for whatsina_name
Apr. 9th, 2021 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
travelerscurseIt'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..
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..
no subject
Date: 2021-07-02 05:22 pm (UTC)"I think he made it... a long time ago. I don't think he would have even bothered unless he... he would have to have..." really cared, he can't quite say. Loved. It's been simmering in the back of his head, his soul, this whole time, not quite a memory. If he could have remembered... if he could have held the Light in... if he had been strong enough, more rejoined, more of who he was "supposed" to be...
He doesn't want to think about it. There's a pull, that direction, that looks a lot like madness, that understands all too well the desire to reclaim that. He doesn't want to think about that part. But this. This needs to be addressed.
"So you knew them. Azem, I mean." They both know what he's really asking, but he cannot ask it any other way. To ask did you know me? invites too much of the other sentiment right now, with how raw everything is.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-02 05:34 pm (UTC)"Most people knew of Azem, anyway." And it makes so much sense, doesn't it, that Gustavain is known two worlds over now, befriending and helping people wherever he goes-- "But yes, I did know him."
He goes quiet again, looking off into the distance and chewing his lip. It's clear he's choosing his words carefully, likely is obvious that he didn't really want to talk about this but doesn't have much of a choice now. "Hades was my brother," he says, and he still doesn't meet Gustavain's eyes but from context it's clear that he means something different, than how the Ascians call all their fellows brothers, "And he and Azem were friends. So... I was around, a lot."
no subject
Date: 2021-07-02 07:13 pm (UTC)"I... suppose that shouldn't surprise me," he says, after a moment. "I..." he doesn't know what else to say. There's so much missing, still, so much he doesn't know and doesn't know how to ask, so much lost. He's had a hand in losing it, too, destroying it, but the alternative was letting the world be destroyed.
In the end, he just reaches out and wraps his fingers around the crystal, picks it back up again. He's not sure if he hates how right it feels in his hand or if it's comforting.
"I don't know what any of it means," he says, finally, "I have no reason to suspect it's not the truth, that this doesn't belong to me. But I don't know if it changes anything."
no subject
Date: 2021-07-02 07:48 pm (UTC)He is underplaying it slightly- if it were truly just a name, they would not be having this conversation. But he's also not entirely wrong. Those past connections, that past life, the role Azem played... whether or not they affect Gustavain in the here and now is entirely up to how he wants.
But it is impossible to take back that knowledge, and now that Phillip can see it there's no unseeing it. But he's not sure that really changes anything either, other than the number of people he's been a hopeless romantic over.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-02 11:21 pm (UTC)"Not everyone else could have chosen otherwise, though," truthfully, he doesn't fully know that. He knows what he's been told about how the 14th member of the Convocation had behaved, but all that is is history, devoid of internal context. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know what he trusts about what he does know. Not for the first time, he wishes he could have asked Emet-Selch more questions, that there had been more time, even if it just would have ended the same.
And there's another matter, too...
"Elidibus said something about being a hundred different heroes, about inspiring people to rise up and fight at various points, to maintain some kind of a balance. I... honestly, I don't understand any of that-- why it would have been necessary, how that wouldn't have put him at odds with the others. But I..." he stares down at the stone in his hand. "I think I've been retracing my own footsteps from the beginning." He traces the edge of it and thinks about the Job Stone in his pocket, smooth and white, how he would fidget with it when he was worried, the other fingers that might have held it.
"I'll make my own fate, I always have. It's not that." He's not sure he's making sense, but he feels like he has to at least try to get some of what's in his head out of it, "But there's a weight to it. Knowing."
no subject
Date: 2021-07-03 12:55 am (UTC)"Part of being Elidibus is being at odds with the rest, when it's needed," he points out, though it's not really important, not anymore, and that likely isn't enough of an answer anyway. He isn't sure he entirely understands what Gustavain is trying to process right now, which parts are the most difficult. Admittedly, it's not helped by the fact that he is also trying to wrap his head around this and has had much less time to do so.
He still doesn't really know what to say. So instead, he just reaches out to cup Gustavain's hands in his own, giving them a slight squeeze. He can't take the weight away, and imagines the offer would be refused even if he could. But he can try to help him shoulder it, whatever that winds up meaning.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-09 01:08 am (UTC)"I think, in some ways, I'm the same way," he manages, "It's just a question of memories. Put in this... new context, I feel like I've been following in my own footsteps without realizing it," he leans into the touch, tilts over until he's resting part of his weight on Phillip, just lightly. "I keep meeting my past, I think, though I can't be sure."
no subject
Date: 2021-07-09 12:42 pm (UTC)He doesn't know if that will help. Hells, that might even be the crux of the problem. He feels like that might be the kind of thing he would take issue with. But-- "I don't think it's necessarily bad or anything like that," he continues, "You're still you before anyone or anything else."
no subject
Date: 2021-08-01 05:19 pm (UTC)"But you also know that's not entirely true..." there's something darker to his voice, something that's not quite how he can get in bed or how he sounded when he was that golden-eyed version of himself, but something that takes a bit from both. And then, softer still,
"I wonder if I've found you before, even, and neither of us have known..."
no subject
Date: 2021-08-01 11:49 pm (UTC)"I... suppose it's possible." If he sounds doubtful it's because it had been a long, long time since anyone had been able to stir the kind of desire and love from him that Gustavain has. The last was, well... Azem. (A point he's sure to have to bring up eventually, but it's easy enough to blame the fact that now seems like a horrible time for his desire to not talk about it.)
But maybe that doesn't eliminate the possibility- even when Gustavain had been born, there had been six Rejoinings already. Did it take half of that soul to pull him in? Was it worse to picture that this was their first reunion in thousands of years, or that it wasn't and Phillip hadn't know? Because if they had met, knowing Gustavain and the soul he has, it would like have been on the battlefield, and likely not as allies.
He does not voice these thoughts, instead just tipping his head towards Gustavain's and reaching up to run a hand through his hair. "...I wish I had some kind of answer for you," he said softly. They don't know, and likely never well. And the wondering can be much worse than the knowing.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-02 12:30 am (UTC)And yet Emet-Selch. And yet Phillip. And yet here he is when he should very definitely not be. He shakes his head again,
"Whatever the case, I don't want to sit around and feel sad about it forever, certainly. It's just something too heavy to carry without consequence."
no subject
Date: 2021-08-03 04:36 pm (UTC)He doesn't much know what to say about any of this still, it all just a bit too much to handle, so instead he turns his head to press a soft kiss to the side of the elezen's head. "Do you want to sit and be sad about it for a while longer?" he asks, and he's teasing a little bit it is a genuine question, "Or would you prefer to be distracted?"
no subject
Date: 2021-08-26 08:28 pm (UTC)"Truly? Neither. But you know what I can be like, when I have too much on my mind," it's a bit of a tease, gentle self-mockery, but like Phillip's tease holds a serious question, so does his, "Are you sure you want to present me with the temptation and opportunity, both, to chase what's in my head?"
Gustavain fucks his problems out, at least where Phillip is concerned. Gustavain would call it something more esoteric, perhaps: a kind of meditation, a way to bring emotional intensity to the forefront so he can get at the truth of something. But they both can remember their first real night together. There are questions here that are not going to dim any the more their souls intertwine. Even so, the words are almost sensual and he runs his thumb along Phillip's lower lip in a way that is obviously intended to be convincing.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-26 09:27 pm (UTC)It is potentially fraught territory, in a way two people willingly in bed together should not be. The connection between their souls does exist, and even though Phillip hasn't exactly explained how, it's not impossible for Gustavain to guess at it... or perhaps, even 'remember' now that he knows to. There is other damage that could be done in allowing them to explore that, to 'chase' what's swirling in both their minds. But it's damage that is going to have to be done, sooner or later, unless they just walk away. Perhaps ripping off the metaphorical bandage is better.
Phillip reaches up, caressing the elezen's cheek before pulling him into another kiss, this one longer and slower. "Thinking has done us little good," he says quietly when they part, "Maybe it's best to put that aside for a bit."
no subject
Date: 2021-08-26 10:15 pm (UTC)What he often is, though, is at a loss for words-- not because he's not good with words, but because he feels so much that there are no words for. It's part of why he'd become a bard-- a desperate desire to try to capture that in poetry, in music when words failed. This, too, is a kind of art, a self-expression of the body rather than the mind or voice, more intimate than the battle dancing he'd also taken well to.
He straightens up from the most recent kiss and there's not really much in the way of foreplay to start with, but he's already working his clothes off with a deliberate, ritualistic air. Phillip's seen him do a version of this before, not always with sex on the brain, as though he could take off the mantle of Warrior of Light and leave it on the floor if he just unlaced his leather deliberately enough (or, occasionally, if he had it torn off of him.) Nevertheless, there's very clearly something sensual about it this time, slow and baring.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-26 10:33 pm (UTC)He doesn't usually interfere with Gustavain's more practiced undressing, unless he's the one disposing of the clothes himself. From his seat, he reaches out to brush the tips of his fingers of the newly exposed skin, light as if it was entirely new flesh. What is the man shedding this time, he wonders? Warrior of Light? Azem? Gustavain? He doubts he knows yet; likely it is the pursuit of discovering what is left behind that they'll have anything resembling an answer.
Once his shirt is off, Phillip shifts in the chair so he's facing him and lefts his hands drift, falling to the bones of his hips. There's a moment where blue eyes glance up through dark lashes before he leans forward to press his lips above his abs. It's so soft and tender than some might call it worshipful, reverent- but knowing Phillip as he does, the ache in it is clear.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-26 11:51 pm (UTC)Gustavain isn't sure himself, what he's discarding this time, not really. The Warrior of Light is definitely part of that, any part of him that Hydaelyn has touched with it-- symbolically if not in full fact. It's not so much that he thinks that any of this walks him into Darkness, or even that she wouldn't approve, but it's more that he goes seeking somewhere before Hydaelyn. Phillip has known him, before, and whatever it is that feels empty and yearning in his chest since he picked up that stone and knew, it won't be discovered if he just asks Phillip something like What was I like?.
The answers lie somewhere deeper. The questions he needs to get at them do as well.
He had said that he wasn't looking for answers and that's a lie, but also not one at the same time. The answers he's looking for are more complicated, more complex, than just thinking about them will get him. He needs to feel them. And the moment Phillip's lips touch his skin and he looks down and sees that ache, he knows part of what he needs to ask.
It's not quite the time, though, not until his hands slide into the band of his lower layers, smallclothes, not until he's pushed everything down and away. He's still scarred and bruised from the last fight-- the healers have seen to him, but he's refused too much deep healing, has wanted to carry the reminder at least a little longer.
Remember us. Remember that we lived..
The bruises will fade, but until then, he'll wear them in both pride and penance. He reaches down and curls his fingers in Phillip's hair, tips his face up so he can lean down and kiss him warm to his toes.
"Bed," he says softly, and it's hard to say what, but there is something different about him.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-27 01:26 am (UTC)He did know they were going to have to address this, and maybe it’s easier to do it like this rather than say it. It’s easy to manipulate him by his hair, turn his face upwards into that kiss. There’s something a little different about him too; the softer parts that Gustavain knows exist but rarely pull from him, and… something else.
His hands glide over the new scars, feeling them under his fingertips but barely looking, focused instead on his lover’s face. He nods, and rises, pulling enough away to at least begin discarding his clothes in the short distance to the bed, though when he gets there he reaches out instead to pull Gustavain with him.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-27 01:36 am (UTC)Gustavain doesn't quite kiss like he's searching for something with his mouth, but there's something inquisitive about it all the same. Still, the search is languid, meandering, and he avoids Phillip's cock to mouth down over a hip to his inner thigh. He slips his knee up over his shoulder to do so, which does spread him out under him, vulnerable, but it's likely bearable with the way he's looking at him. There's another, deeper kiss there, the hint of teeth, a deliberate choice to leave a ghost of a mark, before he proves his earlier point about this being something that wasn't running from this, something different,
"Were your brother Hades and I lovers?" it's asked with a tone that's almost idle curiosity, though both of them know it's anything but, lower though, a bit oddly seductive, paired a moment later with him sinking his teeth into the skin again, slow, deliberate.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-27 02:26 am (UTC)It is vulnerable, held down and spread as he is, but this time there's not even a hint that it bothers him. That day where they finally talked about it all, spurred on by that yellow-eyed version, there was uncertainty of an entirely different idea. This is not easier, not by any means, but leaving his heart open does not contain the fear it once did.
He hums softly as lips move over him, something rumbling deeper in his throat at the tease of a mark, head tipped back against the bed. "Not... that I know of," he says to the question, and maybe that question should bother him more considering their current positions, but, well. It needed to be asked. (He doesn't think so, but there was a time before he really knew Azem...)
no subject
Date: 2021-08-27 03:32 am (UTC)Phillip surely knows he's going to ask it before he does so, but that doesn't stop Gustavain from leaving a line of bruises with his mouth up the inside of his thigh, shifting to peer up at him with a look that's somehow both serious and slightly impish when he asks,
"Were we?"
He doesn't really give him time to think too hard about the answer, because he asks and immediately sinks his mouth over Phillip's cock, shallowly, but enough to make the answer both difficult to get out and to make it clear that the answer to the question doesn't matter a damn bit to what they're doing currently.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-27 01:26 pm (UTC)This question is far more dangerous, for both of them. Phillip doesn't brace himself for it even as he knows it's coming, a hand gently stroking through the other's hair as he focuses on each of those marks. He's not sure why. To ground himself, maybe? To remind himself that they've made their choices, that the past doesn't matter other than to inform what's to come?
He opens his mouth to answer the question as soon as it's asked, the words forestalled by a needy hum when Gustavain takes him in. "Y-yes," he manages to get out, and the flood of emotions he knew was coming breaks through, past the walls he's tried to build up since this star was young and new.
There's the soaring feeling of remembering what it had been like, to fall truly and deeply in love for the first time, making all of what came before and much of what came after seem shallow. There's the pain and fear of the Final Days, where Azem was just gone and he didn't know whether he'd ever see him again. And there's the confusion and guilt of when the world was sundered, one of only four left untouched and the only one not of the fourteen, why me, why not one of the others, why not Azem--
His hold on Gustavain tightens, closing his eyes to stop the wetness forming behind them escaping.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-27 05:49 pm (UTC)There's no real emotion that wells up in him when Phillip confirms what he's already guessed was true, which surprises him a bit, but there's a soft swell of rightness that settles in his chest, something that makes the rest of everything feel far away. The guilt comes with it, though, the understanding that he's killed all the others, now. Phillip is alone and it's his doing, if not exactly his fault. When does he get to wash the blood off his hands?
There's something fiercely protective that rises up in him at that, a sudden desire to make sure nothing happens to Phillip-- who will outlive him, who will have to wonder if he'll ever find him again through the march of time, who will not know if they will meet on the same side or even at all. When he draws off of him and looks up, his eyes are golden for a moment, devoted.
But whatever that is, it doesn't last longer than a moment as he dips his head back down, slick fingers tracing a slow path between Phillip's legs. There's been no visible effort to get any kind of lube, but Phillip knows it's more likely to have been slight of hand than some kind of magic-- after all, there's a very good chance he'd been prepared for something like this the moment he walked into Phillip's room-- having something serious to discuss has never stopped them from falling into bed with one another before.
"What was Azem like?" he asks, a minute or so later, absorbed in a slow-but-steady bit of preparation, "As a lover, I mean."
no subject
Date: 2021-08-27 06:17 pm (UTC)For now, he doesn’t push it away, more lets it slide past him, clearing his eyes and opening them enough to see the golden ones staring up at him. Maybe it should worry him, to see them again, but instead something about the gaze soothes him, untangling his fingers enough to gently comb through the mess his tighter hold had made.
He shifts his legs to make it easier on them both, physically relaxing again as the tension of his emotional flare up eases. “Hmm… unpredictable,” he says, though there’s a wry little smile that accompanies it, “I never knew, when he came back from his adventures, where his mood would be or what little ‘tricks’ or ideas he’d picked up on while he was gone. But… he always took care of me. And stayed for as long as he could after.” Which was part of the care- giving Thanatos the time he could between his duties.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-27 10:22 pm (UTC)"Hm. He does sound like me," he's joking but he's not, because he really does sound like him and it's weird. There's no jealousy or anything like that-- he's not even jealous about Phillip potentially sleeping with other people in this lifetime, he wouldn't be jealous of someone who was himself thousands of years ago. But knowing that they'd done this before is... odd.
He dips his head again to have a moment to think about it, loses himself in sensation for a moment and the feel of Phillip under him.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From: