for whatsina_name

[travelerscurse]

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..

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[whatsina_name]

For all else that has changed, for all that they didn't have time to do before Gustavain left, the progression here may be fast but feels utterly natural. They never were anything with a label, and the both of them have certainly gained experience in the interim years, but in a way this is the most familiar things have felt.

Phillip's legs wind up pressed against the side of the bed, not yet aiming to fall into it but pleased by their altered position all the same. He leans into the kiss, savoring it as he helps slide his pants down, toeing off his shoes until they have to break to breathe. "I missed you too." He said it before, but there's a definitely quality now to the context, a fondness that never went away.

Once his pants are out of the way, he goes for Gustavain's undertunic, having to stand on the tip of his toes to have a prayer of making it over his head. He presses in for another of those deep kisses, hands splayed across the bare skin of his chest, exploring with tender presses.

[travelerscurse]

He gets his own shoes off quickly as well, helps Phillip a bit in getting it off over his head, though he mostly laughs warmly at the attempt. His own hands follow suit, dragging the undertunic off of Phillip.

And then, for a moment, he freezes.

It's not like he's never seen the necklace before. In fact, he's never seen him withoutit. He hadn't really even remembered it, it was so much a part of Phillip. But now, now he has a context for it as he's seeing it again and his blood runs cold for a moment.

No. No, this can't be what it looks like... it can't be. Or... maybe it can be but does it matter? Phillip has had it as long as he's known him and multiple things pass through his mind all in a rush. Gustavain has never been good at stealth, but he's reasonably good at subterfuge, when he wants to be and he needs a minute to think about this.

So it's the easiest thing in the world to slip to his knees, sliding his hands up the back of Phillip's thighs, slow and sensual, his mouth meeting the skin of his inner thighs with a low, pleased hum, working upwards. Hopefully, the anticipation is enough to still any questions.

[whatsina_name]

Something happens in that moment, and perhaps if Phillip thought about it a bit more, thought about what being called the Warrior of Light might imply, he could figure it out. But he doesn’t, and Gustavain moves fluidly enough to his knees to distract him for the moment. If he’s undeterred, it’s probably not important, right?

He lets out a low sigh as he feels the lips against his skin, reaching up to thread a hand through the other’s long hair, a gentle, stroking motion. It’s still a very tender touch, a fondness clearly present that at bare minimum would be exceedingly difficult to fake. As would be the interest evident through his small clothes.

[travelerscurse]

Gustavain scrapes his teeth along the tender skin, will suck a little love bite high on his thigh as Phillip curls his fingers in his hair. He voices a purring noise of pleasure, leans a little more into him, and neither the smallclothes nor the thought of the pendant, deters him from sliding his mouth higher, mouthing his way up his cock through the cloth.

He teases him through his smalls for a long moment before dragging them down, replacing his mouth quickly. There's nothing frantic about it, but he does want to not think for now, wants to ignore the necklace and everything that it means. The best way to do so seems to be to throw himself wholly into what's happening, and so he takes him deep, clear that he knows precisely what he's doing, the motion easy and practiced.

[whatsina_name]

There’s a low, deeply pleased hum in his throat as that marks work into his skin, fingers briefly tightening in his hair. It’s been clear to him that Gustavain has a very good idea of what he’s doing up until now, from the way he touches and kisses just to the way he moves, but he’s still not quite prepared for the ease of it all. Which means when he’s quite suddenly taken as deep as he is, there’s something of a startled noise before it turns deeply pleasured.

“Gods,” he gasps out, one of his hands sliding down to briefly cradle his face before resting on his shoulder, gripping tightly there. Any thoughts he might have had about anything else in this moment are thoroughly gone, focused entirely on the present.

[travelerscurse]

He purrs a response around him, pleased at that quiet curse. There's no thought to deliberately bring this to a head quickly or to hold back at all, he just gets caught in the rhythm of it all, something about this hitting something musical, a beat to this, a dance. Gustavain doesn't specifically particularly have a thing for this, but he adores those moments where his body and someone else's are moving in a kind of harmony, resonating with one another, and it's easy to turn this into a feedback loop, where every one of Phillip's reactions only feeds his own passion.

If Phillip comes at some point during this, they'll end up on the bed while he recovers, limbs tangled warm and sweet. If he doesn't, after a while, Gustavain will pull off to look up a him with a wicked sort of gleam in his eyes. Either way, the question is the same,

"How do you want me?" it's said with a slightly smirking lilt, quite secure in the knowledge that Phillip does, in fact, want him.

[whatsina_name]

Phillip does come that, likely able to hold himself back but having absolutely no desire to, caught up in it all himself. He's more than happy to lay tangled up with Gustavain on the bed, legs twined together as he rests against his chest, hands still moving over him, carefree in the way he touches.

He tilts his head up to face him at the question, a grin spreading across his features. "That confident, are you?" he teases, but it's barely one because it's true, he does very much want him. He leans in for a kiss, cupping the other man's cheek to pull him into it. "Stay right where you are," he says when he finally pulls back from it, rolling himself so that he's straddling the taller man before leaning down into another heated kiss.

His hands slide down the body below him, resting on his thighs before one wraps around him, giving him a long firm stroke. "Do you have oil or anything?" he asks, making his intention quite obvious, but he can shift course if need be.

[travelerscurse]

"Mm, confident enough," he teases back, before falling easily into the kiss. "As you wish, then," he teases, moaning at the stroke but not otherwise acknowledging it in favor of moving things along to a conclusion they both very much want. "In my bag, yes," he gestures to the pack he's carried with him. It's luckily not far from the bed, but he will have to keep himself stationary-- Phillip will have to get off him to reach it.

Gustavain goes nowhere while he does, though there's perhaps a slightly odd expression on his face when Phillip turns back around. He'll pull Phillip back down easily enough, though, dragging him back over him and kissing him deeply and thoroughly.

[whatsina_name]

Phillip goes to fetch it, finding it easily enough, but the expression he sees when he turns back around reminds him that something else is going on- whether it's about the rest of the story that Gustavain failed to tell him or something else entirely, he doesn't know. It's swiftly put out of his mind again for the moment as he's pulled down and into another kiss, returning it with equal depth and fervor.

He opens the little bottle and drips some oil on his fingers, making them quite slick as he finds his way down again to press one inside of him, followed shortly by the second. He'll take a bit longer then, partly because of the stretch needed but mostly because he wants to savor this for a moment, his fingers pressing deeper in every so often, teasing him with them.

[travelerscurse]

At first, Gustavain is perfectly content to just watch. The sight is gorgeous, after all. But it's not very long before that's not enough, and he's slicking his own fingers with oil. He strokes Phillip's cock with them first, but if Phillip takes much longer to prep himself he'll find one of Gustavain's long, slender fingers sliding slowly in beside his own.

He'll leave when to move on entirely to Phillip, despite pushing himself into the procedure, but he'll grow impatient not with how long this has or hasn't take, but with not being able to kiss Phillip during it and pull him down with the other hand until he can lick into his mouth.

[whatsina_name]

Phillip won't make him wait too long, too eager for where this is going himself. He lets out a sigh when he's touched, laugh a bit as he's pulled down into a kiss, but shortly after he'll drag fingers out, waiting only for Gustavain to move his own before replacing them with his cock.

He presses down into him slowly, all the way, back arching into the pleasure of it as they sink together at last. This time he doesn't linger much at all, just allowing them a brief moment to adjust to the sensation and gripping onto the Elezan's shoulders before carefully pulling out and pressing in again, picking up in speed and force quite quickly.

[travelerscurse]

The noise he makes to the first slide is delicious, a low, drawn out groan similar perhaps to sinking into a bathtub or a warm bed, the overwhelming first sensation of something lovely. There's no sense here of this being something finally happening, so much as it being the obvious next logical step of a dance they've been performing since they were much younger.

"You feel as good as I thought you might," he murmurs ardently, fingers settling on Phillip's hips, and then, "Don't go too slow, I won't last like this," it's said with zero sense of shame-- he knows already that he can almost always go another round, certainly at least one if he likes his partner, and he definitely, definitely likes his partner.

When Phillip actually starts to move, Gustavain arches his back, mostly lets him take the pace but moans without restraint whenever he does something particularly good, the moans coming increasingly more often and taking on a slightly slurred quality the more he picks up the pace.

[whatsina_name]

"As do you." It might feel trite, if it weren't so low and breathless sounding as Phillip massages at his shoulders. It would be a stretch to say he'd gone much imagining, having thought Gustavain dead and eternally fourteen, but there's no denying that it does feel good, that he thought it would even before they stepped into this room.

He doesn't hold back, building up to a steady and quick pace, relishing each noise pulled from the man. "Fuck, but you sound gorgeous," he murmurs, leaning down enough to press a wet kiss to the corner of his mouth, "A beautiful bardsong." They did come in here talking about singing, and it turns out that Gustavain does it wonderfully.

There is no attempt to make this last long, dogged in his pursuit of pleasure, gasping for air and holding on tighter as he speeds up, trying very deliberately to drive at least one of them to the edge.

[travelerscurse]

"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.

[whatsina_name]

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.

[travelerscurse]

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."

[whatsina_name]

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--?

[travelerscurse]

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.

[whatsina_name]

"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.

[travelerscurse]

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.

[whatsina_name]

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.

[travelerscurse]

"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.

[whatsina_name]

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...

[travelerscurse]

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."

[whatsina_name]

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.