft ribbon that normally bound his hair back. His brother had delighted in tormenting him about it and his soft looks when they were younger, taunting him with accusations that he looked more like a woman than a man. Though he hadn't admitted it to Eight, when the other man had suggested he dress up as a diversion, it had hurt that the young man had pointed out that, of the two of them, he'd make a better woman.
The bandits noticed him all too soon, sending two of their biggest guards to check him out. Weapons raised, they approached, but as soon as they were close enough to get a good look, they put their weapons away and restrained him, their hands lingering in places he'd have gotten slapped for touching.
He didn't have to feign fear at the sight of them. Each of them would have made three of him. He did force the high-pitched screams, hoped they sounded more realistic to the barbarians than they did to him, and slapped their hands away in the manner of half-hearted protests he'd endured at the hands of pretties playing hard to get.
A few bats of his eyelashes and a couple of coy smiles later, though, and he had them eating out of his hand...more or less. There was still the more than familiar pinch on his but and the stolen gropes on the way back to their compound, but their attention was definitely distracted by the time they hit camp.
As they'd hoped, the band seemed all male, maybe two dozen in number, as near as he could tell. With the tents spread out across the plain and a handful of prisoners huddled together in one corner of the camp, they'd looked more numerous from a distance. Still, what worried him the most was no sight of either Jessica or Yangus among the prisoners. How Eight planned to find them worried him. Whether they'd all get out alive or not was something he wasn't ready to dwell on...yet.
The men gathered around them as soon as they were through the barriers that marked the camp, pushing and shoving for some sight of the prize brought into their midst. Angelo heard more than one lewd suggestion, felt more than one pair of hands tearing at him before a tall, brawny fellow shoved his way through the crowd and studied him with experienced eyes.
Resisting the urge to gulp, the Templar offered the raven-haired man a nervous smile. There was an anxious moment when he knew the man had made him, when he was sure the silence was prelude to a slaughter. Then the middle-aged, olive-skinned man broke out in a smile and extended his hand.
"Come with me, my sweet pearl of the desert." Casting a sour glance that drove his compatriots back a foot, he sneered, "A pretty little thing like you isn't safe around the likes of these animals."
"But...but..." As much as he disliked the leers of the hungry men, he needed to distract them long enough for Eight to find their friends.
Large, rough hands wrapped around his wrists, hauled him forward. Given no choice, Angelo staggered straight into the man's arms. Turning his head robbed him of a kiss on the lips, but did little to save him from the thief's rancid breath. While he coughed and spluttered in a gagging breath, the man pressed his body so close that the Templar feared for the integrity of his melons.
The crowd pressed around them, filled with angry shouts and curses. Washed away in the flow of bodies, Angelo found himself carried deeper into the heart of the camp. He stumbled, went down in a tangle of fabric. Somehow, he missed the worst of the feet that stomped over him, though one caught him in the back and another on the side of the face.
Desperate hands fished him out from beneath the throng of fighting men, sat him up, brushed the dirt from his face. "You okay, honey?" Clear green eyes peered out at him from beneath a mop of tousled red hair.
It took another glance for Angelo to see past the baggy clothes and layer of dirt to the woman buried beneath. "I've got to get out of here." Surely she'd understand.
"I don't see too many pretty girls around here." She favored him with a gap-toothed smile. Her tongue caressed her split bottom lip suggestively, one hand slid beneath his skirt.
It took a moment for his action to register, another for him to slap away her hand.
"Aw, is that any way to treat the girl who saved you from the likes of..." She nodded toward the escalating brawl. "Them."
She had a point and as long as the brigands were engaged, surely he could handle this scrap of a woman. "I see your point."
"Come on." Slipping her fingers through his, she tugged him to his feet. "I got a bottle tucked away in my tent. I bet we could get to know each other better in no time."
#
By the time the wench found out he was a man instead of a woman, she was too wasted to care and by the time Angelo had tucked himself back into Jessica's panties and skirt, he couldn't remember whether he'd enjoyed their encounter or whether anything had happened at all.
Just in time, he adjusted his melons as the tent shuddered and a burly man the size of Yangus flung the flap aside. Against his girly protests, the man hauled him out, hands making for the throat of his blouse before Angelo realized what was happening. Even a knee to the groin and a melon to the head did little to impress upon the cad that Angelo was not interested in his intentions.
The man had him down, one hand inside the blouse, the other beneath the skirt before the familiar crunch of crackle filled the air. The thug pitched over sideways, landing beside the Templar with a thud.
"That's my bitch, you bastard!" Wrapping her fingers around Angelo's wrist, Jessica tugged him to his feet, demanding, "Are you okay? What did they do to you?" when his legs turned to rubber.
"'E's been drinkin', can't ya see?" Yangus nodded to the overturned bottle of liquor that had rolled from the tent to settle at his feet. "They prob'ly put somethin' in it to..." The former thief shrugged.
"What are you saying?" Jessica released Angelo long enough to grab Yangus by the front of his filthy shirt and shake. "What are you..."
"Jus' that they maybe wanted to make 'im more..." Yangus flinched. "Manageable."
"Manageable?"
Even Angelo, as inebriated as he was, flinched at the tone of her voice. Or, maybe it wasn't so much the tone as it was the volume. He sure as hell wasn't going to tell her he couldn't remember whether he'd been taken advantage of or whether he'd done the taking advantage himself.
"Come on." Eight's frantic voice cut through the haze in his mind.
He tugged on one arm while Jessica grabbed the other and, together, they steered Angelo toward the back of the camp.
"If this doesn't work..." Jessica whispered.
"Don’t worry," Eight assured her. "Just be ready with the magic." The first hint of doubt flickered in his eyes. "Just in case."
She kissed his cheek and then planted a full kiss on Angelo's lips. "No offense, but I like you better in uniform."
Angelo was about to agree--or at least, somewhere in his mind, he thought he agreed--when all hell broke loose at the front of the camp.
"Looks likes they's found out we're gone," Yangus said, swinging around, massive hammer in hand, to cover their rear.
Jessica gave up her place at Angelo's side, uncurling the whip from her belt. Throwing her weight into Yangus, she ordered, "Get them out of here. I've got a score to settle with these vermin."
"I don't think..."
"Don't think." She shoved him toward the men. "Just go."
Angelo opened his mouth to protest, but all thoughts of reasoning with Jessica vanished when he saw the anger burning in her eyes, the fire flashing at her fingertips. And then, he was airborne, landing with a thud over Yangus' shoulder. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen the big man move quite so fast, but Jessica vanished at an alarming speed as they made their way toward freedom.
The uneven thud-thud of Yangus' plodding run didn't set well with his already roiling stomach and by the time they reached the breach at the back of the camp, Angelo had lost the contents of his stomach three times. Yangus complained loudly about the smear of vomit down his backside, but didn't break stride.
By the time they hit the desert, Angelo had given up trying to keep track of where they were going. By the time they climbed into the rocks, the world had grayed around him.
His last clear thoughts were of a spiral of flame rising from the heart of the enemy camp. He had time to whisper Jessica's name, time for his mind to wrap itself around the fact that there was still no sign of her, before he succumbed to the throbbing in his head and the world went black around him.
#
Soft hands brushed back his hair before he was completely awake. Angelo turned into their warmth and opened his eyes, closing them immediately when they amplified the ache in his head. He hadn't missed Jessica's worried expression, though, or the fact that he was cradled between her and Eight.
"Give me a couple of hours to regain magic," Eight whispered, "and I'll take care of your head."
"What happened?" Angelo opened his eyes again experimentally, touched his scalp, flinching at the growing pain, wondered at the sticky in his hair. He couldn't remember being injured. In fact, he couldn't remember much of anything.
"You are such a fool." Jessica's expression reflected the strain in her voice. The tension at the corners of her eyes vanished as her mouth eased into a smile. "A brave fool..." Her arms slid around his neck. "But a fool nonetheless." She swatted past him, at Eight. "And if you ever suggest anything this stupid again..."
"It's worth the pain," Angelo whispered into her hair, "just to have to back, safe and sound."
"Those sound like cuddling words, Mister." Her voice trembled. "I was so worried about you."
Angelo squeezed gently. "And us about you."
He dragged her gently to the ground beside him; his free hand sought Eight, their fingers intertwined.
And just before Angelo drifted off to sleep again, he heard them both whisper, "I love you," as they wrapped loving arms around him and reminded him the things they'd do for love.
Author/Artist: queenoftheskies
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: insinuation of sexual encounters
Word count: 2,341
Prompt: Dragon Quest VIII, Angelo/Eight: crossdressing - "The things I do for you."
A/N: This was due yesterday. Sorry for the tardiness.
Angelo’s hopes fell when he looked out from their perch in the rocks high above the bandits’ camp. “No sign of them.”
Eight flopped down on his stomach to peer through a crack in the rocks. “Jessica’s good for ransom…” His voice darkened. “Among other things.” The young knight sighed. “It’s Yangus I’m really worried about. He could have enemies in there, Angelo. It’s not like they just let one of their own desert without repercussions.”
“I don’t see how you could think about…” The Templar bit off the words before they could escape. The boy was right, of course. Jessica had a much greater chance of surviving than the ex-thief, but still...
Eight's hand settled on his arm, firm and comforting. "We're going to get them both out," he said, shoving himself into a squat. "I have a plan."
#
Only the knowledge that Eight’s fingers were wrapped around his boomerang and that his rapier hung at the hero’s belt gave Angelo any comfort as they made their way toward the bandits’ camp. Eight, of course, kept to the rocks and any low brush they were fortunate enough to come across, but he…he kept to the open, taking great care to make sure the brigands saw him.
“Remind me to kill you if we all get out of this alive,” he muttered under his breath. He knew Eight could hear him for now. Soon, though, they’d have to separate and he’d have to trust the fact that the young knight would find his own way into the camp while Angelo distracted the guards and the camp as a whole. “It should be you dressed up as a floozy, not me.”
Soft laughter traveled to his ears on the light breeze. “You’re much prettier than I am, Angelo. They’d never take me for a woman, but you…”
The words could have vanished into the wind, but somehow, he thought his young lover was too smart to have uttered them in the first place. “The things I do for you,” he quipped back. In truth, though, he was doing it more to make sure that Jessica rejoined their threesome and that Yangus…well, he couldn’t let the bloke fall to harm any more than he could allow something to happen to the two he loved.
They’d rehearsed what he needed to do, but he’d come onto enough women to know that it wasn’t always easy to avoid well-placed hands or elude the advances of desperate men. He only hoped he could distract the countless-they hadn’t been able to determine the number from a distance, but there were lots-outlaws long enough to insure the others’ freedom.
Smoothing the skirt around his legs, he flinched, knowing Jessica would kill him if she knew he was wearing her clothes. Thankfully, they’d found something less revealing than her normally low-cut blouse, something that actually covered enough of his chest that they’d been able to stuff the shirt with soft spring melons without any striped pink cleavage actually showing.
When the wind blew stronger, whipping at the white hair that spilled about his shoulders, Angelo wished for the soft ribbon that normally bound his hair back. His brother had delighted in tormenting him about it and his soft looks when they were younger, taunting him with accusations that he looked more like a woman than a man. Though he hadn't admitted it to Eight, when the other man had suggested he dress up as a diversion, it had hurt that the young man had pointed out that, of the two of them, he'd make a better woman.
The bandits noticed him all too soon, sending two of their biggest guards to check him out. Weapons raised, they approached, but as soon as they were close enough to get a good look, they put their weapons away and restrained him, their hands lingering in places he'd have gotten slapped for touching.
He didn't have to feign fear at the sight of them. Each of them would have made three of him. He did force the high-pitched screams, hoped they sounded more realistic to the barbarians than they did to him, and slapped their hands away in the manner of half-hearted protests he'd endured at the hands of pretties playing hard to get.
A few bats of his eyelashes and a couple of coy smiles later, though, and he had them eating out of his hand...more or less. There was still the more than familiar pinch on his but and the stolen gropes on the way back to their compound, but their attention was definitely distracted by the time they hit camp.
As they'd hoped, the band seemed all male, maybe two dozen in number, as near as he could tell. With the tents spread out across the plain and a handful of prisoners huddled together in one corner of the camp, they'd looked more numerous from a distance. Still, what worried him the most was no sight of either Jessica or Yangus among the prisoners. How Eight planned to find them worried him. Whether they'd all get out alive or not was something he wasn't ready to dwell on...yet.
The men gathered around them as soon as they were through the barriers that marked the camp, pushing and shoving for some sight of the prize brought into their midst. Angelo heard more than one lewd suggestion, felt more than one pair of hands tearing at him before a tall, brawny fellow shoved his way through the crowd and studied him with experienced eyes.
Resisting the urge to gulp, the Templar offered the raven-haired man a nervous smile. There was an anxious moment when he knew the man had made him, when he was sure the silence was prelude to a slaughter. Then the middle-aged, olive-skinned man broke out in a smile and extended his hand.
"Come with me, my sweet pearl of the desert." Casting a sour glance that drove his compatriots back a foot, he sneered, "A pretty little thing like you isn't safe around the likes of these animals."
"But...but..." As much as he disliked the leers of the hungry men, he needed to distract them long enough for Eight to find their friends.
Large, rough hands wrapped around his wrists, hauled him forward. Given no choice, Angelo staggered straight into the man's arms. Turning his head robbed him of a kiss on the lips, but did little to save him from the thief's rancid breath. While he coughed and spluttered in a gagging breath, the man pressed his body so close that the Templar feared for the integrity of his melons.
The crowd pressed around them, filled with angry shouts and curses. Washed away in the flow of bodies, Angelo found himself carried deeper into the heart of the camp. He stumbled, went down in a tangle of fabric. Somehow, he missed the worst of the feet that stomped over him, though one caught him in the back and another on the side of the face.
Desperate hands fished him out from beneath the throng of fighting men, sat him up, brushed the dirt from his face. "You okay, honey?" Clear green eyes peered out at him from beneath a mop of tousled red hair.
It took another glance for Angelo to see past the baggy clothes and layer of dirt to the woman buried beneath. "I've got to get out of here." Surely she'd understand.
"I don't see too many pretty girls around here." She favored him with a gap-toothed smile. Her tongue caressed her split bottom lip suggestively, one hand slid beneath his skirt.
It took a moment for his action to register, another for him to slap away her hand.
"Aw, is that any way to treat the girl who saved you from the likes of..." She nodded toward the escalating brawl. "Them."
She had a point and as long as the brigands were engaged, surely he could handle this scrap of a woman. "I see your point."
"Come on." Slipping her fingers through his, she tugged him to his feet. "I got a bottle tucked away in my tent. I bet we could get to know each other better in no time."
#
By the time the wench found out he was a man instead of a woman, she was too wasted to care and by the time Angelo had tucked himself back into Jessica's panties and skirt, he couldn't remember whether he'd enjoyed their encounter or whether anything had happened at all.
Just in time, he adjusted his melons as the tent shuddered and a burly man the size of Yangus flung the flap aside. Against his girly protests, the man hauled him out, hands making for the throat of his blouse before Angelo realized what was happening. Even a knee to the groin and a melon to the head did little to impress upon the cad that Angelo was not interested in his intentions.
The man had him down, one hand inside the blouse, the other beneath the skirt before the familiar crunch of crackle filled the air. The thug pitched over sideways, landing beside the Templar with a thud.
"That's my bitch, you bastard!" Wrapping her fingers around Angelo's wrist, Jessica tugged him to his feet, demanding, "Are you okay? What did they do to you?" when his legs turned to rubber.
"'E's been drinkin', can't ya see?" Yangus nodded to the overturned bottle of liquor that had rolled from the tent to settle at his feet. "They prob'ly put somethin' in it to..." The former thief shrugged.
"What are you saying?" Jessica released Angelo long enough to grab Yangus by the front of his filthy shirt and shake. "What are you..."
"Jus' that they maybe wanted to make 'im more..." Yangus flinched. "Manageable."
"Manageable?"
Even Angelo, as inebriated as he was, flinched at the tone of her voice. Or, maybe it wasn't so much the tone as it was the volume. He sure as hell wasn't going to tell her he couldn't remember whether he'd been taken advantage of or whether he'd done the taking advantage himself.
"Come on." Eight's frantic voice cut through the haze in his mind.
He tugged on one arm while Jessica grabbed the other and, together, they steered Angelo toward the back of the camp.
"If this doesn't work..." Jessica whispered.
"Don’t worry," Eight assured her. "Just be ready with the magic." The first hint of doubt flickered in his eyes. "Just in case."
She kissed his cheek and then planted a full kiss on Angelo's lips. "No offense, but I like you better in uniform."
Angelo was about to agree--or at least, somewhere in his mind, he thought he agreed--when all hell broke loose at the front of the camp.
"Looks likes they's found out we're gone," Yangus said, swinging around, massive hammer in hand, to cover their rear.
Jessica gave up her place at Angelo's side, uncurling the whip from her belt. Throwing her weight into Yangus, she ordered, "Get them out of here. I've got a score to settle with these vermin."
"I don't think..."
"Don't think." She shoved him toward the men. "Just go."
Angelo opened his mouth to protest, but all thoughts of reasoning with Jessica vanished when he saw the anger burning in her eyes, the fire flashing at her fingertips. And then, he was airborne, landing with a thud over Yangus' shoulder. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen the big man move quite so fast, but Jessica vanished at an alarming speed as they made their way toward freedom.
The uneven thud-thud of Yangus' plodding run didn't set well with his already roiling stomach and by the time they reached the breach at the back of the camp, Angelo had lost the contents of his stomach three times. Yangus complained loudly about the smear of vomit down his backside, but didn't break stride.
By the time they hit the desert, Angelo had given up trying to keep track of where they were going. By the time they climbed into the rocks, the world had grayed around him.
His last clear thoughts were of a spiral of flame rising from the heart of the enemy camp. He had time to whisper Jessica's name, time for his mind to wrap itself around the fact that there was still no sign of her, before he succumbed to the throbbing in his head and the world went black around him.
#
Soft hands brushed back his hair before he was completely awake. Angelo turned into their warmth and opened his eyes, closing them immediately when they amplified the ache in his head. He hadn't missed Jessica's worried expression, though, or the fact that he was cradled between her and Eight.
"Give me a couple of hours to regain magic," Eight whispered, "and I'll take care of your head."
"What happened?" Angelo opened his eyes again experimentally, touched his scalp, flinching at the growing pain, wondered at the sticky in his hair. He couldn't remember being injured. In fact, he couldn't remember much of anything.
"You are such a fool." Jessica's expression reflected the strain in her voice. The tension at the corners of her eyes vanished as her mouth eased into a smile. "A brave fool..." Her arms slid around his neck. "But a fool nonetheless." She swatted past him, at Eight. "And if you ever suggest anything this stupid again..."
"It's worth the pain," Angelo whispered into her hair, "just to have to back, safe and sound."
"Those sound like cuddling words, Mister." Her voice trembled. "I was so worried about you."
Angelo squeezed gently. "And us about you."
He dragged her gently to the ground beside him; his free hand sought Eight, their fingers intertwined.
And just before Angelo drifted off to sleep again, he heard them both whisper, "I love you," as they wrapped loving arms around him and reminded him the things they'd do for love.