Archadian Brokering

by Taxie

After Draklor, Balthier is in Archades and in trouble. Like a gentleman, Jules helps him out. Like an Archadian, he makes Balthier pay for services rendered. Jules/Balthier, and very much in that order.

A/N: Rated a hard M for sexual contact.

This is a slight AU, set directly after the events in Draklor that basically ignores the existence of Reddas. I always found it rather suspicious that after tromping through the Empire's super-secret technology lair, you can still wander in and out of Archades with absolute impunity. You'd think somebody would take objection and might remember a ragtag group of six random individuals banging around, one who looks suspiciously like the missing sky pirate son of the laboratory's director, one with bunny ears. And what's that Gabranth look-alike with long hair doing? But, hey. It's a video game, and this is my fanfiction remedy.

Also, total PWP. How could any sane person resist Balthier saying that he and Jules were "close enough for fisticuffs?"

# # #

I – know – this – I – know – this – I – know – this

The words echoed through Balthier's skull with every beat of his racing heart, galloping alongside him like a hound from hell. Back alleyways dark with the stain of night, slick with sin and the ever-present Archadian fog made every trash pile and stray dog and prostitute look like something menacing, an informer.

He had done this before, a terrified sprint over the wet, uneven cobblestones of the night, winding farther and farther away from the main roads of Archades' acrid glamour and deeper into its sewers. Even oil lamps were rare, the closer they got to Old Archades, leaving most of the road swathed in foggy gloom: Balthier trusted his innate knowledge of city streets and prayed his light feet wouldn't trip him up.

Of course, last time he had done this he had been eighteen and alone; now there were five others struggling to keep up with him: he always forgot how long his legs were. His classmates in pilot school had always grumbled about not being able to compete with horse-blooded Bunansa in morning calisthenics, since he could leap across the entire running field in two bounds before the rest of them had even started. Now, only Fran seemed to find it effortless, running apace with him and only a half-step behind, bowing to his superior knowledge of the city. Every once in a while there was a soft curse as somebody tripped over a cobblestone, stubbing toes, losing ground.

I – know – this – I – know – this – I – know – this

Taking a deep breath Balthier forced the Archadian fog down into his lungs to expand them and nearly choked on it: it was like breathing soup. And, at the end of it all, Balthier thought, breaking his running mantra, my native land suffocates me with her own air.

Heavy, pounding footsteps to his right nearly made him throw a fist back before the long, flowing mane of filthy blond hair marked him as Basch. "Where are we… going?" the man asked between harsh breaths.

"Old Archades," Balthier mumbled. Had he not been running, he would have added isn't it obvious? with a grand sweep of his hand indicating their increasingly dilapidated surroundings. But as he was running, it didn't seem worth the effort or breath.

"The princess can't keep… this pace," Basch replied. What was left unsaid, Balthier thought, is neither can I, I'm thirty-five and just spent two years languishing down in a dungeon in a cage, I can't run like you, you long-limbed twenty-two year old sack of manure. But, again, if Balthier was worried about conserving breath, Basch doubtlessly had the same troubles.

And to be honest, it probably wasn't a good idea to keep on dashing semi-blindly through the back streets. Once or twice already he had heard the jangle of Archadian armor jogging a couple blocks behind them – bless their souls, the clatter of their mail marked them out from a distance wherever they were, like mischievous cats with bells around their necks. Sooner or later, though, they were going to run slapbang into a squadron, or, if they were particularly unlucky, they would be sandwiched between a couple of squadrons, and they were all exhausted.

As the reality of the situation sunk over him, Balthier felt the churning of his legs slow beneath him, until the entire group had stopped, panting, resting in a watery circle of light cast from the oilpaper windows of a tavern. Balthier felt Basch slide cautiously out from the dim light and farther back into the deep slimy walls of a side alley, and the rest of the group sidled into the damp, unpleasant darkness with him.

"You think they're after us?" Penelo wanted to know, leaning up against the side of the tavern, her hands on her knees, blonde ponytails slumping with exhaustion like the rest of her. The jangle of Archadian armor echoed on the far side of the alley but fortunately for them Archadian troops weren't paid for looking at anything other than the obvious, and the thick fog hindered any individual soldier willing to go above and beyond payroll. "Or… do they always patrol like this?"

Balthier had his head tilted back for air, his skull thumping against the crumbling, slimy brick wall. "They're after us," he said stolidly. "They don't patrol the arse-end of Archades like this for sport."

After their memorable encounter with Balthier's father at Draklor, the group had followed Balthier's lead through the secret side panels in the laboratory, which emptied out into the sewers underneath the city. As they had been darting through the fake walls, sweating as the jangle of Archadian armor grew steadily in volume as the infantry responded to the distress calls of the laboratory and came to investigate, Balthier was finally happy that his father had been obsessed with Ffamran following in his footsteps. Otherwise, he wouldn't have known about the secret passages leading out of the laboratory's heart – Balthier was pretty sure the only people who knew about those passages were himself, his father, and the laboratory's architect. And the architect had been executed for treason a mere six months after the laboratory's completion, for murky reasons Balthier never had been able to figure out.

The father's paranoia, at least, was good for the son's treachery.

"Now what?" Ashe wanted to know, her stony face painted blue with the alley's wet shadows. She was clearly on the edge of irritation; normally, Balthier knew, if they had been darting around the back ways of any other city for as long as they had been running about Old Archades, she would have said something. She had kept quiet on account that this was Balthier's city, and she had thought he had a plan.

Something rang hollow at that assumption that the entirety of the party had obviously made, with the possible exception of Fran: Archades is Balthier's city, he knows what he's doing.

No, Balthier wanted to tell them, but wouldn't. Archades is Doctor Cid's city, Vayne's city, Larsa's city, Ffamran's city, even, but not Balthier's. He had forsaken the City years before: now it was nearly as alien as any other place he had touched down on with the Strahl.

"Well," Balthier said sourly, as everybody was clearly waiting on his word, "here are our options. One, we split up and each go find our own personal wretched corner of the Old City to crouch in and hope that the patrols mistake us for waifs and don't recognize our faces, and stay that way until the patrols give up."

Silence. Option one didn't seem to inspire any real opinions. The wind rustled across the alley, causing old wet newspapers to flop across the uneven cobblestones and rousing the aroma of mildew and human waste from the gutters: Basch's lip ticked slightly and Ashe covered her nose. Vaan and Penelo, street children, probably hadn't even noticed, and Fran was too busy carefully scanning both ends of the alley for potential threats to react to the stench.

"Two, we try to make it back and spend the night deep in the Cave Palace. The patrols won't go too far into it: people here, even the educated ones, still believe the place is accursed. And the infantry isn't renown for its population of intellectuals, so the ones ordered to search the Palace will likely be scared half-dead anyway, and not too much of a problem, provided we're not terribly outnumbered."

"Option three?" Ashe wanted to know, when he had fallen silent.

Gods above, Balthier thought, exhaustion from fighting through Draklor and the encounter with his father and the escape through the sewers and run through the back streets pushing him into a fit of pique. Can people not think for themselves? He threw up his hands. "We find Vayne, murder him, and sleep in his bed. I don't know, Lady Ashe. I find myself without a ship at the moment and we can't just waltz into the Aerodrome and purchase tickets on a public airship: we don't have papers, and now the guard knows what we look like."

"You don't know anybody-" Vaan started, one hand scratching awkwardly at the back of his head, his boots shifting in gutter muck.

"No," Balthier interrupted flatly. He felt two fingers touch him lightly on the arm and nearly started before he realized it was Fran's fingers, the touch simultaneously attempting to calm him and remind him that losing his temper wasn't going to do much to solve the problem. Grateful, Balthier took a deep breath; immediately, his head began to throb with the effort of suppressing the emotion. "I don't know anybody in Archades who would be willing to stick their neck out for us. When I left last time, I burned every bridge I had; anybody who had called themselves friend to me would now be just as happy to dump my arse in the blackest hole they could find and forget I ever existed."

"You have such very little hope in your motherland, Master Ffamran."

His gun was waiting loaded on his back as usual: one smooth movement backward and an expert pivot on the heel; stop, pull the weapon, cock, raise, aim, steady, I-was-born-with-the-weapon-in-my-hand perfect –

He was looking down the barrel of the gun, pointed a hairs-breath away from Jules' strong square nose, the other man's dark brown eyes raised in mild, likely faked, surprise. "I can use your other name if you find Ffamran displeasing," Jules went on, his tone even despite the weapon in his face. "I know you go by something else nowadays."

Balthier scowled and lowered the weapon, knowing that five other ones were trained on Jules in the gun's absence. "What do you want?" Balthier asked, irritated at himself that Jules had been able to get at him from behind without his knowledge; had the other man wished, Balthier could have been dead.

At the irritation in Balthier's tone Jules smiled, clearly quite aware why Balthier was so put out. Unlike the majority of ardents who had tumbled from grace and into the Old City his teeth were white and straight, emphasizing a handsome dark face with black stubble and Archadian-dark hair, just long enough to be unruly under his pointed green hat, tilted at a purposefully rakish angle. "I was just overhearing your conversation, sir, and couldn't help but be injured that you think so poorly of your old acquaintances. I, for one, have no interest in throwing you into a black hole, for I know the uselessness of such an action. If Fframran gets tossed into a hole, Fframran will find a way out. You're famous for it, sir."

Balthier gritted his teeth against the use of his discarded name and the insincere deference; Jules was clearly trying to provoke him with it, and Balthier wasn't going to let him. Somewhere in the distance, Archadian armor jingled like bells and the wind blew again, rousing the foul odor of the alley once more.

"You don't happen to know a place we can go?" Vaan asked from behind, and not for the first time Balthier wanted to grab him by the nape of the neck and shake him like an overeager puppy.

Instead, Balthier's head whipped sideways and pinned Vaan with a look that could have peeled paint; unfortunately, he had done that so often that Vaan was nearly immune. The boy's jaw was set forward, stubborn. "Our other options are to sleep in a gutter or go back to the Cave Palace, and you're looking better than either."

It was the opening Jules had been waiting for: the man's blithe grin got wider. "Well, I might happen to know a place, provided Lord Bunansa-"

"Enough," Balthier snapped, unable to contain his annoyance with the evening any longer. As soon as it came out of his mouth Balthier realized it sounded like whining, but if there was one thing he could not stand, it was being needled with the titles of his past. "I am not Lord Bunansa."

"Well," Jules said airily, waving his hand absently in a way eerily similar to Balthier's while he was making a point, "you still are, technically. You haven't been disowned, and that's to the extreme surprise of high society, believe me-"

"Balthier," Basch wanted to know, still holding his axe up at a defensive angle, "can we trust him?"

Balthier's mouth screwed up in a scowl. "If you care to make deals with the devil," he muttered.

Jules crossed his arms. "That's taking it a bit far, Your Grace. I just like fair trades, is all-"

"Your Grace?"

"You didn't know?" Jules asked cheerfully. "Your father was ennobled by Emperor Gramis before he died, and now you are heir to a dukedom – see how you rise in the world, sir!"

Balthier pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What do you want to trade?" Ashe asked flatly, tired of the bickering. "We're not without coin, if you honestly have a safe place to harbor us name your price."

At the mention of money, Jules sobered, one hand going absently to the lacing at the front of his tunic, twisting the braids between his fingers, a man poised to bargain. "I'm not after money." Cocking his head, Jules directed another large white smile at Vaan. "Not this time, anyhow."

"Then what do you want?" Basch repeated. "It's almost morning – we either need to strike a deal here or come up with an alternate plan. So quickly, streetear."

"I name my price later," Jules said, his gaze going back to Balthier's, dark and intense. "Those are my conditions."

"Unacceptable," Basch said, shaking his head. "We can't trust you."

"You have to," Jules went on, his eyes never leaving Balthier's face. "You honestly believe that you can outrun the entirety of the Archadian army if they're after you in the capital city? You'd never make it to the Cave Palace without being spotted. You'll be caught in the alleys for the better part of the next two weeks if you want to outwait them here. And that's if you're lucky and you're not recognized; worse, you've got handsome prices on your heads and wanted bills with your faces – they've already started putting them up - so somebody is bound to notice one of you at some point. Pardon me for saying," he said, inclining his head to Fran, "but you're a rather conspicuous group: armed to the teeth, and clearly not related or running under the banner of a particular country. Maybe you could hide in Balfonheim like that, but not here. Not Archades, where we all have our places and you don't fit."

"Then why can't you name your price upfront?" asked Penelo, her hand still on the hilt of her sword, though she had sheathed it.

"It's not that I can't," Jules said, folding his hands across his chest. Balthier watched silently as the left side of Jules' red, fleshy lips curved up in amusement. "I just choose not to. And you are in no position to demand otherwise; I'm offering you sanctuary at considerable risk to my own neck without demanding an Emperor's ransom in coin, and that's all you need to know. If you don't want it, don't take it, but you're not going to get a better offer."

Uncomfortable silence enveloped the group and the night took over: clattering armor, a distant owl, a drunk moaning at the other end of the alley and vomiting into the gutters.

"Balthier?" Ashe wanted to know, and Balthier, though still engaged in a staring contest of sorts with Jules, felt Fran's fingers on his arm again, prompting him to make a decision.

They all think I know what I'm doing, Balthier thought sadly, trying to search for any clue as to Jules' thoughts in his face and, as expected, finding nothing. "It seems we have little choice," he admitted.

Jules inclined his head. "I'm glad that Sir Bunansa can be persuaded to see reason," the man said, turning on his heel. Balthier wanted to say something about the absurdity of the title but stopped himself; if his father had somehow managed to gain a knighthood as well as a dukedom, Balthier honestly didn't want to know.

"Where are we going?" Vaan asked amicably, obviously pleased at not having to sleep in a gutter or in the Cave Palace.

"My house," Jules said, scanning the main street in both directions before crossing into another alley. "But it might take us a while: I know the patrol's movements when they're on the beat, and we'll probably have to hide on the way back."

Balthier waited for everybody else to cross the street first before bringing up the rear, letting Vaan distract Jules with cheerful questions. Sometimes, the street rat was worth his feed.

# # #

Jules' house was small, but clean. The walls were whitewashed and chinked soundly against the wind and damp: the floor was well-packed earth and the roof was heavily thatched and insulated with wool backed with burlap. A knitted natural-spun rug covered the better part of the main room, which boasted a table in the center and a cluster of chairs, a long cabinet lay against the back wall for food preparation, and a gravity sink sat in the corner. A small cabinet of books rested next to the fireplace, where a lone upholstered chair with footstool stood in front of the hearth. A door on the opposite side of the fireplace lead to a bedroom in the back.

When the group had filtered in to the light of the rising sun, Jules shut the door in a flare of green light. This caused everybody to draw their weapons again in panic, before Jules – his hands raised in surrender – managed to convince them that the magick was merely a silencing spell.

"It's for my business," he said in a soothing voice, as Penelo looked to have half a mind to run him through. "I collect information: I can dispense it or gather it here without fear of eavesdroppers. That's all. I swear it to you."

"Balthier?" Basch asked once again, his axe still raised.

Balthier sighed, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs. The fireplace still held a bed of glowing embers, but the room itself was chill from the damp of the night. "If it was something harmful, he likely wouldn't make it so obvious as a flash of magick," Balthier pointed out. "It would be something we wouldn't notice." He was weary.

"Fran?" Basch went on.

Fran, who was leaning in the corner, had her eyes closed, ears twitching occasionally as she felt the room out for magicks with her supernatural senses. "Silencing spells, as he said," she said at last, her eyes opening. "Also, cloaking spells."

Jules nodded, his hands still raised as the rest of the group started lowering their weapons. "Cloaking spells is what makes this place safe. If I've got them enacted, everybody conveniently forgets where I live, and nobody can find my door."

"How did you get this magick?" Ashe asked, finally unstringing her bow with an expert flick, though her eyes never left his face. "The spells must be very advanced."

Jules shrugged, crossing the room now that it was safe to do so: he passed Balthier and went to the fireplace to stoke up the flames. "It all depends on what your Mist talents guide you toward. I can't heal, I can't conjure, I can't call spirits, I have no fighting abilities with my magick. But if I hide something, it stays hidden. If I want a secret kept, it stays secret. What can I say?"

"And," Balthier added from his chair, glad to throw a barb back at Jules for all the Your Grace-ing and Sir-ing he had to endure earlier, "he used to be a student at the Magick Akademy, weren't you?"

Jules turned around with a half-smile, clearly aware of what Balthier was doing. "A long while back. As you would know."

Balthier turned back to his companions, all too happy to offer the explanation. "Jules and I were classmates when we were young," he said, crossing his arms.

"I used to be a member of the gentry," Jules offered, when Vaan opened his mouth to ask the obvious question. "To make a very long, boring story short, Father lost his status when it was found he was guilty of tax fraud, and we all fell down here when he went to jail." With a soft grunt, he stood up and hung a pot of water on the hook over the fire, which was beginning to catch on the new wood. "The stress of it all killed my mother. It was a long time ago, though, wasn't it, Master Ffamran?"

"Yes," Balthier agreed, still annoyed with the titles, but not wanting to voice it for fear of sounding petulant.

"Oh, please, sit down," Jules told the rest of them, who were still standing semi-awkwardly on one side of the house. "You'll probably be here a while, so you might as well sit."

There were enough perches for all of them, as long as one person sat on the footstool, which Penelo did quite happily. In short order Jules had made tea, and started on a large pot of porridge, as that was the only thing he had on hand that could feed such a big number of people. The porridge was augmented with cream and honey; Balthier had wolfed down his bowl before he knew it; he hadn't even realized he was so hungry.

When he looked up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Jules, with an infuriating little half-smile, offered him a second bowl. "You can have the rest of mine," Jules said, "I'm not going to eat it."

Balthier looked at the bowl for a minute. He had eaten others' leftovers more times than he could count by now; it was only practical, given that they had a limited amount of food and none should be wasted. Balthier and Vaan in particular were known for being constantly hungry and would usually snap up the rest of somebody else's plate quite gladly.

But Jules was different. The others had only known him as sky pirate Balthier; Jules was more familiar with his previous existence as the imperious Ffamran, and Ffamran would have never eaten what somebody else had left behind.

Worse, Jules was a clever man, and likely was entirely aware of the implications of his action. Archadians, rich or poor, never did anything by accident.

"I'm fine," he said, putting his own empty bowl on the kitchen table. Vaan, having no prior selves to give him hang-ups, quickly volunteered to take Jules' half-eaten supper. Jules passed the bowl over to Vaan without a comment other than another flash of knowing smile.

Later, when the dishes had been done and the pale yellow light of a new day glowed against the oilpaper windows of Jules' house, Balthier, who was laying on a corner of the rug, listened to his stomach rumble and wallowed in something like shame until exhaustion took over entirely.

# # #

Jules, everybody would learn, kept very irregular hours. The next morning he was out of the house before anybody else was awake, and didn't come back until late afternoon. It was the bane of the streetear, he had told them that night over dinner; information didn't keep on a schedule, so neither could he.

As for what Jules told them about the cloaking spells it seemed to be true: or at least, more than one time the party had frozen, silent, as an Archadian armed force banged on their next-door neighbor's house with a gauntleted hand to question the unfortunate occupants, but the squads passed by Jules' door every single time.

The worst part of it all was the boredom. They weren't used to being cooped up for so long in a small space, but until the squads stopped attempting to turn the city upside-down, it was folly to leave the safety of the house. Even this logic, though, didn't keep tempers from growing thin as they brushed up against each other in Jules' front parlor for hours on end with nothing to distract them.

Balthier, who was very well aware that his wit often reacted without discretion before it, was attempting to stay in one corner with Jules' bookcase and ignore Penelo's irritated soprano cracking over its own words while she berated Vaan for something-or-other. Even though the sky pirate was relatively sure that Vaan deserved the tongue thrashing, it didn't mean he particularly wanted to hear it as bystander.

Jules' collection of books were old and well-worn; dogeared pages fell out of their bindings in his lap as he leafed through them, and some of the pages had the ink rubbed so thin as to be illegible. It was a motley assortment: mythologies, fantasy, a couple histories of the Archadian empire – one that Balthier was sure had been banned – and even a Landisi to Archadian dictionary.

When he opened what appeared to be a very out-of-date technical text, he froze at the inside of the front cover.

There, on the yellowed backing of the cardboard cover, written in his own boxy engineering-trained handwriting, was his name. Or, rather, his old one. Ffamran Mid Bunansa.

Surprised, he closed the book and peered again at the cover. It was a technical manual, specifically dealing with the mechanics of non-glossair-powered airships. It must have been a text he'd used at the Akademy, but the exact class escaped him. But what was it doing –

And then he remembered his last mad, fearful dash down the dark streets of Old Archades, running toward this very house. He'd needed Jules' help to sneak in the back way of the aerodrome to embark on the theft of the Strahl. His excuse to his father that last night was that he was going to the library to study for his final examinations and he had grabbed a book, any book, to make the story convincing. He must have forgotten the decoy book here when he'd left with Jules.

With a slight shake of his head he opened the book again – his name had been written in light pencil, it had almost faded away. Flipping through the book showed pages marked meticulously with his even, neat handwriting, annotating diagrams and even doodling absently in corners.

Suddenly, an overwhelming sadness overtook him, as if Ffamran had been a close friend who had died tragically and too soon, and here was a surprise reminder of him. It was madness, he told himself as he closed the book: it was he who had killed Ffamran, and at the time it had been done with relish, and even now he looked back at the shedding of his former life with pride and accomplishment. Not everybody could cast off the chains of their pasts with such finality as he had done: it took great strength, and he knew it.

So, why the sadness?

And why had Jules kept the book? As far as Balthier was aware, Jules didn't know the first thing about engineering or airships, and the book itself was far too technical for a beginner to the subject. Shaking his head, Balthier closed the volume and replaced it on the shelf. He steepled his fingers and leaned back into the armchair before the fire, fighting off a sudden headache, closing his eyes.

Steps walked toward him and Balthier felt rather than heard weight settle on the footstool. The silence that followed and the heaviness of the footsteps told him it had to be Basch – the only other person that would greet him with silence would be Fran, and her gait was much lighter than the knight's. If it had been the children or the princess, he would have gotten an order to pay attention to them.

"Yes?" Balthier asked the knight, who remained steadily silent until Balthier opened an eye at him and raised his eyebrow.

"Do you know how much longer the troops will be patrolling for us?" Basch wanted to know, a long greasy strand of blond hair falling exactly down the center of his face. Balthier was torn between wanting to push it out of his eyes and not wanting to touch it at all, accounting for how filthy they were.

At the question he sighed, sinking farther into the velvet-upholstered chair, which was surprisingly comfortable for how old it appeared to be. "As much as everybody I travel with seems to wish otherwise, I know as little about Archades as you do, beyond the layout. When I lived here myself I had very little familiarity with the criminal element, so I haven't the faintest idea how the police work."

Basch raised his own gingery brows at the hint of irritation in Balthier's voice. "Yesterday's ghosts proving too hard to exorcize?" he asked.

"I can't wait to get out of this city," Balthier admitted. "It's… unfamiliar and yet too familiar. To be honest, I wouldn't miss it if the entire place was blasted into the ground."

"You'd probably feel differently if it actually happened," Basch said with an unusual little half-smile.

Balthier knew he was talking about Landis, and winced slightly at how badly he had put his foot in it: he was obviously tired, he would never make that sort of verbal slip at full capacity. "Apologies," he said stiffly. "I probably would feel some sort of pique should anything happen to Archades: like an abused child must feel when their alcoholic father finally tastes dirt."

That brought a full smile from Basch for a moment, before his face resettled into its usual stoic mask. "Your friend hasn't mentioned anything about payment yet."

"Of course he hasn't," Balthier muttered, his eyes going back to the bookshelf. "He'll wait until the most inopportune moment to ask us for it. Archadian social graces, and he's the master of ceremony when it comes to them. Do you speak Landisi?"

Basch blinked at the sudden change in topic. "Of course. Though, I haven't spoke it to anybody in years… but I don't think anybody ever forgets their mother tongue."

Balthier waved a hand toward the bookshelf, indicating the dictionary. "You should try it out on Jules. He's a born linguist; when I left the city he spoke four languages fluently, and has likely accumulated more by this point."

Basch's eyes found the dictionary, and he nodded in mild surprise. "Though it surprises me that anybody should want to learn Landisi; nowadays, it's all but a dead language."

"Like I said, he collects languages the way children do pebbles," Balthier said, yawning and slumping farther into the armchair. "And lots of Landisi refugees came to the Old City after the fall of Landis; you'd be surprised how useful it can be in certain enclaves. I'm sure Jules uses it on his information-collecting forays."

"I'm curious," Basch said, which surprised Balthier since he couldn't remember ever seeing Basch exhibit idle curiosity, "about… your relationship with Jules."

"You make it sound like we've been lovers for years," Balthier said dryly, reaching out toward the bookshelf for the dictionary.

That drew another half smile from Basch but didn't throw him off course; the man was like a dog on the scent, Balthier thought. "You met as children. But… you didn't see him ever again until we came back to Archades and he knew who you were?"

Balthier sighed, flipping absently through the dictionary. "He probably would have known who I was anyway as a consequence of his business dealings, but no. We met again when I was older in the Akademy; it wasn't uncommon for us young promising future leaders to come do our whoring down in the Old City. I ran into Jules on one such evening; he knew who I was, and I vaguely recognized him. We were good for each other, since I could get him inside information from the City that was mostly reliable, and he helped me not get my purse or my throat cut when I went out trolling. He also helped me get out of the City the night I left for good."

"But you didn't invite him along?" Basch asked.

Balthier shrugged. "He didn't want to go. I don't know why. I also didn't know that Landisi has five cases?"

"It's a complicated language," Basch said easily, with the air of a peacock preening himself. "Most complicated of the native Ivalice languages, mind. Archadian is second to it, which is also a cruel mistress. Do you speak any other languages?"

Balthier paged through the dictionary, squinting at its faded printing. "Nyet," he said, which caused Basch to smile. "I've always been able to get everywhere on Archadian. May the gods bless the Archadian Empire with long life and good will – it makes it easy for me to travel in it."

Shaking his head, Basch clapped Balthier absently on the knee before rising from the footstool. "Well, I knew you didn't speak Landisi, since you don't react when I call you a sisterfucker in it."

"What?" Balthier asked, but Basch had already walked away – that is, he had gone to go out the back door for the privy. Irritated, Balthier attempted to look up the aforementioned word, only to find it not in the dictionary.

# # #

It turned out that Balthier had been right about Jules and the Landisi: when Jules had returned that evening from his daily rounds, Basch cautiously tried a couple of words on him, which caused Jules to raise his eyebrows in surprise and reply with a fluent string of syllables. Basch was clearly pleased to have somebody to share his native tongue with, since he had been devoid of lingual partners for so long.

The evening unwound into a melting pot of languages. Jules was fluent in Landisi and Rozarrian, conversational in Dalmascan and Nabudisian, and even able to eke out a few sentences in some very ancient language that left Fran looking mildly impressed.

Balthier had stayed uncharacteristically silent throughout the meal: Jules had always been somewhat of a charmer, and the man could certainly lay it on thick when he wanted. Balthier knew showmanship when he saw it, and he wasn't about to ruin it for everybody, save the occasional eye-roll when Jules did something absolutely ridiculous, like kiss Penelo's hand and ask for her favor like she was his ladylove. Penelo blushed a pretty shade of pink when he did so, which had caused Vaan to scowl darkly for a moment before Jules neatly diverted his light flirtations to Ashe.

Dinner that evening was butter bean and bacon soup, plenty for all, so much that there were leftovers even Vaan and Balthier couldn't finish. If nothing else could be said about being confined in Jules' house, Balthier thought as they all digested with after-dinner coffee, he was certainly eating better than he had in weeks.

That night, he settled down on his customary corner of the rug and lay, staring upward at the thatched ceiling as he listened to his companions all find sleep and settle into the usual chorus of breathing and soft snores. It had become such a habitual, comforting noise, Balthier realized; if at any point in his life he had the fortune to sleep in his own room with his own bed again, he was going to have a difficult time sleeping with his own silence.

He was so deep in his musings that he didn't notice somebody was walking until Jules' feet, bare against the packed-earth floor, stopped next to his head. Balthier rotated his head up to see Jules looking down at him; when Jules saw the movement and realized Balthier hadn't been sleeping, he motioned with his head back toward his room.

Carefully, Balthier extricated himself from the rug and stood: he had never realized how tall Jules was. Balthier had gotten used to looking downward at the majority of humanity, but he and Jules were almost of an exact height. Jules raised an eyebrow at him and turned back into his room, and Balthier followed.

Jules' bedchamber was very small: room enough for a single bed pushed against the wall, a crate with a candle burning on it, and a small washstand with a pitcher resting at the foot of the bed, along with a trunk for clothes. The fireplace in the main room cut through to give the bedchamber light and warmth from the same fire, but when Jules shut the door the opening flared with green light.

"More silencing spells," Jules explained, at a normal tone of voice. Balthier sat on the bed and peered through the fireplace opening: had Jules spoken like that without the spell, it surely would have woken most of the other room, but his companions slept on.

"Business good?" Balthier asked idly, looking up as Jules hung his hat on the door and removed his belt purse.

"Good enough," Jules replied, shaking the belt purse to let Balthier hear the thick metallic jangle of coins within. "Good enough to keep me well-fed with a good house and entertainment when I desire it, so it's good enough for me."

"A healthy life philosophy," Balthier said, watching as Jules crossed the room to decant some water from the pitcher into a kettle, which Jules hung from a hook over the dying fire. "Healthier than mine, most certainly."

"I'd like to think so myself, that I'm saner than a sky pirate," Jules said, sitting on the bed next to him. "I'd also like to discuss the parameters of payment for my hospitality."

Just me? Balthier wondered, suspicion starting to mount. "And?" he asked.

"Well," Jules started, raising his fingers like a huckster who knows the value of his goods, "here has been a list of my services thus far. I stuck out my own neck and took a night off my schedule to talk you into following me – and got weapons pointed at me twice during the process, I add – fed you all, and kept silent on a pile of information that probably could have left me wealthy enough to retire off of. Also, I've lost my house as a place to conduct business these past few days, as well as had to keep up the cloaking spells on the house the entire time, which is no small test of my magickal endurance, I'll say."

"As you said, this was your idea," Balthier pointed out. "Nobody's doubting your usefulness," he added quickly when Jules' brow creased and the other man opened his mouth to argue. "I'm just saying. You also said you didn't want coin."

"And I don't," Jules agreed. "If I did, I'd have no reason to want to talk with you alone."

"The fact wasn't lost on me," Balthier replied, raising an eyebrow.

Silence then, as Jules' wide, red lips broke into his strong smile. His smile was what made him handsome, Balthier realized. Without the smile he was nearly ordinary-looking, but with it, he could easily command a room's attention, like he had at dinner that night.

"Well, all right, then. Seeing as how you say you aren't Ffamran anymore, and have ostensibly removed yourself from Ffamran's sensibilities, I don't feel as though I have to couch this in delicate words. It is halfway to midnight now. You let me have you until the sun rises, and then we consider your bill fully paid."

Balthier spluttered.

Jules fixed him with an incredulous look. "And there's Ffamran, again."

"Can you blame a man for being surprised when he gets asked to prostitute himself for the sake of a roof over his head-"

"You're so melodramatic," Jules interrupted him with an eye-roll. "You've never done it before?"

With an incredulous look of his own over his features, Balthier cocked his head. "No, no, I can't say that I've ever had sex with somebody and gotten financially recuperated for the act-"

"So you've never," Jules interrupted again, this time with a harder look in his eyes, "you've never found a girl – or a boy - you weren't really attracted to and gone home with them so you'd have a warm place to spend the night, Sir Sky Pirate?"

"Well-"

"And how is that different from this?"

"This is slightly more contractual!" Balthier snapped, still shocked at the offer. "And if I say no?"

Jules held up his hands in a helpless gesture. "Well, I can always take down the cloaking spells and then sell all of you off to the Archadian guard, and the reward I'd get for bringing in all six of you would easily pay off any debts you may have occurred to me. Hell, it might even be enough to get me back up to gentry status, if I cared to go. It would be more than enough to bribe the guards to look away from the fact that I was harboring you."

Balthier drummed his fingers against the bedframe, his lips twisting up as he stared momentarily into the dying embers of the fire. The more pleasant option was obvious, but it opened up a field of other questions. "Are you attracted to me?" Balthier wanted to know, looking back up into Jules' dark eyes. "I never would have guessed… usually I can tell, but I didn't read anything from you at all."

Jules waggled his head slightly, an indecisive gesture. "You're not really my type," the streetear admitted at last. "Really, I'm more honestly attracted to your Basch. But you interest me more. When you were a student back at the Akademy, I thought you were just like the rest of them – pompous, self-important, arrogant… just maybe a slightly better sort than the rest. And then you had to go and re-invent yourself. Not to say that you're not pompous, self-important, and arrogant still – I think you are – but you also seem… oh, I don't know, different. Like you've got a piece of the Old City in you now – like you know want, and hunger, and not getting any of it. But you're still Archadian gentry – nobility now, technically. I want to see what makes you tick."

"And you think that the best way to find this out is to blackmail me into having sex?"

"Considering that you don't seem like you're going to stick around any longer than you absolutely have to, yes. Besides, I wouldn't think you'd be as against it as you are: I wasn't planning on unapologetically ramming you into the headboard for six hours. When was the last time you got laid?"

At that Balthier cupped his long fingers over his mouth to stifle the sudden, bubbling mirth that came up at the ridiculousness of the situation: he only succeeded partially. "This is ludicrous," he said, mostly to himself.

"Maybe so," Jules shrugged, rising from the bed to check on the water hanging over the fire, "but I tire of this conversation. Yes, or no?"

Balthier held his hands out to his side in a shrug before letting his arms drop against his knees. "What do you think? You and your pox-rotted Archadian brokering. I can't say no unless I'm excessively stupid; and I'm a lot of things, but that's not one of them."

Jules, despite the fact that he had bargained and won, showed no immediate reaction as he tested the water with his finger, and seemed to find it not yet hot enough. He turned away from the fireplace and leaned against the cobblestoned surface, arms crossing and dark eyes impassive as he looked at the half-glaring Balthier. "There are conditions, you know," he said evenly.

"Oh, really, like I haven't already capitulated -"

It was less than half a stride for Jules to be directly in front of him, and Jules bent slightly at the waist to put their faces level. He smelled warm and clean, of cheap soap and standing close to a hickory fire. "And that's the thing," Jules said, picking up on the conversation thread where Balthier had dropped it, "you're going to have to keep capitulating. If you say this is prostitution – which I think is a rather harsh term, but if that's what flies your ship – you have to act the prostitute. You do what I say."

Balthier felt the blood rush to his face in a bizarre combination of anger and arousal at the closeness and the tone and the words. He was relatively sure his cheeks were nearly orange with it, but he forced his voice steady. "There are limits," Balthier said through his teeth, distressed at how little bargaining power he had. I can always say no, a small voice reminded him, but the price of "no" was dire, not only for him but for the five other people in the adjacent room.

Jules flapped a dismissive hand in his direction before turning to squat at the trunk sitting against the foot of his bed. "My tastes are not exotic," he told Balthier in a tone that Balthier didn't find altogether reassuring, before turning to rummage through the contents of the chest.

"No blood," Balthier said flatly, surprised that his hands had clenched into fists. He forced them to uncurl.

Jules gave him a strange look from the foot of the bed. "Of course not."

"No… extraneous bodily fluids."

That made Jules laugh, continuing his search through his chest. "Rest assured, I have no desire to piss on you. Though, I suppose the idea has its merits."

"No branding, no beating, no broken bones, no-"

Jules had apparently found whatever he was looking for in the chest, as he stood up and let the heavy lid fall closed with a thunk; something was tucked in his left fist. "Ffamr-Balthier," Jules interrupted firmly, "sex and gratuitous torture are not usually the same thing. If I wanted you to be tortured I'd call in the guard or the bounty hunters: I'd make more money off of it and gods know they'd do a much better job than I would. I'm far too squeamish to actually inflict mortal agony on another person."

At that, Balthier cut off his litany with a wince. Jules smiled, his handsome, charming smile again.

"Take off your vest," Jules ordered. "And your shirt."

So, here it was. Balthier hesitated only a second before his hands went, almost of their own accord, to the nape of his neck to remove the first garment. When he pulled it over his head Jules reached out to take it from him with his free hand: his left fist was still closed around something. He expertly gave the vest a half fold with his free hand and draped it over the washstand.

Jules made a face when Balthier also handed him the white shirt, which was frayed around the seams and stained off-color in the armpits and around the collar from sweat. "If you give me some money I can have a washerwoman take care of this," he offered. "I know a couple of Landisi women who treat me like their own son." As he said this, he lay the shirt over the vest.

"And they would take about three months to dry in this fog," Balthier retorted, locking his elbows behind him and leaning back, awkward. The fire made the room more than warm enough to be comfortable shirtless, but gooseflesh rolled up and down his spine, regardless. "What's that in your hand?" he asked after a pause, as Jules seemed to be waiting for the question.

"The first capitulation," Jules announced, uncurling his fist to let a long strap of what appeared to be black silk, about two fingers in width and as long as Balthier's arm hang between his thumb and forefinger. "I wouldn't say that bondage is an exotic fetish, would you?"

Balthier's look of slight confusion quickly morphed into something far more stubborn and a little angry. "No, Jules I-"

"Capitulate, or I get the guards in here to throw real chains on you," Jules interrupted unsympathetically.

Balthier's hands clenched fistfuls of mattress; a cold sweat had suddenly taken the place of gooseflesh, and he fought the urge to visibly recoil. "Jules, honestly, I don't-"

Jules sighed and his dark eyes rolled once more as he dropped the arm holding out the black silk to his side, the very picture of tested patience. "I know, you have a near pathological obsession with freedom and you don't trust me. However…" Clearing his throat dramatically, Jules raised his right hand, like a witness swearing on the holy texts and assumed a deeper tone of voice. "I swear, on my most sacred honor and on my prowess as a streetear, which is quite impressive, that no bodily harm shall come to you, Ffamran-cum-Balthier, while you are tied to my headboard."

If Balthier hadn't been so busy repressing an irrational fear of being tied up, he may have laughed at the obvious ridiculousness of the oath. "You forget," he said instead, dryly, "that I don't trust you, or your sacred honor."

That drew a blithe smile from Jules, who perched carefully on the edge of the bed. "That may be the case, but I assume you trust the Archadian guard or the bounty hunters even less with your well-being. In this case, it might be better to go with the devil you don't know, rather than the one you do."

Balthier scowled and looked away, his hands still locked in sweaty fists around the white bedclothes of Jules' bed. To be honest, it was one thing to be physically forced into donning chains, and quite another to submit to being bound to a headboard. The former only elicited consternation about being caught, the latter was irrationally frightening. He couldn't do it. "I can't," he said finally.

"Sure you can," Jules said easily, sidling up next to him. "You'd be surprised, all the submission you're capable of."

When Balthier opened his mouth angrily, Jules surprised him by cutting him off with a kiss, lips as wide and soft as they looked when they touched. Unsure, Balthier didn't respond in the kiss beyond allowing it to happen, but it didn't seem to daunt Jules, who pressed forward farther, his hands coming up to gently grip Balthier's forearms, his body weight shifting to ease Balthier from a sitting position to his back.

When Balthier realized what was happening he had to fight against every urge in his body not to resist, not to revolt. Capitulate, capitulate, capitulate, was his mantra as soft mattress touched his back and Jules' weight settled on top of him like a welcome winter blanket against the slight chill of being shirtless in the darkened room. Warmth took him from all sides, though he couldn't repress a quick, sharp gasp through his nose when Jules started coaxing his arms above his head.

"Gods," Jules said after breaking the kiss, and Balthier realized he was trying not to laugh, "you're so jumpy, this is like being with a virgin."

"Oh, fuck you," Balthier said angrily, incensed into using vulgarity, "how about I turn one of your worst nightmares into sexual play and have you in a position where you can't say no on pain of torture and death?"

"Your nightmares must not be so bad if this is what they're like," Jules said, his large hand closing over Balthier's left wrist to pin above his head. "Mine is being blindfolded," he offered. "It drives me insane. I'd say I hated it, but sometimes, it does the job."

"Don't get any bright ideas," Balthier snapped as Jules pulled his right arm up to join the left. Carefully pinning both wrists down against the bed with his left hand, Jules started wrapping one end of the black strip around Balthier's wrists and threading it through the lattice of the headboard.

"You? No," Jules said, his eyes darting down to meet Balthier's for a moment before looking back up at his task. "Your eyes are too pretty to blind. I'm quite partial to the gray; it's unusual. I think I've only ever met one other person with true gray eyes. A gag would suit you better, since you never seem to stop talking."

Balthier pursed his lips and then was distracted for a single, panic-filled moment by a flare of green above his head. Jules had finished his binding of Balthier's wrists and Balthier looked up in time to see Jules' hand curled around what was formerly the open ends of the black strap: when he took his hand away, the ends had sealed seamlessly together into one piece of unknotted silk binding his wrists to the metal of the headboard.

"Had it made special," Jules said in the proud tone of a father showing off his sons. "You can pull on it all you like: won't break, and won't mark you."

"Marvelous," Balthier muttered, gently tugging against the bonds. They held fast.

Jules gave him another smile before sliding off the mattress to go back to rummaging around the trunk and washstand at the foot of the bed. Balthier, ignored for the moment, shuddered slightly in his bonds. His sides felt terribly vulnerable, and his stomach muscles kept on hitching and trembling in anticipation of fear. In an attempt to calm himself Balthier closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, only to reopen his lids immediately; being tied down and robbed of sight led to panic. Silent, he sent up a small prayer that Jules had been telling the truth and didn't have a blindfold.

As if reading his thoughts, Jules looked up from whatever he was doing with a raised eyebrow. "I'd say you looked delicious when you're halfway to terror, but you worry me that you might go all the way, and then I'll have to waste an hour or two on your hysterics."

"Your fault," Balthier said, eyes flicking to the ceiling so he wouldn't have to endure another of the man's smiles. He still felt it, like the press of firelight against his skin.

Balthier's eyes were still glued to the ceiling when Jules' face came back into view, and his hand reached out. Nervous, Balthier flinched, face muscles taut with tension against Jules' caress against his cheek and down to the point of his chin.

"Relax," Jules commanded, though his tone was gentle. Balthier rolled his eyes: it was exactly the same tone of voice he'd use to speak to a spooked, wild chocobo. "Here. I brought you something I think you'll like."

"A knife?" Balthier quipped, before a sudden coldness against his bare stomach made him gasp and flex: only Jules' quick grab saved whatever it was from sliding off his belly and onto the mattress.

"Not exactly," Jules said, reaching down. Balthier's eyes followed the movement, and saw immediately what he was reaching for. A napkin. A napkin, and the coldness against his stomach was a plate.

Reaching under the napkin, Jules drew something out and held it up to the light. Balthier stared, shocked. There, rotating on a long green stem was an enormous strawberry, red and dimpled, the size of half his fist. From the sides gravity drew moisture down, causing a bright bead of clear water to form at the pointed end, swelling and glittering seductively in the half-light.

"You are incorrigible," Balthier said, stunned, eyes glued to the fruit. "What, are you planning on wining and dining me now that I'm tied to your bed? You are a true romantic. The ladies are missing out."

"Not at all," Jules said cheerfully. A slight twist of his thumb and forefinger sent the giant fruit around on its stem again. "This is mostly a tactical maneuver, so that you start to forget about being tied up. Also, I have vague memories of you at gala balls as a child, running off with handfuls of hothouse strawberries when you thought nobody was looking. I think you're rather fond of these."

It was true. By this point Balthier had eaten more wild strawberries than any mortal being should have to endure – one particularly unfortunate week they had been his only sustenance, but they were not the same as the unnaturally huge hothouse strawberry. Wild strawberries were little more than a morsel, usually sweet but mostly stem and core. A hothouse strawberry was nearly a meal in itself. He had stolen hothouse strawberries with abandon from sweetmeat tables when he was a child, and then with more finesse when he hit maturity… but since Balthier killed Ffamran, his socializing took place more at pubs and dive bars, rather than elegant dinner parties. Pubs and dive bars were extremely unlikely to have extensive selection of expensive fruits: and he would know, he had been to most of the bars in Ivalice.

"I can't believe you bought… you really put a lot of effort into this, didn't you?" Balthier wanted to know, unwilling to admit to how quickly his salivary glands had kicked into high speed.

Jules smiled. "Of course. We Archadians know: if you want something, you plan for it. Few things are gained by chance alone. Now, do you want the strawberry or not?"

"If you want me to lay here and beg for a piece of fruit-" Balthier started, irritated, mostly at himself for actually considering it.

"For the love of the gods, I'm not expecting you to start weeping with gratitude," Jules interrupted, just as irritated. "It was a question. Do you want it or not?"

Balthier paused. "Yes," he said at last. "Of course I do."

With a nod, Jules lowered the strawberry until Balthier's lips parted around it: when he bit, the fruit was so ripe that juice ran down the sides of his face and into his hair in a torrent. Wincing slightly, Balthier turned his head to the side in an attempt to wipe the better part of the stickiness against his shoulder, but quickly got distracted by the strawberry itself. The flesh was soft, sweet, full of juice, perfect.

Jules himself took a moment to nibble at the remains of the strawberry in his hand, the few shreds that Balthier hadn't pulled away. "These are good. I never buy them because they're about ten times more expensive than the regular variety, but I see why you like them."

Balthier ignored him until he swallowed.

"I have another one," Jules offered, whisking the napkin off the plate and picking the second one up by the stem – this one was slightly bigger than the first one, a true red and a near-perfect heart shape.

"They're like a work of art," Balthier said admiringly, pulling his lower lip between his teeth to draw the stickiness of the juice from it.

"You've been in the sky too long," Jules admonished, vaguely amused. He gave the second strawberry a twist at the stem to show it off on all sides, like he had with the first. "This one, though, you'll have to work for."

Balthier looked away from the spinning fruit to raise an eyebrow at Jules. Jules reached forward and removed the plate from Balthier's stomach, and let it fall with a careful thud to the floor before moving up and straddling Balthier's groin, thick thighs squeezing firmly against Balthier's legs. Balthier looked up and Jules was all smiles again, the strawberry still rotating seductively in his hand.

"You have to kiss me," Jules said, bending forward and bracing his free hand against the mattress. This close, it was as if Jules' dark gaze had swallowed the entire world and Balthier froze beneath him, paralyzed by it. "You have to kiss me like you mean it, like you want to be tied up and underneath me."

The warmth generated where Jules' legs clamped possessively over his own was getting so intense that Balthier was afraid of friction burn. Jules' smirk and his all-encompassing eyes were a mere breath above him: when Balthier inhaled, he could taste the lingering heat of Jules' exhale.

"Sound fair?" Jules asked, voice low and intimate that scant hand-space above him.

After a moment, Balthier relocated his own voice. "No, but I'll play," he said, tone just as low as Jules'. "A kiss is surely much cheaper than the two thousand gil you paid for that fruit."

At the mention of cost, Jules' full lips twisted ruefully. "You overshot the price by a bit, but you are correct that a kiss is much cheaper."

A moment's pause, and Balthier's lip ticked as Jules shifted above him, the slight caress sending a slow, light rush of pleasure up his body. "If you want the kiss, you're going to have to come down here for it," Balthier said in response to Jules' movement. "I can't exactly sit up."

"I know," Jules replied, smug and obviously pleased with himself. Before Balthier could reply, Jules dipped down in range and Balthier tipped his head up so their lips could meet.

It was the inverse of their first kiss: now Balthier was the driving force, and Jules passively let Balthier explore his mouth. After a moment Balthier's lips parted and his tongue ran across Jules' teeth and palate, carefully marking new territory, tilting his head slightly to work for a better angle.

Jules hummed into the kiss, evidently approving of Balthier's enthusiasm, and Balthier felt a hand slide up his side and into his hair.

The hand against his unprotected side reminded Balthier suddenly of his bound hands and vulnerability and it almost shot him back into panic, before Jules intervened and took control of the kiss. As Balthier felt the soft warmth of Jules' tongue mingling with his own, pleasure and panic melded until Balthier lost muscle control; without his permission his body arched up seeking either freedom or solace and it came into swift contact with Jules' body.

As if expecting it, Jules' other hand – the strawberry evidently lying somewhere in the sheets – came up to cradle the small of Balthier's back, holding his body in an arch. Balthier found himself deliciously stretched: his lower half held up and against the warmth of Jules' body, his head pinned down by the weight of his kiss, his arms bound firmly to the headboard above.

A noise rose in Balthier's throat that turned into a moan when Jules pulled away, and let Balthier's body fall out of the arch.

"Well?" Bathier asked after a couple of moments, trying not to show how dazed he felt.

Jules had sat back on his heels, head tilting back and forth indecisively. "You did well, up until the part when I touched you and you would have shot off the bed had you not been tied to it."

"If I hadn't been tied to the bed, maybe my reaction would have been a little bit different."

Reaching forward to pick up the strawberry from where he had put it at the corner of the mattress, Jules shook his head and flapped a hand, waving Balthier's comment away. "Moot point. The deal was that you convince me that you wanted to be tied up and underneath me. I remain unconvinced of that fact." Pausing, Jules looked down at the fruit itself, as if the strawberry would give him advice.

"Bastard," Balthier cursed him as Jules bent forward and took the strawberry into his own mouth.

Turning slightly to toss the stem into the coals of the fireplace, Jules favored Balthier with another smile – slightly distorted by the size of the fruit in his mouth – and bent back over to reclaim Balthier's lips. When Jules opened his mouth Balthier did as well, and the sky pirate eagerly pulled the better part of the fruit into his own mouth with his lips and teeth. Halfway through, Jules bit, causing yet another rush of juice to run down Balthier's cheeks and part of the strawberry to drop against Balthier's tongue.

When Jules pulled away, they locked each other in a silent gaze as they chewed. After swallowing, Jules rocked his hips pointedly against Balthier's; the pirate was half-hard.

"Hmph," Balthier said in response, his hands flexing over his head. Jules smiled again and extricated himself from the bed: when his weight had been relieved from Balthier's body the pirate felt unnaturally light and buoyant, the way he did after taking off in the Strahl. He shifted slightly, missing Jules' heat on top of him and annoyed that he felt as such.

Jules went over to the fireplace to check the temperature of the water hanging above the fire yet another time. He finally seemed satisfied with it, and deftly removed the pot from the flames with a pole that had been leaning up against the hearth, ostensibly for that purpose.

"Tea?" Balthier asked dryly as Jules stepped back to the bed, toting the bucket of water.

Jules made an amused noise deep in his throat, before reaching for a white rag that had been sitting on top of the washstand. "It would make sense that you wouldn't notice, but, my dear Ffamran-" Balthier opened his mouth to correct him, but Jules continued his sentence before Balthier could get the objection out, "-you smell like a soldier's laundry room on a particularly fetid day. I figure we could… alleviate the situation a bit before we continue."

Mortified, Balthier forgot entirely to make a scene about being called Ffamran. These days, the better part of his life was spent fighting and running across the entirety of Ivalice during daylight, and paranoid watch at night. He was always uncomfortably aware that he did smell – or at least, his allies did and Balthier assumed he suffered from the same woes – as the demands of survival often outweighed the luxury of proper, constant hygiene. It was still a sore point, though – he, who used to bathe daily, sometimes multiple times if he participated in something strenuous.

"It's not that bad," Jules assured the other man with a raised eyebrow, clearly mildly alarmed that Balthier hadn't risen to the bait of being called by his birth name. "It's nothing that can't be fixed, by the love of the gods. I know you've been busy."

"You could have said something," Balthier spat, as Jules climbed back on the bed to restraddle Balthier's hips again.

At that, Jules rolled his eyes, throwing the rag into the bucket and setting the bucket next to the bed. Steam gently wafted into the cool air of the room. "Oh yes, I was really going to mention it before I had you tied to the bed. You forget, I'm very well versed with how fast you can run. And like I said, it obviously isn't unbearable. But… it might get a little more ripe once I get under your trousers, I figure."

Balthier closed his eyes, humiliated and very aware his face and chest were bright red with it. He heard Jules sigh above him, and weight shift as Jules reached for the rag in the bucket. Water splashed against itself as he wrung it out, and then wet warmth settled against one of Balthier's outstretched arms.

Jules worked quickly and gently, in small fast circles that spun their way down Balthier's left arm and side, ending with long strokes that left waves of gooseflesh trailing in their wake as the warm water cooled against his skin. Balthier's stomach muscles jumped nervously as Jules repeated the movement on his right side, and then gently swabbed the cloth across and around Balthier's neck, wiping away the residual stickiness from the strawberry's juices.

Balthier's eyes opened slightly as he felt Jules lean forward to rewet the rag, but also nudge his face against the curve of skin where neck met shoulder; Jules' lips sealed insistently against it and sucked: Balthier cried out as he felt blood rise to the abused spot.

"Don't go to sleep," Jules ordered, picking up the rag again and working it against Balthier's chest, the motion inching toward the waistband of his leathers.

Balthier felt his heart rate pick up as the cooling cloth stopped against his trembling stomach, threatening to creep underneath his trousers. "Small chance-" he hissed through his teeth, abruptly ending the sentence when Jules leaned forward again, warm tongue teasing against the surface of Balthier's right nipple. The nipple hardened instantly under the touch, its twin doing the same of its own accord.

"Mm," Jules hummed appreciatively, his head shifting to the other side of Balthier's chest, breathing a soft stream of air against the untouched nipple, causing Balthier to hiss again. "If I had my way, we'd do this properly with a tub in the other room – I'd tie your hands to one of the lower rafters and use soap. Unfortunately, you brought a parade with you, and I figure it might be rather awkward if one of them happened to wake up during the process."

Balthier had a ream of witty responses that came to mind – It's tough being popular, or perhaps It seems as though you've been fantasizing about me being stranded in Archades an awful lot – but his throat constricted over the words, and it was all he could do to keep from emitting a terribly undignified noise against Jules' imagery. Unfortunately, he couldn't stop his eyes watering or his breath hitching on a gratuitously long exhale or the blood rushing between his legs.

"Oh, you like that?" Jules asked, thrilled as a child with presents on his name day. "Finally, we're getting somewhere. Though, is it the idea of you standing naked in a tub, tied up and wet with my slippery hands all over you? Or is it just having a proper bath?"

Balthier's hands clenched; if he hadn't been tied down, he would have aimed a right hook straight into Jules' agonizingly smug face. While Jules had spent most of his life in the rough streets of Old Archades, Balthier's time as a sky pirate probably evened them out as far as fighting would go.

"Hmm," Jules rumbled, his face raising up next to Balthier's ear: Balthier froze against the feeling of hot breath slowly brushing against his face. "This must be driving you insane. You're angry: I know you are. You hate being toyed with, don't you? But you're so hard."

As if to punctuate the point, Jules pressed his body weight slightly against Balthier's groin, and Balthier exhaled softly against the pressure, hands still clenched uselessly above his head. He swallowed, hard.

"You sisterfucking son of a bitch," Balthier whispered under his breath, in the silence that hung between them.

"Sisterfucking? Learning Landisi, are we?" Jules asked, pulling away to casually unbutton and unzip Balthier's leathers, and pull them off his unresisting legs. "…well, I was right about the smell."

Balthier sighed, his hands falling out of their fists, closing his eyes against being fully exposed. His erection twitched in the cold air, oblivious to anything else.

"But I was wrong about not being attracted to you," Jules went on, his eyes raking up and down Balthier's body. "You don't look like you're well-muscled with your clothes on, but you've got a nice body. Like a runner, long and lithe. Long legs, not too much hair." As Jules appraised Balthier's body he ran a hand along it, like Balthier was a horse Jules was thinking about purchasing. "The warrior life is good for you, Ffamran."

"Could you not call me that?" Balthier asked, fully aware of how pathetic it sounded. "Gods, Jules, you have everything else, just let me have my name."

Jules made a soft noise deep in his throat. "But that is you," he said, leaning forward to rewet the rag. "You will always be Ffamran. You can also be this Balthier character, whatever, you can wear a dress and call yourself Sally if you want… but you can't get away from Ffamran, can you? Every time you look in the damn mirror, he'll be there. Ffamran is Balthier."

Balthier locked eyes with Jules and glared. "We apparently have differently philosophies on identity-" he ended with a gasp as an almost too hot rag rested against the junction where thigh meets torso: blood throbbed with a vengeance through his cock at the nearness of the wet warmth.

"Apparently so," Jules replied sweetly, the cloth swabbing circles around Balthier's groin, across his upper and inner thighs: Balthier parted his legs for the warm caress without being asked. After the cloth cooled a little, Jules deftly cupped it around Balthier's prick and balls: being suddenly and totally enveloped in soft wet warmth caused Balthier's body to thrust upwards again of his own accord and he almost came instantly. He briefly considered doing so out of sheer spite, but Balthier knew Jules would just tease him relentlessly until he was hard again, so he bit his lower lip and held off.

"Very good," Jules said approvingly, having resettled himself to have one hand wrapped around the wet rag and the other bracing himself above Balthier's contorted expression. "Feels good, doesn't it?"

Balthier didn't reply until he was sure he had himself under control; Jules was silent, giving him time. "If I ever," he said through clenched teeth, "have the fortune to have you in my debt, I will tie you to a wall and tease you until you scream for mercy."

"Mm," Jules rumbled, his lips absently caressing Balthier's neck and moving down to his chest. "I like this idea. Mouth, hands?"

"A feather," Balthier ground out as Jules' hand started caressing him gently through the cloth, the warmth rubbing against the rapidly oversensitive skin of his cock. "Gods, if you don't want me to come you're going to have to-"

"I don't want you to come, and you're going to have to not be a fifteen-year-old boy humping against a pillow," Jules interrupted sharply. "Ffamra- Balthier, whoever you are, you're twenty-two. Surely you've managed some form of endurance by now."

Balthier gritted his teeth and tossed his head helplessly as Jules' massage became more insistent. The danger feeling was coiling rapidly in his gut: his lips parted and he panted desperately, hands and body starting to clench in an attempt to ward off an early climax; his nipples tightened, his skin flushed, his eyes watered and a line of drool escaped from the corner of his mouth in his denial.

"If you come," Jules threatened, his fingers relentlessly continuing their massage, hand curling in a fist around Balthier's cock, "I won't give you any rest: I'll use my mouth and hands on you until you're hard again."

Balthier's panting broke into a pained moan; he felt the line of drool sliding down his cheek but couldn't even begin to care about it in his frenzy, his eyes overflowed and his legs started trembling, longing to clamp closed on the unbearable urge to come. It was too much, too much, it hurt, one of his legs bent and lifted off the bed, hesitating in the air, his body wanting to push Jules away.

"If you kick me," Jules said dryly, shooting a droll look in Balthier's direction, "I'll roll you over and use a switch on you until you wish your parents had never met each other. Keep in mind that the silk tie won't break, no matter how much you want to get away."

"Gods," Balthier finally sobbed, his leg dropping back to the mattress. "You have to stop, you have to, please, I can't-"

"What was that?" Jules asked, his hand stilling on Balthier's cock, but his grip not loosening.

"Please," Balthier pleaded in a rough, distracted whisper, head back, eyes closed, entire body a taut line of strain, "I can't… I can't hold it off, I can't-"

"Hmph," Balthier heard Jules say, through his nose. "Well, I can't say I'm much impressed for your stamina verses a wet bit of cloth." His fingers twitched again against Balthier's balls, eliciting another broken moan, "But I'll stop, if you agree to something."

Red exploded in front of Balthier's vision, red-hot anger at Jules' constant bargaining and bartering – Balthier had been out of Archades far too long, he had forgotten how to do it. He opened his eyes and Jules was hovering above him, looking unimpressed.

"I'm going to fuck you," Jules said flatly, as if he were commenting on the weather. "I'm going to fuck you, and you can't come until then. You can't come until you ask me, and I say yes. These are the conditions. Otherwise, I do this until you can't take it anymore – which, judging by current events, will happen any moment now - and then I spend the rest of the night making you come over and over until you scream, and then I'll continue doing it."

Balthier hissed through his teeth, his heels digging into the mattress, trying to gain purchase. "Damn you," Balthier muttered under his breath, his eyes overflowing again. Jules' finger ran along the side of Balthier's cock, and Balthier almost screamed right then. "I agree!" he panted, absolutely desperate. "Whatever you want, you thrice-cursed megalomaniac, gods, just stop."

"Well, you manage to keep your vocabulary under extreme duress, I'll give you that," Jules said. With a quick flick of his wrist the warm cloth whipped away from Balthier's skin, and the pirate cried out at the sudden chill. Opening his eyes proved that his prick was a swollen, painful red, visibly throbbing with blood. Suddenly lightheaded, Balthier's head fell back on the sweaty pillow, exhausted.

A moment later he felt Jules' weight shift up toward him, and the warm, newly wet cloth gently wiped his face, removing the drool and tears. Then, Jules' lips over his own, and Balthier parted his own lips and sucked at Jules' tongue when it dove into his mouth, more of an automatic response than a calculated maneuver.

"Mm," Jules said when he pulled away. "I wish you could see yourself right now: it's absolutely enticing."

"Flattering," Balthier quipped, unable to come up with anything more coherent. His pulse was slowing, but not by much. Every cell in his body tingled with relief at not having to fight the urge to climax, and his limbs longed to sink into the mattress.

Jules laughed softly above him. "Roll on your side," he ordered, leaning back to rewet the rag yet again.

Balthier's eyes flew open at the command. "For what?" he asked suspiciously.

"I'm not done washing you yet," Jules reminded him. "Now do it or I'll get back to washing your prick."

Balthier rolled on his left side slowly, resettling his hands, and Jules arranged his legs: his left one straight out, the right bent upward in a triangle, the flat of his foot resting against the bed. This time Jules started at the nape of his neck and worked downward across his back in even, quick circles. The cooling effect of the water helped his blood cool as well, and Balthier shuddered a little as reason slowly returned and his cock stopped throbbing so painfully.

The rag traced its way down his spine until Jules paused just above his arse, stopping to rewet the rag. Balthier gasped when Jules' fingers shamelessly went to part his cheeks and then the cloth ran along his cleft, the soft material teasing the puckered, sensitive skin of his entrance.

"Here too," Jules said, amused at Balthier's surprise. "In fact," he continued, rubbing with a little more purpose, "probably here most of all."

Balthier would have been embarrassed had he any more embarrassment inside him to give. Instead he closed his eyes at the strange, overpowering sensations prickling through his body at Jules' ministrations. They weren't as unbearable as the rag on his prick had been, but it soon got his blood racing once more, and his erection didn't flag, even when Jules moved down to his legs.

"Have you ever been with a man before?" Jules asked, his tone indicating genuine curiosity. With an air of finality he threw the rag into the bucket. "I assume so, since you didn't object to having sex with a man, rather just prostitution, but I'm curious."

Balthier sighed, rolling onto his back again at Jules' urging. "I've never bottomed," he admitted.

Jules raised an eyebrow, leaning forward and blanketing himself over Balthier, warding off the cold from water cooling against his skin. "And yet you don't object to it now?"

Balthier deadpanned, shifting under Jules' weight. The pressure against his cock was pleasant now, not unbearable. "I thought I didn't have a choice? A minute ago my options were either to let you have me or you'd sexually torture me for hours. Or you'd sell me to the Archadians and I would be actually tortured."

Jules nodded. "Well, yes, but I didn't think that would stop you whining about it."

Balthier smiled wanly, shrugging as well as he could with his hands above his head. "I would appreciate it if you didn't break me, if that's at all possible. And if you'd call me Balthier. It's poor form to say somebody else's name during intercourse."

Jules grinned, less smug and fonder than his previous offerings. His hand reached out and stroked at Balthier's cropped, sweaty hair. "I have no desire to break you," he assured Balthier. "When we get around to that particular part of the evening, you'll be ready for it. More than. And I do admire your single-minded obsession with the name game. I shall keep it in mind."

He leaned forward and reclaimed Balthier's lips again, and Balthier arched up slightly against him: his legs lifted and wrapped around Jules' torso, pinning him close.

"Tell me," Balthier said, slightly breathless after the kiss, "why you have all your clothing still on?"

Jules smiled slightly at both the question and Balthier's legs wrapped around him: rocking forward, he rotated his hips gently into Balthier's. "It's a psychological move, mostly," he explained. "You know, you're naked, I'm fully clothed. Reinforces who's in charge."

Balthier rolled his eyes, but thrust back up against Jules in response. "As if it isn't obvious," he retorted.

"I'm glad you think so," Jules said, clearly pleased. He tilted Balthier's head back and mouthed along his jawline slowly. "Mm," he hummed, working slowly down Balthier's neck and torso. "I've been waiting to taste you all night," he rumbled softly against the skin of Balthier's stomach.

"Oh," Balthier replied, feeling his cock twitch eagerly against Jules' chest. He shifted in anticipation, and Jules smiled.

"You'd better be able to control yourself," Jules admonished, moving farther down, his lips running down the slight trail of hair connecting Balthier's navel to his groin, one hand gently holding Balthier's cock out of the way as he did so.

"I think I can manage," Balthier said with a slight gasp, spreading his legs wider as Jules paused to pay attention to the space between his hip and torso, lips attaching to the junction and sucking a vivid stain of blood under the skin. Balthier hissed, his free leg rising to brace itself against Jules' side.

Jules hummed in pleasure again, the hand that had been holding Balthier's cock turning to grip the base, in preparation for his mouth. Balthier let out a long, slow breath as he felt a thick bead of precome gather on the head and then slide down the length of his prick.

And then Jules' tongue was there, running up along the trail of wet the precome had left. Balthier shuddered at the return of sensation, but since it wasn't as warm nor all-encompassing as the rag had been, it remained pleasurable and not painful. Jules' mouth slid up and over the head, his lips reaching down to where his fist wrapped around the base of Balthier's cock. Then he sucked gently, enough to get Balthier's blood roaring through his body again; Balthier threw his head back and gave a frantic hiss.

Jules' eyes flicked up toward him, obviously attempting to judge if he was going to lose control again. Balthier gave what he hoped was an encouraging rotation of his hips, and Jules' tongue stroked against the underside.

"Oh," Balthier said again, his arms twitching against their bonds, wanting to grab for shoulders or hair. Instead, his leg bent and he shivered, thrusting upwards into Jules' accelerating rhythm. Jules' fingers tightened slowly around Balthier's cock while his free hand stroked up Balthier's side and stomach, leaving waves of pebbled flesh in its wake. Finally, Jules' fingers reached up to Balthier's nipples, pinching and stroking relentlessly while his mouth continued its slow work.

When Balthier's breath started to quicken in his throat and his stomach muscles trembled with oncoming orgasm, Jules pulled away, settling back on his heels, one hand going to his mouth to wipe the extra moisture away.

"Merciful gods, Jules, you're going to kill me," Balthier breathed, voice shaky, head tilted back, vision swimming. "How many times are you going to deny-"

"As many as I want," Jules said. "Roll over."

"What?" Balthier asked, lifting his head off the pillow, eyes glazed.

Jules raised an eyebrow, and Balthier yelped as Jules smacked the curve of his hip rather hard. "Roll over. And get on your knees."

So this is it, Balthier thought, heart hammering in his throat as he struggled to roll with his hands bound above him. Jules didn't help, clearly enjoying watching him flail and twist, ungainly, onto his stomach. When his cock rubbed against the comparatively rough material of the bedsheets, stars flashed before Balthier's eyes and he needed a moment to compose himself before rising up onto his knees. His back was bent into a slope from his hands being tied to the bed, ending in a sharp angle where his legs supported him from the mattress.

"Very nice," Jules said in approval, one hand patting against Balthier's arse in an incredibly annoying combination of smugness and ownership. Balthier, his forehead resting against the mattress, sighed into the sheets.

He inhaled sharply and nearly choked on his own saliva, though, when Jules' hands went to either one of his cheeks and parted them, leaving only a millisecond of confusion before Jules' tongue touched against the creased skin of his entrance. The sudden, intense sensation that shot through his body at the strange caress caused him to cry out and move forward, away from it.

"Hey!" Jules said sharply. The reprimand was followed by an entirely unkind slap to his rear, and Balthier hissed through his teeth at the strength of the blow, feeling the skin pulse where he had been struck. "Did I ask you to move?"

Balthier, his legs trembling, turned his head back to shoot an incredulous look back at Jules, who was scowling. "What the hell are you- ah!"

Jules had reached forward and spanked Balthier again with one hand, his other locking around Balthier's ankle. "Get back over here."

Balthier slowly shifted back to where he was before, gingerly because of the burning pain in his arse. Jules made a displeased noise in his throat and Balthier's only warning was a slight movement of air before Jules' hand connected with Balthier's backside again.

Balthier jumped at the blow. "Ow! Jules, enough, I get-"

A fourth blow knocked him into silence with a slight whimper. He had endured worse injuries before, to be sure, but the pain and pleasure combined with his inability to defend himself made it an entirely different kind of sensation.

Jules' hand reached forward and grabbed a rough handful of Balthier's hair, forcing his head back. "If you wanted a spanking," he told Balthier evenly, "you could have asked."

"I don't!" Balthier cried, his neck starting to ache in the harsh angle Jules was holding it in.

"Then don't disobey me," Jules admonished, releasing Balthier's hair. "Are you quite composed, now? May we continue?"

"I just can't believe you want to-" His sentence ended in a yelp and water coming to his eyes when Jules' hand came down, again, on his rear.

"I asked if we can continue, or should we put this on hold for a while? I would be very happy to take a fifteen-minute break dedicated to punishing you, but I'm not as sure if you want that. Capitulation, remember?"

Balthier shook his head against the sheets. While to a certain degree the spanking was pleasurable, he doubted that fifteen minutes worth of it would be. "Gods, man, continue."

"Thank you," Jules said, his hands returning to the newly-reddened skin of Balthier's hindquarters. After giving the abused skin a rather harsh squeeze that made Balthier hiss into the sheets, Jules' thumbs spread Balthier's cleft again, and his tongue went to work.

Whiteness exploded behind Balthier's eyelids, and even the bulk of the mattress, where he was desperately pressing his face, couldn't disguise the depth of his moan. It was slightly disconcerting, having somebody's face against into what was arguably the most intimate part of his body, but on the other hand the skin was extremely sensitive and in no time Balthier was barely able to hold his legs up, they were trembling so fiercely.

"Stay up," Jules commanded, before his tongue returned to administering short and long strokes, fast and slow, slowly turning Balthier's lower half to putty.

"Gods," Balthier moaned, his legs spreading of their own volition, his cock pulsing and begging for attention, his nipples aching, they were so sensitive against the air. "Jules, please, I-"

A harder thrust from Jules' tongue stole his words, and Balthier nearly collapsed, beads of sweat rolling down his torso.

"Hmm," Jules rumbled contemplatively, and Balthier started as a finger slid into him, experimentally. "Okay, yes, one moment."

Jules left the bed: Balthier could feel it in the way that the mattress lifted upward. He thought about turning his head to see what Jules was up to, but was afraid that any movement in his position would cause his legs to give out, and he didn't want to risk Jules' displeasure at this point. Spots of color wafted across his vision, as light and airy as clouds, and Balthier didn't even realize that a line of drool was spilling from his mouth until the mattress was wet beneath his face.

Jules' weight returned to the bed in short order, and when his fingers returned to Balthier's cleft, they were slick with lubricant. Two fingers pressed against his entrance, and for a dazed moment Balthier was sure they would never fit, but then they slid in easily through the relaxed muscle, and Balthier gasped at the feeling of being filled.

"Good?" Jules asked softly, rotating his fingers. "No pain?"

Balthier couldn't find words to answer: he merely made a slight move to press into Jules' probing slick digits. In response, Jules added a third finger which burned slightly, but even that was pleasurable, the slight sting adding counterpoint to the pleasure his oversensitized body was buzzing with.

After a few more minutes of careful stretching, Jules withdrew his fingers and Balthier grunted at the sudden emptiness, which was far more uncomfortable than the penetration had been. "Roll over," Jules ordered, this time using his hands to help steady Balthier while he rolled back onto his back.

Balthier blinked when his eyes opened and he was on his back once more: Jules was naked. His skin, even underneath his clothes, was a shade or two darker than Balthier's, his shoulders were wider. Coarse brown hair grew along his legs, arms, and groin, more sparsely on his chest. His body wasn't as lean and hard as Balthier's was – his life was far more sedentary – but he carried it was effortless confidence, and when he took Balthier's mouth again, Balthier responded eagerly, tasting the salt of sex with the underlying sweetness of strawberries.

"Ugh," Balthier said belatedly, once Jules had pulled away. He was steadier on his back than balancing on his knees, and thus had relocated his ability to speak, "I can't believe I just kissed you."

Jules laughed, positioning himself between Balthier's legs, and coaxing Balthier to hook his knees over Jules' wide shoulders. "Tell me if this is too uncomfortable," he ordered, his slick fingers sliding back down to work Balthier open once more: the muscle gave easily beneath Jules' fingers. "We can always do this on your front, but I'd like to see your face."

Balthier nodded, his lips ticking as Jules withdrew his fingers. Shortly thereafter he felt Jules' cock align himself against Balthier's body, and a moment of terror pierced through him: it was so much bigger than the fingers, gods, how was it going to fit without tearing him apart?

Balthier spared a brief apology for all the virgin girls he had been so impatient with. It was, he realized, an entirely different experience, being the one penetrated.

In that moment, Jules pressed forward, and the head of his cock pressed past the tight ring of muscle, which had been loosened by Jules' tongue and fingers.

Color flashed across Balthier's vision as he squeezed his eyes shut against the stretching pain: when his voice released, it was in a thin whine.

"Relax," Jules said soothingly, his hands stroking reassuring circles against Balthier's sides and stomach. He pulled out, and while the emptiness was slightly uncomfortable, the feeling of relief was almost overwhelming.

Jules' hand wrapped firmly around Balthier's cock, the stroke encouraging Balthier's erection back to life, as it had faltered slightly with the pain.

When Jules surged forward again, it was less painful, which made Balthier exhale, relieved. He felt Jules start to pull out again, but shook his head. "No, no… more," he pleaded.

Jules hesitated, before pressing forward slowly, inch by inch. Balthier gritted his teeth, his breath coming in short, quick gasps, sweat breaking out of every pore.

"I'm in," Jules said quietly, his own voice tight. Balthier's eyes opened, bleary, to slowly focus on Jules' face, which was looking down at him. He seemed slightly uncertain, which Balthier thought an unusual expression on his face; he had never seen it before.

"All the way?" Balthier asked, his lower half a slow burn, his vision swimming with the entirely bizarre mix of extremely intense pleasure and pain.

"Yes," Jules breathed. If Balthier didn't know any better, he'd say that Jules was struggling to hold back.

"Then move," Balthier ordered, his voice cracking like a preteen's over the syllables, and not caring. "Gods, I hear this feels better if you move."

That surprised a bark of laughter out of Jules: he shed his paralysis and moved backwards, causing Balthier to gasp sharply. "You heard correctly," he said breathlessly, thrusting back forward once more.

The movement caused the sting to abate slowly, and Balthier found himself swept away by the intimacy of their intercourse. Jules was supporting the vast majority of his weight, making sure the only strain he felt was that of penetration, and Balthier felt a sudden rush of appreciation for the man.

At that moment, Jules hit something inside him that caused colors to explode across his vision like fireworks, and Balthier arched, surprised into yelling.

"Ah, there it is," Jules murmured, his hairline damp with sweat. Releasing Balthier's cock, Jules shifted his position again and stroked forward, deeper and faster, and Balthier held his arched position, stretching his shoulders, and screamed.

"Gods," Jules said, and Balthier knew that if he hadn't been in the middle of having sex, the man probably would have been laughing. "Good thing we have silencing spells."

Balthier didn't respond, only slammed forward into Jules' next upstroke, sending more color and sensation lancing through him.

Jules muttered something under his breath, and suddenly Balthier's arms fell slack against the mattress: Jules had released his hands. With a wince Balthier brought them down, flexing them briefly to get the blood flowing again. For a moment Balthier was unsure what to do with his newfound freedom, and then he was blinded once more by Jules rocking back into him.

Of its own volition, his right hand started creeping down his stomach, seeking to wrap around his own cock, but he stopped himself at the last minute, his hand splayed against his stomach as he opened his eyes. Jules was looking down at him, mildly bemused.

"Please?" he gasped, his fingers trembling against the trail of hair leading to his throbbing cock.

Jules favored him with a half smile for asking permission and then nodded, picking up Balthier's hand and wrapping it around his own cock. "Slowly, though," Jules commanded. "I'd like you to last a bit longer."

Balthier nodded compliance, his fingers assuming a position they had countless numbers of times before, thrusting up into his hand when Jules pulled out, and down onto Jules' cock when Jules pushed back in.

Jules' hand along his side sent sparks cascading through his body – he wasn't going to last, he'd been worked on too thoroughly, his entire world was narrowing down to the desire of release, and if this went on too much longer, he wasn't going to care about the consequences. Either that, or he simply wasn't going to be able to control it.

"Jules," he said, his voice oscillating between octaves, unsure of its own tone, "please, I can't… I can't last much longer, it's been too long, I just, it's coming, I can't stop it, please let me, don't be angry, I'll do anything, I'll-"

Jules' hand covered his mouth, stopping the words that were coming out with no filter. "Balthier," Jules said lowly, and the sound of the other man saying his chosen name with no hint of derision sent another wave of pleasure through him, "come when you're ready."

Balthier's breathing hitched, one, two, three times, the hand on his cock stilled, and Jules rocked into him one more time, perfect angle, perfect thrust, and his ears roared – he was thrashing, and in his thrashing he heard Jules cry out and wetness shot into his body, Jules' hands gripping his hips hard enough to bruise. And that was it, he was there, vertigo overtook him and colors robbed him of natural sight and then there was pleasure and darkness.

His eyes opened to Jules dabbing a wet rag against his forehead, his expression somewhat constipated-looking, as if he couldn't decide whether to laugh or frown.

"What…?" Balthier asked, completely dazed. Pearly gray light shone through the tiny window across from the bed, and Balthier winced at the brightness.

Jules scowled for a second before his face broke into an irrepressible smile, and Balthier was confused by the strange play of emotions. "You fainted," Jules told him, covering his smile with one hand.

Balthier blinked mildly, too exhausted to exhibit any sort of pique. "Really?" he asked, head flopping back against the pillow, slightly cold with his cooling sweat.

Jules, still smiling, pointed upwards at the thatch in the ceiling: at first, Balthier had no idea what he was getting at, but then he saw it. Right above the bed, where the thatch roof angled down, was a dried spatter of semen.

Balthier stared up at it, impressed. While the roof was sloping downwards at that point, the height was still greater than an average man.

"How do you feel?" Jules asked, when Balthier looked back at him.

Slowly, Balthier flexed his muscles to check, like he did after losing consciousness during a battle and exploring the extent of his wounds. "Sore," he admitted.

Jules nodded. "To be expected, particularly if it was your first time. But you can do healing magic, right?"

Balthier nodded in return, slowly sitting up, wincing as he settled weight on his behind, which was tender from the intercourse and from Jules hitting him. "Good enough for you?" Balthier asked.

Jules smiled and stretched his back. Balthier watched the play of early-morning sun on Jules' skin and the ripple of muscle with detached interest – there was no way he would be able to become aroused at the moment, but the image was something to store away for later. "I consider your debt to me fully paid," he said magnanimously, yawning. "Now put some clothes on and get the hell out of here: I need to sleep, and it might be too much to hope for that none of your friends have woken up yet."

Balthier grunted, not wanting to move but seeing the logic of it. He was hungry, anyway, and he might just go ahead and start making breakfast. Slowly, he extricated himself from the mattress and tottered over to the nightstand, wincing as the soreness hindered his every step.

"Enough of that," he grumbled, once he had made it to the washstand. With great force of will he amassed enough energy for a low-level cure spell: in a flash of white, the pain lessened, but he went mildly lightheaded, and his hunger gnawed even more insistently at his insides.

"Did that take care of all of it?" Jules wanted to know, curious.

Balthier sighed, taking another moment to steady himself against the washstand. "Not all of it," he said as the vertigo disappeared. When he was sure he wasn't going to tip over, he bent to remove his trousers from the careless pile where Jules had dropped them. "I don't have it in me to heal all of it. Maybe after I eat."

"Mm," Jules hummed, spreading out on his bed and arching his back in a stretch, lazy as a cat.

"Did you find out what you wanted?" Balthier asked, leaning up against the washstand as he crawled back into his clothes. "About me?"

Jules' eyes slit open and he leveled a small smile across the space between them. "Enough," he replied, either determinedly vague or simply exhausted; Balthier himself was too tired to tell. "Word's been out on the street, though… about the patrols. They'll likely stop in a day or so – most people have assumed you've somehow managed to give everybody the slip, either into the Cave Palace or out across the wilds. Vayne is furious. But you could probably leave in a couple of days."

"Fabulous," Balthier replied, shrugging into his stained shirt. While the prospect of getting out of Jules' house would have been thrilling about twelve hours prior, he was so tired at the moment that another week of lounging in the safety of the house didn't sound so horrible. Balthier smothered a yawn with one hand and picked up his vest with the other; he occasionally slept without it on, so the sight of him walking around without it wouldn't necessarily alert any of his companions to something unusual.

"Good night," Jules told him, having already slid under the bedsheets, his dark hair splayed across the pillow in soon to be sleep.

Balthier studied him for a moment, his vest tucked up under one arm. What was there left to say? In his early-morning exhaustion he could think of nothing, so he favored Jules with a slight nod and walked out of his bedroom without saying a word.

Stepping out into the main room proved that all of his companions had indeed still been asleep on the rug, despite the dim light of day that was beginning to filter through the windows. They had been cooped up in the house for nearly a week and a half now: everybody had started sleeping later, since there was no reason to be up before dawn.

When he shut the door of Jules' bedroom behind him, though, it caused Vaan – who was such a light sleeper that Balthier half-doubted the boy ever did anything other than catnap – to sit up and turn around at the noise, blinking blearily in the soft light.

"Privy?" Vaan asked, his eyes still hazy with sleep, blond hair swirled in a messy halo around his head.

"Yes," Balthier said firmly, hoping that Vaan's grogginess would disguise the fact that Balther was standing on the side of the room opposite the door to the necessary.

Vaan nodded, smothering a yawn with his hand, and curled up, unconcerned, against the table leg he had been sleeping next to. For a brief moment Balthier wavered between food and sleep, before opting for the latter, since it seemed like so much less work.

Gingerly, he crept over the prone bodies of his sleeping companions before settling back down on his corner of the rug, lying on his side since his backside was still sore from the evening's events.

And in fact, it was only that soreness that convinced him fully that the night had taken place at all; the whole thing seemed too surreal, too distant.

Shaking his head, Balthier balled up his vest to use as a pillow, and drifted off into sleep as the rest of his companions started to wake.

# # #

"I would recommend the Cave Palace," Jules told them on the morning of their departure. "Balthier's right about most of the locals believing the place accursed. And those that don't believe such silliness – such as myself – still wouldn't go near it because it's just plain dangerous. But at least you won't have to worry about the guard banging around in there, I suppose."

If anybody noticed Jules' casual use of Balthier's new name, they didn't mention it. "Well, we made it through once," Vaan said with an absent shrug. "At least this time around, we'll know our way through it."

Jules shook his head. "I still think it's folly, myself, but, then again, I'm talking to the people who thought it a good idea to infiltrate Draklor."

Basch was shifting on his feet, impatient to go. "Folly or not, that's our itinerary, and even if the patrols have stopped I'd still prefer to be out of here before the sun rises. If we may, streetear?"

Jules inclined his head. As a cap on his services, he had offered to escort the group through the murky back alleys of Old Archades, avoiding all main streets. The area around the Cave Palace was the home of the lowest of the low, Jules had assured them – those who were so disillusioned with Archades it would be unlikely that any would recognize them, and even if somebody did, the person who spotted them probably wouldn't want to cooperate with Archadian law enforcement.

"Of course," Jules said, tipping his hat. "Follow me."

As on the way to Jules' house, Balthier brought up the rear of the line. These past couple of days hadn't been outright awkward, per se, but more bewildering in the way that everybody had danced around the subject of what Balthier had been doing two nights prior. While Jules' silencing spells had held firm and nobody woke up due to any indiscreet noises, the fact that Balthier had slept until dinnertime was a giveaway that something had been up. Not to mention Jules' blithe smiles whenever anybody tried to talk to him about payment, coupled with Balthier's pursed expression whenever the subject was broached.

Balthier shook his head, his fingers absently brushing the corners of buildings as Jules lead them in a winding path through the early-morning Archadian fog, the same fog he had run through to get here. It was strange, leaving again – while he was a known runaway the first time, now he was an outright criminal. Of course, being a sky pirate automatically put him in with the criminal element, but now he was openly wanted for reasons other than simply thumbing his nose at Archadian social structure. It was strange, and he didn't know when he would be back, if ever.

When Jules had lead them to the gaping maw of the Cave Palace, each member of Balthier's group thanked Jules in turn, offering him monetary payment one last time, which Jules turned down with a smile.

"Well," Ashe said, her eyes darting between Balthier and Jules, "we'll just be on our way… Balthier, make it quick?"

Balthier rolled his eyes at her imperiousness, and Fran shot him a meditative look – while Balthier never outright told her what had happened, he knew that she had probably figured it out – and disappeared into the opening of the Cave Palace behind Basch.

Jules, his arms crossed, was lounging against the opening of the Cave Palace, another smile plastered across his face. "I figure you might grace us with your presence again in another five years?" he asked, pleasantly.

Balthier shook his head. "Not if I can help it," he said emphatically. "To be honest, I can't believe you're still here after all of this time."

Jules cocked his head. "Really? You don't know why?"

"No," Balthier said firmly, crossing his own arms against the chill of early morning.

Jules laughed, shaking his head. "The City tried to reject me, so I stayed. It tried to smother you, so you left. Two sides of the same coin, really."

Balthier couldn't think of much to say to that so he shrugged and peered into the foggy darkness of the Cave Palace. "Well, thanks for your help again, I suppose. This is the second time you've come through for me when I've made an escape."

Another lazy smile spread across Jules' face. "Oh, feel free to make it a third, if you ever come back. I do so enjoy our exchange of services."

With a smile of his own, Balthier broke eye contact with Jules and favored the graceful, sweeping spires of the capital another look, ethereal and foreign in the fog, distant over the Old City's decay.

"If," Balthier agreed. Without another word, he spun on his heel, loped off after his companions, and was gone.