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chrysalispen · 5 years ago

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the smile that you gave me

A gift I wrote for a valentine’s day exchange in my writing discord <3

===

The night sky.

Constellations you know all too well from your own astrology lessons, as viewed through the ornate windows, brace the scintillating spires of the Tower like sprays of diamonds upon black satin. You would never have thought to be so enamored of something so mundane. For a land so nearly swallowed by eternal Light, the return of healing darkness is like a balm over its extensive wounds.

You’re sitting at a small balcony table watching the comings and goings of Crystarium folk (although the pace of their activity is decidedly more sedentary this time of the evening) and enjoying the sight from your vantage point. Across the table sits a familiar face, one that appears curiously unchanged by the passage of time- at least at a glance. There is a careworn look about him that even his physical form, languishing a world away, did not seem to have when last you glimpsed it.

Thancred, your oldest and dearest friend - more than your friend - with whom, in a sense, you have been truly reunited at last. You could think of no one else with whom you’d rather share a quiet evening, and so- here you are.

But he looks… ill at ease, you note. Nervous, in fact, and ever so slightly awkward the more he attempts to mask his anxiety.

Initially naught more than part and parcel of your penchant for casual observation - honed over what has become years of habit - the thought is so jarring that it nearly brings you to a dead stop mid-conversation. Surely not, you think at first. Surely just a flight of fancy, but the fine thread of a tremor you first detected in his voice has not passed. It lingers even within the casual meandering of inconsequential small talk, and you find yourself taken aback for a slight handful of seconds when you realize that you are the cause.

You remember your first meeting with this man - a chance encounter beneath the Sultantree - and his gentle but constant prodding to get you to (eventually) knock upon the door of the Waking Sands. You recall plenty of other things too: his easy smile, his confidence, his wry humor, the friendliness laced with the obvious interest that he barely bothered to hide as his dark brown gaze swept you from tip to toe.

Thancred, nervous? Around you?

But the thought, once it has crossed your mind, won’t leave you, so even as you smile and laugh you find yourself searching for other context clues. His hand rests a few ilms away from the small box of chocolates he’d brought along, but it keeps drifting towards the empty space between the edge of the table and his knee. That, you realize, is the place where his gunblade would normally sit braced against a table leg or an empty chair. No doubt all the better for him to be ready at a moment’s notice, in case of a sin eater attack.

Or even some other, older call to arms: be they Garleans or primals. Old habits die hard.

Musing upon this for a moment or so, your own gaze trailing back to the stiffness in his limbs, and understanding dawns upon you. What with the rather hasty nature of your own arrival, you hadn't really realized how isolated Thancred has been, in part because of the strange way time flows across the Rift. Truth be told, even were it not for that, it just hasn’t felt as though there’s been time for what has at times seemed a rather frivolous pursuit in the great scheme of things. Norvrandt has been in a state of emergency for so long that the chance to slow down and take a breath, take any personal moments for yourselves, let alone time for prolonged intimacy, is both exhilarating and intimidating.

You can only imagine how he must feel. As time is reckoned in the First, it's been five years since he arrived, after all- and he’s been alone for a great deal of that time. All the smooth words and playful rejoinders that used to flow as easily from his lips as water in a mountain spring probably feel farther away than ever.

Perhaps somewhat on impulse, you reach across the table, ignoring your half-finished dinner, and cover his hand with yours. It’s warm and its weight is comforting, his skin ever so slightly rough to the touch.

The gesture catches his attention, those soft brown eyes flaring just slightly, giving you for the moment the impression of a startled doe- not that he is anything so innocent. You chuckle to yourself aloud at the imagery, and beneath your light and encouraging touch you feel some of that tension flow out of him.

“Did I say something?” he asks. His grin is warm. It’s still not what it used to be; it lacks the cocksure edge that you remember from your early adventuring days. But maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.

“No. I was just thinking,” you choose your words carefully, not cynically but with the desire to put recent events aside for the nonce, “how very handsome you look tonight.”

He rewards you with a blush at the tips of his ears, one that is surprising and most becoming. You can’t help a soft laugh, one which he answers in kind, his dark eyes twinkling-

-and ah, you think, there it is. The mischief that you remember. It hasn’t left him entirely, not yet.

Absent the others, or any present and immediate dangers to overcome, Thancred seems more like his old self, and you cannot but wonder if it’s at least in part due to your presence. You would like to think so.

You relax at last, then, and so does he. The evening proceeds apace with wine and long conversation as the two of you, in a sort of subconscious and mutual accord, discuss everything except Scions business- and little by little you find that you have yourself fallen into old (and very comfortable) habits.

Opportunity presents itself in due course: he takes your arm and asks with a certain cheekiness if he might walk you home. You agree, with a flutter of anticipation settling low in your belly.

You had been hoping it might come to this, after all.

~*~

You had heard once upon a time, an anomaly amongst the many rumors garnered from eavesdropping, that Thancred could hold his breath for upwards of ten minutes.

It had seemed improbable, to say the least, so naturally you had to ask him if it was true. With a wide and decidedly devious smile that spoke of pure sin, he had said he might be willing to indulge your curiosity. It was your turn to flush, then, as you realized why that was a rumor in the first place. Certainly it had naught to do with swimming (as you’d rather innocently assumed, at first).

But you were not without certain skills of your own - so you had countered, with a smirk and a remark to that effect. That was the first night you had him, and he had made good on his word. Then, and many times since.

After all that’s transpired in the last five weeks, it might as well have been five years in truth, upon Source and shard alike. But perhaps that is immaterial, for you have him again at last: pinned against the mattress of your well-appointed guest bed in the Pennants, his fine dress shirt still on but half-unbuttoned. You can feel your smile as you kiss him, pressed sweetly against lips that are still as soft and supple as you remember.

His hands rest upon your thighs, still clad in the new leggings you’d purchased for this occasion, and the warmth of them radiates through the thin fabric. It’s passing strange to you, feeling such mortal warmth from a body that is technically little more than a projection - not unlike the Ascians against whom you and your companions have battled for so long.

But the man beneath you still casts his thoughts elsewhere, even while he lies in your bed. You can see his interest in lightly flushed cheeks and dark eyes perhaps slightly wider than usual, but you can also sense his hypervigilance, that readiness to spring into action, and you pause to ask if aught is amiss.

His snowy brows lift and you watch a parade of emotions make their way across his handsome face. Surprise, followed by guilt, followed by that smile flickering back to life like embers that have not quite cooled- but this time the tilt of it is lopsided. Self-deprecating. Sheepish.

“I should have known you would notice,” he says, and you murmur your agreement, trailing the path of your lips to the corners of his mouth as if to capture the words with your tongue. You sense he has more to say so you withdraw, only an ilm or two, enough to give him space. “It’s- … so much time has passed. For me, that is. I-”

Whatever he had meant to say trails off in a frustrated sigh. You sit up and he props himself up on his elbows in turn, to study you. Regret for time gone and time wasted lurks in the darkness of his eyes, ghosts that you know all too well. They rest uneasy when they rest at all.

You say nothing, only wait.

“... Five years. And I’ve thought of almost nothing but Minf-... Ryne, for most of it.” You do not remark upon the correction, for it is made without any rancor. Whatever resentment he bore for the situation appears to have passed. “You needed my strength, and I… was too wrapped in my own problems to notice until it was almost too late. How can you sit here and....”

“Seduce you?” you supply helpfully.

Alarm, or something like it, darkens his features, and you grin at him, a smile that widens the longer he stares at you. You don’t really know why you suddenly find yourself laughing, but something about the moment feels so absurd you just can’t help yourself.

After a minute or two of confused silence, Thancred joins in, and the sound of your combined mirth breaks the tension at last.

You press your lips to his again. And again, and again, until guilt is the last thing on his mind or yours. He’s pretty as a picture disarmed thus, with his half-lidded smoulder and the return of that flush, blooming like spring roses across the apples of his cheeks. One of his hands pets your nape from where it has tangled in your hair.

“I brought you chocolates,” he says weakly, chuckling. “For Valentione’s.”

The chocolates in question sit neatly on the long table where once the Exarch had supplied you with an army’s ransom of sandwich baskets, a few ilms away from his longcoat which he had draped over the wooden surface. You idly wonder what he must have said to the artisan, or if he had explained anything about the Eorzean custom at all.

“I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about-”

You stifle his attempts at further explanation with another kiss: this one much longer and deeper, your tongue gently but firmly seeking past parted lips to entwine with his. His hand twitches, grasping on instinct for purchase before cupping the back of your neck and slipping beneath your collar.

Eventually you emerge, taking in night air and savoring the taste of red wine and tenderness.

“Are you certain?” he whispers. Both hands now linger at your hips, toying with the hem of your shirt.

You answer him when you gather handfuls of fabric and lift, tossing the article of clothing in the vague direction of the table before returning to the warmth and surety of his touch.

Tomorrow is the Empty. Another foray into the unknown, and more questions. More uncertainty. Very likely, more danger- that is just the nature of things as a Scion of the Seventh Dawn, these days, and he knows the way of it as well as you do. But tonight belongs to a long-overdue reunion, to a warm bed shared beneath the diamond wheel of the stars, and to a connection that has surpassed the boundaries of space and of time.

An ardor of a thoroughly mortal sort- and all the sweeter for its transience.

#chrysalispen writes #thancred waters #thancred x wol #valentione's 2020

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