travelerscurse | for whatsina

for whatsina_name

It's so strange, being back.

Ishgard hasn't changed in hundreds of years, strange to think it would have changed since he'd been here last, but then, everywhere else he'd been has changed just in the time he's been there. So it's strange to be walking streets he knows from his childhood but with eyes that are so different.

Beside him, Emmanelain chatters on about the different facets of city life. He had made sure Haurchefant knew to petition his former family with as much discretion as possible. They, of course, had simply said their son had died and they were certain some fugitive from Uldah couldn't be him anyway. He hadn't expected any differently. He feels like that person is dead and he breathes on as someone wholly different anyway, but it's strange, to be being shown around the place he grew up in by a member of one of the High Houses, someone his parents would have killed for him to be friends with just a few short years earlier, as though he were a stranger to this place.

He has always been a stranger to this place.

Dressed in Gridanian fashion and tanned lightly by the sun, he doesn't expect there's anyone here who would recognize him. He'd been barely more than a ghost when he left, hardly a warrior of anything. But as they pass through the Jeweled Croizer and Emmanelain gets caught up talking to some girl he's been trying to woo, there's a sudden, strange sensation at the back of his head, something like and unlike the Echo, and he turns, eyes scanning the busy street for... something. Someone.

(For some reason, unbidden, he remembers the night of the Calamity, giant pieces of some other part of Eorzea raining from the sky..

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Nn... feels too good to be quiet," he says back, honest and flirty at once. It's beautiful on another, unexpected level, seeing how little Gustavain bothers to hold back of himself like this, when once he was always nervous someone would see, would catch them. Now it seems like he doesn't particularly care if the whole inn knows they're fucking, though there's still somehow a pleased flush at the compliment all the same.

He hangs on for as long as he can, almost as though he's making a game of whether he or Phillip will come first. Right at the end, though, he does muffle himself with one hand, knowing the noise he's about to make is more liable to have people running if they hear it, rather than any attempt at censorship. The other wraps around Phillip's cock as he makes a final effort to bring him with him before he comes with a shout behind his hand.

Phillip recognizes something in that, the allowance that the freedom of not caring anymore gives him. He meant it, it is such a good look on him, even given what many, many hardships he’s likely gone through to achieve it. And right now it feels glorious to exploit the hells out of it.

He was going to try and hold out, knows he likely could go again but has already been stung out once, but the decision is made for him when that hand wraps around him. He doesn’t bother to tty and muffle the cry that leaves him as he thrusts hard into him a final few times before slipping over, head back and gasping for air.

The aftermath is hazy. There's some small clean up and then Gustavain is curling them back down into bed together, moving with Phillip in a lazy motion of skin on skin, the feeling certainly one of a rest, a pause, but quite clear he fully intends there to be another round before either of them sleep.

His legs are tangled with Phillip's and he shifts them slowly, hands wandering and drawing him closer, but the vast majority of him is relaxed, his head coming to rest using Phillip's shoulder as a pillow.

"Thank you," he says, after a time, the gratitude open and honest, "for letting me have this. You can't possibly know what it means to me" It's a strange thing to say, a discordant note in the melody.

Fire raining from the sky. A fiend, bathed in light. The end of the world

He had to leave, then. What choice does he have now?

"How long before you attempt to kill me, Ascian?" there's no tension in him as he asks it, fingers trailing against Phillip's chest. He is one of the last. He is tired. "I suppose it would be easier while I slept, but it seems unsporting."

Phillip lets himself settle down in his arms, hand brushing lightly over his arms in aimless, lazy patterns while making sure to keep his upper body still, allowing himself to be a headrest. He's utterly relaxed, a gentle sort of peace settling over him as they lay together, only puzzled enough by the thanks to give a little laugh. "You don't need to thank me, you ridiculous man," he says, voice soft and fond as he reaches up, tucking a lock of his hair back behind his ear.

And then he says Ascian.

Suddenly he bolts up to sitting on the bed, so quick as if the word had burned him, bright blue eyes staring at Gustavain in a mix of bewilderment and something almost like horror. Phillip has had to learn how to be cautious, moving around Ishgard, but Gustavain would never have seen him intimidated or beaten down, relenting eventually because he learned it was the only way to get anything done rather than anything else. It is it, then, that bared in bed with him is the first time he would have seen him looking afraid, a glimmer of it peaking through in the moment of shock before he tries to mask it with anything else.

"I am not going to kill you, you--" He wants to call him an idiot, but the word fails on his tongue, just staring in utter disbelief. He can hardly deny it, not if Gustavain already knows, knows what the word even means. Phillip takes in a breath to try to steady himself, not sure if he wants to project anger or hurt and therefore fluctuating somewhere in between. "Why do you-- how?"

The pieces are beginning to come together in his mind, but not fast enough that he doesn't still ask the question. What in the hells has he been through, that he would know--?

He wasn't sure what to expect, given the circumstances, but being flung down to the bed as Phillip sits up in shock and some amount of horror isn't one of the things he would have put on the list. He's not moved by whatever combination of anger and hurt Phillip is levelling at him, but he doesn't look like he's going anywhere, either, doesn't rise to the level of emotion he's putting into it. He doesn't want to fight Phillip. He doesn't understand why the Ascians are doing what they are doing, and he doesn't like killing what he doesn't understand, would prefer to not have to kill any of them. But they all speak in riddles and hurt the people he loves, and he will never stop opposing that.

"Are you certain? At least four others have certainly tried their hardest, by their own hand and by others," that's... a very large number for him to still be here, which says at least a little something about how those encounters must have ended. "Lahabrea, in particular. He took over the body of a dear friend of mine," there's something exceptionally pointed in those words, though he still seems entirely relaxed, in comparison to Phillip's tension, "and so I put him back on the shores of the aetherial sea. Nabriales killed another friend, and so I ended him as well." There's something to the difference in wording there, but he's not about to get deeply into it if Phillip doesn't know what the Scion's have been researching.

"Four of them-- what in the seven hells have you..."

There are pointed comments that sting, that he should address, but Phillip is still a bit caught up in the why for the moment. Gustavain had been slaying primals, that would certainly be enough to get their attention, but enough for four of them to try and kill him? Though, thinking about it... somehow he had to be immune to tempering, to make it through those battles with his mind. How would that be possible...?

Warrior of Light. Hydaelyn.

Once he's thought of it, it feels so obvious that he wants to hit himself. He has not been mortal, or a facsimile thereof, for very long in comparison to the rest of his life. Yet he feels like he's adapted too well, slower to recall the wealth of knowledge at his disposal. He quite possibly should have guessed the moment he heard the title, might have been able to avoid this all together. But it's far too late for that now.

He reaches up, scrubbing uselessly at his face and winds up keeping his hands there, not much wanting to look at Gustavain as he finally speaks. "You are not the only one to have fled your homeland," he says, tone a bit dry to hopefully cover for the fact that he doesn't really want to speak at all, "And I have not seen or spoken to any of them since before we met." A subtle confirmation, that it has always been Phillip, always been the Ascian those times they've been together. "And I certainly have no desire to try and kill you."

He pauses there for a moment, before a soft snort leaves him. "And, if it gives you any comfort at all, I am fairly certain that literally no one likes Lahabrea." Asshole.

Gustavain has moved only as far away as Phillip's earlier motion has thrown him, no longer curled up quite so intimately but still pressed skin to skin in places, still sharing body heat in the rest. He still looks... remarkably unconcerned about this. The reality is far from that. There is simply so much to be concerned with all the time that every shocking event now stands together with all of the rest of them and any one of them seems less to panic over in comparison. Of course his best friend from his childhood was an Ascian. Why would it ever have been otherwise?

"How long will that last, do you think, when the others find you," it's asked softly, fingers finding the skin at Phillip's hip in a soft, almost absent caress. "They've declared war on the entire star. It's a war I mean to fight until it kills me," his dedication is measured not in fervent swearing to the cause, but how simply he says it. "I feel that may put us at odds," that is said with a kind of gallows humor, a lilt to his voice in the sheer understatement there.

He doesn't particularly know how to address the comment about Lahabrea, spoken like a schoolboy or office disagreement, when he's been the source of pain for so many people he loves, when he likely will continue to be for some time.

How bizarrely at ease Gustavain seems during this, the way he keeps up those gentle touches even as tension courses through every inch of Phillip's body, is making it all the harder for him to figure out how to respond. There is a part of him that wants to flop back down onto the sheets, take in as much of the warmth as he can while he has it, before it vanishes forever. But he doesn't, keeps his arms stiff as they prop him up, even as he doesn't move any further away.

"What is it you want me to say?" he asks, voice softer now, "They cannot force me to do their bidding, but they can send me back to the aetherial sea as easily as you can." A task which is not by any means actually easy, but it seems that hardly matters. "Are you going to?" It might be kinder than putting him through this.

He struggles with what he tries to say next, his rigid posturing giving way briefly to something gentler, trailing the tips of his fingers down Gustavain's wrist. "That is not a burden you should have to shoulder," he finally lands on, eyes cast down to where their hands are touching. I don't want you to die is hidden in there somewhere.

"It had not occurred to me that they might wish to force you, merely that we can't escape our past, can we? I fled my homeland, as you say. I wanted nothing to do with Ishgard, or the Dragonsong War or any of it, ever again. And here I am. Where will you go, when fate calls you home?" he shakes his head, tucks his head down, "I'm not asking you to say anything, I suppose," he says, after a moment, "It's not as though it's a decision you even could make now." He falls silent after that a moment, listening, absorbing.

"No, I'm not going to kill you. I wouldn't have killed any of them if I could have helped it, if they gave me any other choice. But no one ever does. There are never any choices, or the choices are so horrible as to be no choice at all. Kill or be killed. Succeed or hundreds, thousands of people die." He shakes his head, shifts so he's looking back up at Phillip,

"No. It is not," he says, about the burden. And once again, there's that finality in simplicity. He says nothing else. It is too much for one person, but it is his.

Phillip does not like this uncertainty nor the finality with which Gustavain speaks of his own role in this, his own fate. He does not speak of his own in turn, which may seem to be an admission that he does not know- but he does, just does not wish to share it. Not yet. Not now. Not until he knows how.

He does not know what to say, how to respond to any of it. He understands why so much of the story seems to have been skipped over, when they were sitting in the upper loft and back that short time ago where they were still just old friends. He doesn't move his hand away, still tracing faint lines, lost for where to go. "At least tell me it's not yours alone," he says, though there is little hope in his voice. He'd only really heard mention of the Warrior of Light, after all, the two other wards of House Fortemps getting far less mention...

Through none of this, none of it, has Gustavain sounded bitter. Even when he'd asked about Phillip killing him, even when the only way he could see this ending was the foulest of betrayals, he'd been resigned to it, genuinely grateful for Phillip's kindness, even. But here, the bitterness seeps into everything,

"Would that it were," he says, and the words hurt coming out, but he owes them to Phillip, "Everyone else who tries to bear it with me, falls. There's a trail of the dead behind me, sacrificed in the name of getting me here. I've never asked anyone to die for me, to even fight for me, but they do. And every time, I'm too weak to stop them."

They hurt enough to hear, Phillip can scarce imagine how they must be to say. He is not touched by the weight of lives lost, necessarily, not entirely able to comprehend loss unless it is personal. But it was personally to Gustavain and clearly pains him, deeply, and apparently that's enough.

He doesn't say anything, for there is nothing to say; he is angry for him, but that anger is geared towards forces far outside of this small inn room. So instead after a moment of hesitation, he lowers himself back down onto the bed, reaching his arms out to pull the other's head against his chest, slowly threading fingers through his hair as he just holds him.

There is a half a moment of hesitation, something that might be as simple as just not fully understanding how Phillip is moving, or why. And then all of the slight amounts of tension in Gustavain leave in a rush, noticeable only in their absence. He winds his arms fully around Phillip and takes one shuddering breath before he stills. He has cried himself out but recently in a different set of arms, there's no tears left, but it's indescribable, every time, the relief he feels each time he has the chance to set his burden down and just be.

The smirking and the rest of it isn't an act, or if it is, it's less that it's something he does to hide any of this and more that it's something he does in defiance. Everything else can be taken from him, he'll give everything he has, but he won't let all of this turn him into someone else. That person meeting Phillip for drinks as old friends is the person he's fighting for and he's not going to let anyone forget it.

Still, this feels good, bordering on obscene in it's intensity, and that Phillip is an Ascian apparently makes little difference. He tightens his arms around him and, after a moment, tilts his head up, hopefully for a kiss.

Phillip did half expect to be thrown off or pushed away, still deeply uncertain of where this puts the two of them. He has no quarrel with Gustavain or what he's done, what he means to do, other than it being an incredibly foolish thing to take on alone and he doesn't wish to see him come to harm. But even though he has argued his case on how he is not the sort of Ascian that has hunted him down, he wasn't sure that would be returned.

Therefore, the kiss is something of a surprise to him, but other than a curious noise when their lips connect he doesn't have any objection to it. He leans into it, still a little cautious, but much of his own tension beginning to release as they hold onto each other and he continues to stroke that long, fine hair. He still doesn't know where this is going. But... perhaps he should just let them be for a time.

There is a deep, fundamental problem, here. Phillip is an Ascian and their stated goals and the continued safety of this world are not things that can coexist. Gustavain has already made the choice on which side of that divide he stands, even though he's deeply conflicted about needing to destroy the Ascians to do it. There's neither victory nor joy in it and hasn't been from the beginning, only a deep, deep sadness, burrowing into his soul, each time one of them falls. He does not want to do this.

Even so, he will do what he can to protect this world, the people he cares about in it. He has made that choice. Phillip... hasn't, at least not to his knowledge. His choice has been, so far, to not really be involved in either, to just be and while there's nothing Gustavain can find to disrespect in that, he also doesn't believe for even a moment that there won't come a point where Phillip will have to chose a side-- where inaction is no longer a place of neutrality, but a choice itself-- all that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. And he genuinely doesn't know which side Phillip will choose when that time comes.

And, too, he's enough of a pragmatist to realize that all Phillip would have to do here is lie and Gustavain is much easier pickings. He doesn't think he's lying, not really, but the Ascians are masters of deceit. It would be easy to lie to him, he thinks, when it's one he so desperately wants to believe.

All of that fuels into the kiss, turns it heated and searching and there's something defiant about that, too, as though he's waiting for Hydaelyn to strike him down, or that Ascians to burst in the door for a fight.

Though it is likely of no comfort to Gustavain, Phillip hasn't made the choice, to pick a side. He has known the sides existed, of course, if not the precise shape they took after the Calamity, but his neutrality itself is a somewhat complicated thing. It is partly just a desire to be, to absorb the mortal world as a participant inside of an outsider. It is partly indifference, too old and having seen too much death to really think much of the fate of the world anymore. But a part of it is also a seeking of balance, of believing both that the current state and the one he fellows propose are unnatural, shifted too heavily towards one side or the other. He hadn't thought much about what that would mean, what the inevitable fight between the two would entail since he knew his own well enough to know that they would certainly not call a truce.

He hadn't, at least, until now.

He still does not know what he would pick and likely won't until the moment he has to make that decision, if and when that time comes. For now, he focuses in on their kiss, rising to match the heat and take it deeper, sinking further into it. Neither of them are likely to find answers like this, no simple kiss is going to solve anything... but maybe the universe at least has a smidgen of mercy, nothing but the distant sounds of the tavern and streets interrupting them.

Gustavain kisses him until they both run out of air, like he's trying to give the universe the longest amount of time to smite him down for this and, when he doesn't, he breaks, gasps to fill his lungs. He knows what he needs to do here, now, knows that it's unlikely Phillip will refuse him, but there's one small remaining matter to be settled before he can ask what he needs to ask,

"Your name," he breathes it against Phillip's mouth and he both does and does not understand what he is asking, "is it really Phillip?" He strokes the hair out of Phillip's face, tender and curious, "Here, when it's just us, I would have the truth from you. This, all of this, is insanity. If I would do this, I don't wish to hide from it in any way."

Phillip is very much not used to being seen in this way, and there is a discomfort to being known even this fully. He is not much of a liar, but he is secretive and can certainly deal in deception with the best of them, play around technicalities to get his way. He could answer yes, and it would be the truth. But it would not be the full truth, and while he may not know what he's going to do when the time to make the choice comes, he knows what he should do in this moment.

The name glides off his tongue in that smooth, somewhat unsettling way the Ascian language is, the way his lips form to make the words even foreign feeling again Gustavain's lips. "...I certainly prefer Phillip," he says, his thumb trailing over the curve of the other man's jaw. If he had it his way, he would never hear that name again. He doubts he will be so lucky.

Hear. Feel. Think.

It's only a memory. He hasn't heard Her in a long time, hadn't been the one to hear her in the midst of crisis. Is he broken? Is he not important to Her anymore, after being Her champion? Is there something wrong with him?

If so, he chooses it gladly this time, where the only person here to save is himself.

He has understood, before, when the Ascians have spoken, a gift of the Echo, but he's never tried to speak it himself. His mouth is clumsy around the word, but he does surprisingly well with it. The accent is off, awkward, and yet it sounds right in his mouth, musical.

"I like it," he says, after a moment of consideration, confirmation that he's said it correctly, "Of course, I do think Phillip suits you better," there's a wry little smile, small, but his eyes crinkle with it "but I think I might be biased."

"I'd like to have a formal truce," he says after a moment, chuckles at himself, hands trailing down Phillip's sides, "Well, more than a truce, if I'm honest. I'm sure I'm about to go getting myself in trouble the longer I stay here. It would be good to have a familiar face to return to, someone I know inside and out," the tone there leaves little to the imagination, an innuendo in words only, meaning perfectly clear. "If you want, of course. There's only one thing I would need from you in return, if you did."

...Well, he might take his last thought back, at least a little. It doesn't bother him as much coming from Gustavain's mouth.

He chuckles softly, letting his fingers drift over the other man's face, brushing against his lips. "I would almost hope so," he says dryly, given their previous conversation and what he is at least pretending to be. He certainly wants to be more of a 'Phillip.'

The talk of a truce earns Gustavain an arched eyebrow, though Phillip is quiet through his explanation, sliding his own hand in a soothing motion over the man's neck. "What is it?" he asks, cocking his head curiously, not quite wary but certainly not about to agree to something before he's heard it. There are likely things that Gustavain would want from him that he cannot promise to give.

Gustavain pauses for a moment, considering. It's not that there's any hesitation in him now, it's that how this is phrased is important, at least to him. He doesn't want there to be a misunderstanding, doubt. He slides his hand up Phillip's side, back down, contemplative for a moment.

"I don't know why it is that you prefer to be known as mortal man when all of the others are almost disgusted by us. Perhaps I should be more concerned about that than I am but..." he shrugs, "your reasons are your own and can remain that way if you wish. If that's what you want, I would not wish you to be uncomfortable in our time together or make you feel as though I only saw you as an enemy. But..." this is the harder part, he takes a deep breath, "you are an Ascian. My being here is stupid, foolish, the worst thing I could possibly think to do at best and a betrayal of everyone else on this journey with me at worst." He reaches up as he says it, lays his fingers against Phillip's mouth, the touch half stopping him from saying anything and half a soft caress against his lips.

"I'm going to do it anyway, you understand. I want to do it anyway. But I need to do so with my eyes open. Just once is enough, but just once, I need you to be as you are, or as much of that as is possible with you like this."

"After that, we need never speak of it again, if you wish. But just the once, I need to know. I need to see."

Phillip is quiet for a long moment, though it's clearly not a refusal, hands still tracing over his skin. It might be read as contemplative, or there's a possibility that he's simply trying to gear himself up to do it. He understands, of course, why Gustavain would ask, why his choices and status don't make any sense to him. He is not terribly inclined to explain himself, in large part because he simply doesn't know how. It is not as though self-reflection has been a major part of either culture he has lived in.

He could refuse the request, could flee Ishgard immediately and return to being relatively unknown, unseen for what he is. That would be far more comfortable than the tension in this moment. But, that is a part of mortality, isn't it? Being known?

Sighing, he tips his head against the other's. "Alright," he agrees, the discomfort in him obvious but he pushes through all the same. The mortal frame he has taken doesn't move, still pressed up against Gustavain's body, but the aether behind him ripples to life with a form much like those the Warrior of Light has seen before.

It takes more than he thought it would, to not recoil, even though he knew it was going to be something like this. It takes less than he thought he would to roll them so Phillip's on top of him again, pressing him down into the bed. He's taking deep breaths, obvious how much he's controlling his breathing, making sure he is still breathing, adjusting. It's uncomfortable, for both of them, but he needs this, needs to confront it if anything between them is going to be anything real at all, if he's going to trust Phillip in the future.

He reaches up slowly, hands shaking just a little bit, slides his fingers against Phillip's jaw, into his hair, pulling him down for a kiss that starts tentative, a bit, but slips slowly sideways into heat, mouth opening under his on a low moan, even as there's still a fine tremor in his arms. Even like this, even with his eyes closed, he can feel the difference, somehow, taste darkness on his tongue, strange and alien.

Something about this is undeniably wrong, twisted, sideways. But Hydaelyn doesn't smite him or scream at him or even so much as warn him about anything, even the Echo feels as though it lies silent. And something about this is also right, warm, familiar. If nothing else, he believes Phillip that this has been who he has been all along, now, in a way that he never could have with just words-- there's no denying it now.

Gustavain's restraint is appreciated, as deeply disconcerting as this clearly is for the both of them. Phillip's not immediately clear on what he's doing, why he rolls them over even as he's struggling to breathe steadily, the surprise when that hand reaches up to caress him palpable in the air.

The kiss is returned just as carefully at first, unsure how it would even feel like this, but when Gustavain opens into it he does as well, the darkness mixing with heat into something like hunger. There is a danger to it, there is no denying that, but, well, danger is hardly something new to him, now is it?

There had been the distant, wry thought that perhaps the Light would burn him, see the darkness inherent in him as only an enemy with no other path, but it does not- though whether that is because said light seems more muted than it should, he cannot say. For the time, at least, he is grateful for it, and he will hold onto the kiss as long as Gustavain wants, before letting that form fade away once more.

What precisely happens next is something Gustavain can unpack later sometime, whether it's just adrenaline or if maybe somewhere deep down he's got some kind of unaddressed death-wish or if fighting primals has left him with some kind of adrenaline addiction at this point or what. But the kiss shades deeper into hunger and it feels like falling off a cliff, the ground steady between his feet, a moment of weightlessness and then the abruptness of gravity taking hold.

He's clinging suddenly, a reflection of that hunger and heat, winds one arm around Phillip's back, the other hand tangled tight in his hair and something yawns like a pit in his chest, deep and fathomless, and the kiss goes wild for a moment, desperate, and he's not sure if he's pushing up against Phillip or pulling him down against him or both. There's a dim thought that this is likely not the best reaction or impression to leave Phillip with, but once the avalanche has started, it's entirely too late for the pebbles to vote. He can no more stop what's happening than stop the sun from rising.

When the kiss breaks, it's with a gasp of that name, the strange Ascian language rolling of Gustavain's tongue perfectly in that moment, possibly assisted by the Echo with his conscious mind stood aside for a moment. How long has it been since Phillip has heard it said in passion?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject