08. fool's reward
Stitchglass and fool's gold
It is with a wry sense of self-mocking amusement that Basch realizes he has no true concept of fairness.
Oh, he knows what the word means. But as many abstractions in life 'fairness' is an ideal that is couched only in experience. One does not fully understand 'love', 'death', 'fair' until one experiences it, after all. Similarly, Basch supposes that for one such as himself, he does not, cannot want for what he has not known.
So Basch wonders exactly what it says of his character, that he knows now at six-and-thirty years of age that he has always been his brother's second in anything he has ever wanted (even tentatively), and he does not resent it. That his brother is so integral to his sense of self that he cannot resent him: Basch knows he might as well attempt to resent the need to breathe.
At ten their father presents them with a pair of near-identical swords, and there's the smallest nick on Noah's, near the hilt. His brother doesn't notice, but Basch quietly exchanges their blades. It feels only natural, then, and natural, now.
At thirteen during the Spring Dance there's a pretty girl with flashing blue eyes and dark walnut hair: she smiles at the shy one, not the sharp one, and Basch sees his brother's interest in identical gray-blue eyes. He makes sure to stay close to Noah's side, he asks her not for a dance (though the other boys vie for their chance). Later he watches her accept Noah's invite to walk a ways out into the woods, and feels only quietly glad. It's also the first time their mother berates him, gently, on what she calls his total immersion of self in his twin. She gives up, when he stares at her blankly. It has never occurred to him that it should be any other way.
At fourteen in enrolment to the Chapterhouse it's quite clear to the twins, and indeed to the swords master who is the superior at arms, and it's not the sharp one. Basch sets himself up during each practice with manufactured cracks in his defense (not too obvious, of course). It's the first time his brother has words with him. "Do not do this," Noah had said, low and bewildered. "You are better than me. Winning or losing mock duels matters not. Nothing will, between us." The blank look does not work quite as well on his brother as it had on their mother. Noah's lip curls into a snarl of exasperation, but something of Basch's uncomprehending anxiety at having upset his twin must have showed in his eyes. What follows is a tight, rough hug and a quiet application to their father, the Chapterhouse's Knight-master. They no longer duel.
At six-and-twenty his brother walks away from him, headlong into a futile war, and nothing hurt Basch more than having to refuse to stay by his side. It is the fault of a Chapterhouse education that he now has a healthy sense of duty, and the remnants of the Knight-Order have engaged themselves in escorting the Landissan refugees to allied Dalmasca.
At four-and-thirty Noah betrays him, and watches him with eyes that are carefully cold, afterwards, in the containment cell of the airship Ifrit. To his quiet "Do you hate me now, brother?" Basch realizes that the same blank look still finds in his brother an unwilling, uncomprehending receiver. His brother breathes angrily, through clenched teeth, then lets out a harsh bark of laughter and a mumbled word in Archadian slang that Basch does not catch. Before he turns away Basch sees a fleeting twist of regret to downcast eyes and thin lips that works, for him, far more than any worded apology. Besides, he would have forgiven Noah anything (now, and then).
At six-and-thirty years of age Basch wishes he could resent being his brother's second (not the same as actually resenting it) and wonders why this, why now. It proves rhetorical in the scorching morning heat of the sand-city of Rabanastre. At two-and-twenty the pirate with the caramel hair and the toffee-hued eyes has a secretive, ironical smile that manages to hint just as much at an invitation for forbidden sweetness (so much that and more). He does not quite recall why or when the first invitation was, for something more than companionship, but he does not quite care. It proves quite, quite barbed, and Basch isn't too surprised to suspect, beyond all rational notions of coincidence and probability, his brother's mark at the bottom of it.
How Balthier quite prefers it when the ex-Captain sleeps on his left side (his right, unscarred profile faced to the light), in the otherwise unprecedented nuzzles and nips. How he purrs so when in the moments of desperate heat Basch moans words in the thicker dialect of his homeland, out of his customary Dalmascan accent. How he much prefers it with the curve of that graceful back to Basch, instead of face first, arched with fingers clawed in the sheets of whatever cheap inn they may have engaged for the night.
How he never gives voice to Basch's name, no matter what the ex-Captain might care to try; no, not even within sun-sight of the traveling day. Basch does not ask. He was about to, once, but Balthier seemed to guess, and he gave voice to a shuddering, choking breath of old pain, so at odds with his usual outrageous self-confidence, that Basch could do nothing but kiss away the sound.
He knows it is quite foolish of them both: himself, to allow his heart to be used in such a way. Balthier, for the substitution, for in something false as this there can be no reward that is not bitter. It must, however, be infinitely better to have than to have not (and in the sun-sight of the desert, watching Balthier's catlike grace, even wilting beneath a withering tree under the desert sun and complaining vociferously about the sand, the setna flies, the sun-bleach, the indignity of walking and the baking heat to his long-suffering Viera partner), he realizes just as wryly that even as he wishes he could resent being his brother's second, he has never been more glad for it.
There is something of value even in stitchglass and fool's gold.
--
Given the situation Basch supposes he can quite be forgiven for having his suspicions, when Balthier abruptly leaves them to go on unspecified 'business' in Archadia. There's nothing in the ironical half-smile and the withering tone he uses to evade Vaan's questions, but there's a softness in his eyes that Basch has only seen before on the ageing tail of night upon the cusp of dawn, sometimes, when he wakes to feel gun-roughened hands card in his hair and tickle over his jaw.
Not to mention Fran is rather obviously not following him (suspicious enough). Basch pleads business of his own, once Balthier has gone, and tails him. Adventurers are not quite so common in Archades, so close to Balfonheim, and it takes little effort to make discreet enquiries.
It leads him to a crumbling sandstone archway that frames a square of neglected park. Ivy has strangled the turquoise metal curlesques of a bench, dusted in blackening rust. Wildflowers dot the few patches of ground open to the sunlight that are not thick with a dead blanket of musty leaves, white, yellow, pink, pale blue; the bushes war with each other for territory, and above them all five old ashenva trees, their gnarled parchment-gray trunks and writhing boughs faintly eerie under their uneven emerald crowns. Basch flattens himself in the shadow of the layered archway, under the blessing of a grinning stone Manticore, half its human face dusted with lichen and cracks.
He can recognize his brother easily. Noah is dressed casually, in a cream shirt tucked a little untidily into chestnut breeches. His arms are folded, and his weight shifts uncertainly over black ankle boots. So attuned to his twin, Basch understands the tense hunch to shoulders and the slightly inclined head for wariness, anxiety.
Balthier is standing a few paces away, his thumbs tucked in his belts, and he does not smile; his voice is quite neutral. "Thanks for coming."
"Ffamran." Basch knows the sudden tightness in his chest as heartache, when his brother breathes Balthier's birth-name in a thick note of frustration, benediction and raw longing. He sees Balthier open his mouth to frame a no doubt withering reply, but Noah's honed speed proves his undoing.
A heartbeat of time, and his brother roughly claims Balthier's lips. It's not until the sky pirate's tightly clenched fists unravel to rest feather-light on Noah's hips that Basch recognizes the sensation in his knotting belly as a sort of oddly wistful jealousy.
Balthier eventually jerks away, wiping his mouth, his eyes angry and hot. "Gabranth." A long breath, then he shakes his head. "Touch me again and you'll not see hide nor hair of me for the rest of your life."
At that flat threat, Noah takes a step back to the gray tree. "Where did you go? Why did you leave?" A growl. "Why four years, Ffamran, before sending me notice that you still lived?"
"So many questions at once. As impatient as always. It does not behoove a Judge-Magister, Gabranth," Balthier's tone is archly playful, brittle in its self-control. "I left because I am no man's servant, Gabranth, less so a power-hungry prince of Solidor. You Judges are now not so much the hand of order as the ruling house's lapdogs, now. Their personal guard. Also," he adds sharply, when Noah seemed ready to voice another outburst, "Zecht is my friend."
Noah seems to deflate a little at that. "You could still have told me," he mutters, glancing down at his boots.
"Aye, and you would have done your best to hinder any escape." Balthier's smile is soft now, odd with old affection.
"Then why come back now?" Noah asks, the note of hope in his voice painful to his brother to hear. Balthier, however, can be quite brutal for his age.
As he is now. "I need some information, my sandalwood chops seem outdated, and Jules is getting expensive."
Noah wordlessly hands over something white and carved from his pockets, and Balthier's smile is now sharp, even as he delicately picks up whatever it is whilst carefully not touching Basch's twin. "Thank you. Now, information. Is my father in town?"
Noah's brow furrows. "Yes, but..."
"Vayne?"
"No."
"Zargabaath?"
"Left yesterday. Ffamran..."
"Larsa?"
"I have not had an opportunity to talk to his Lordship since Bhujerba. Our schedules clash."
"Seen Zecht skulking about lately? He's a man of old habits, 'tis sure to show up in his favorite haunts."
"Someone matching his description, certainly, but we cannot spare many to try and track a fish as slippery as he. Ffamran."
"I'll count that kiss you stole as ample payment," Balthier says, with calculated absentness, staring distractedly at the sky as though mulling over the information. "Thanks."
"You could have gotten that information from any other," Noah snaps, near the end of his tether. "You have friends yet in the Department."
"For now, certainly. I did hear that you killed Drace. Under Vayne's order, no less," Balthier's tone is steely, now. Uncompromising. Noah seems to wish to state something in his defence, but gives up, lowering his head.
"This is revenge, then." Noah sounds resigned.
"Nothing so complicated." Balthier shrugs. "I was somewhat curious to see if you've changed."
"Changed, or changed my mind?" Noah's smile is humorless.
"Both.
"I have duties."
"I'll take that as a 'no', then," Balthier inclines his head, with a dancer's grace. "Fare you well, Gabranth. Try not to expend too much effort looking for me in Archades. You do, after all, have duties."
"Wait. Ffamran." The rawness in Noah's voice arrests the sky pirate in mid-turn. "You were not like this."
"Neither were you, to kill a friend on the say-so of another," Balthier says, with mocking pleasantry. "What changed you?"
Noah curls nails into his palms, and looks around distractedly, then he glances up at the sky and lets out a long breath. "Remember when I told you I had a brother."
"Who died in a war. So you said." Balthier's voice is disinterested. "So?"
"He's alive. Imprisoned. I do not know where now. Vayne holds his life in his hands." Noah seems to mistake Balthier's intake of breath as the wrong sort of surprise. "He was a General of Dalmasca. Were he captured he would have been put to the sword. Instead they... we... disgraced him and had him apparently executed. Ffamran, it was the only way."
"You are a fair bit more deluded than I had even originally thought," Balthier says, with droll pity, even as Basch stops breathing in his shock. "When was the last time you saw this brother of yours? How do you know he still lives?"
"I saw him in Nalbina when I was looking for you there, having heard that you had been arrested." Noah's voice is reproachful. "You have the worst timing. I can only thank the Gods that you somehow managed to escape." Something in Balthier's face makes his brother give pause. "Ffamran. Did you, in Nalbina..."
"Gave me quite a shock to see you really meant 'identical'," Basch hears the impish grin in Balthier's voice but distantly, dizzy in the welcome knowledge that he still at least had some form of his brother's love. "Also," (and here's his revenge, now, Basch thinks, for all the pirate's words on pettiness), "He's a fair bit more gentle than you are."
Noah looks stricken, so much so that he makes no move to object or stop Balthier, when the sky pirate turns to go. He manages to speak, finally, when Balthier is at the archway (only the flicker in the edges of walnut eyes tells Basch that he has been spotted). "You love him?"
"Not as I do you," Balthier shrugs, and Basch knows the frank honesty would do far more to break his brother's heart (linked to his own, he feels the ache). "He is too much your shadow."
"Aye," Noah said, bitterly, "And all our life together I have tried to get him to change. I thought it would only serve him ill. But it seems it has given you to him."
"You are both quite given to the strangest absolutes," Balthier does not look at Basch when he says this. "As before, as I am now, I belong to no one."
Noah stands by himself for a long time even after the final echoes of Balthier's footsteps on crumbling stone fades away, then he turns and punches the gray trunk of the tree next to him with a choked sound. Heavy breathing, then incoming footsteps. He almost does not notice his brother.
Gray-blue meets gray-blue, for a long, shocked moment, then Noah has curled long fingers tight around Basch's neck, and he's gasping for breath (both), but his own hands around Noah's wrists are not so much defence but reflex. The lethal pressure lasts only a heartbeat, then his brother's face is buried in his shoulder, arms tight around his chest. He knows the right response likely isn't to smile, but he cannot help it (whole, again). "Noah."
He berates himself for speaking when Noah looks up sharply and steps back, his expression so hard now that Basch cannot quite read it. "Brother."
Basch nods. Your brother, he wants to say. He settles for a, "What will you do, now?"
"Do?" Noah looks away and picks absently at his sleeve, the motion so much like Balthier that it distracts Basch for a moment from his thoughts. But of course: lovers develop each other's habits. Then Noah smiles, in the lazy, come-on-then way that Basch remembers from his childhood, so right that his heart twists. "What would you think I would do, brother?"
"I would hope that you leave. But I think you will see things out to the end." As you did, in Landis.
"I mean Ffamran. He's using you." Noah leans against the wall, by Basch's side. It seemed that there was far too much of the convoluted between them, that they could only touch on the most recent things.
"Aye."
"And you mind not." Only the faintest hint of bitterness. Basch is not quite sure whether it is directed at himself or at Balthier.
"Aye."
"Sometimes I feel like shaking you, but I feel t'will just be like kicking a puppy," Noah mutters, and Basch realizes with some surprise that the resentment is moreso directed at Balthier's treatment of him (and them both) than of his acceptance of being used. He treasures the moment all the more so that he knows it cannot last; indeed that this could be their final moment of being brothers. Noah seems to recognize this; his shoulders slump, and his jaw sets. "What drives you, brother?"
"The same as yourself, I should think. Duty."
"It leaves little place for much else. I should not be so surprised if neither of us can keep him."
"Aye." Basch has known this since the very first night he had been invited, with sly smiles and maddening touches, to an embrace made no less precious by the fact that his beloved was thinking of another person who so happened to wear his face. But there is still value in fool's gold and stitchglass.
He does not realize he spoke out loud until he realizes Noah is staring at him, in a mixture of bemused resignation. "Perhaps there is." His twin pushes away from the aged stone, and squeezes his shoulder. "When we next meet, it will be as enemies."
"It need not be so," Basch says, with as much resolution as he can afford in his voice. "Brother..."
"Duty is a cruel mistress, little brother." Noah shrugs, as he ambles away down cracked cobblestones, with a backward wave. "I wish you all luck with your illusions."
--
His brother's words echo in his mind, long afterwards, in the break of morn in the first day of their refuge in Balfonheim, Balthier curled exhausted and sleeping in the crook of his elbow. For someone whose life was not given overmuch to pleasure, even tiny, transient gems as these were worth much to treasure: the scent of the sea and the cold fingers of the morning breeze over his shoulder, another set of breathing that wafted warmth against an ear, a lover who was not quite his, that he knows he cannot ultimately keep.
-fin-