Fifty Themes for a Bastard and a Commoner
By: akikos-wok
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the idea for this piece, which is copyright of the livejournal 1sentence community (which, sorry, I am not actually a member of- though I'm thinking maybe I ought to be because writing this was SO much fun!). This is the gamma set. Thank you livejournal people, you are brilliant.
Warnings: Slash, a little sex, and lots of outrageous run-ons.
1. ring
"Delve no deeper into matters of royal maidens...or those of sacred stones," were not his last words, but they are the ones that reverberate so that Ramza wonders if Delita might sincerely be trying to protect him.
2. hero
Revived by Delita after nearly drowning in one of they and their sisters' more dangerous childhood antics, Ramza lay shivering in his friend's arms, as his friend crushed him so tightly to him (most likely meaning to ward off hypothermia) that the bastard son of Barbaneth almost suffocated, yet did not mind it.
3. memory
"Mother was the most beautiful woman in the world," Ramza told Alma once and said he could only love someone as beautiful as she, which Delita loathed and never forgot.
4. box
Being told that all of their belongings must fit in to one meager trunk at the foot of their narrow beds upon entering the Gariland Akademy, Delita saucily remarked that Ramza would have to eliminate much of his wardrobe (and he wouldn't mind if he brought no clothing at all).
5. run
"Flee Ramza, flee!" Delita had pleaded and after the battle when his friend did not heed his words and ended up bedridden in the care of healers for the duration of the day, Delita ran far off into the fields so that no one would see him cry.
6. hurricane
Delita had sworn he would not take Ramza again, but poor weather in the midst of a mission forced them into a desolate village, with a tiny inn that was sorely lacking in bed space.
7. wings
On his eighth birthday, Ramza's fathers and elder brothers were detained at Gariland and would not be able to return to Eagrosse until the following day, so to assuage his friend's tantrum, Delita suggested they go borrow the new black chocobo from the stables and fly upon its back all the way to Gariland; they got about as far as the edge of the pasture before they were caught and scolded by the game master.
8. cold
The stone of the walls, under a footbridge, feels surprisingly chilly against his naked body as Delita thrusts mercilessly into him; no one notices them in the night amidst the darkness, common sailors and whores.
9. red
Delita's eyes were bloodshot with tears of fear for his captive sister, and long suppressed feelings of inferiority as he kissed Ramza insistently, entreating him lie with him just once more.
10. drink
Red-faced with intoxication, Ramza pressed another glass to his lips, which Delita abruptly batted away, replacing the vessel with his own lips and imploring Ramza to drink of them instead.
11. midnight
An eight year-old Alma swore up and down that "Vampires only come out after midnight on the night of the harvest moon and they drain you 'til you're dead, unless you are a pretty young man and then they might make you their companion," and Zalbaag quipped that his pretty little half-brother had best take care to bulk up his delicate frame.
12. temptation
The necessity for a surprise attacked found Ramza and Delita pressed together within a small crevice between two boulders, consumed in darkness, each feeling the warmth of the other's breath on his face, lips so easily "accidently" brushing against one another.
13. view
Delita's eyes remained fixed on the sky, but when he said, "You see this world in a way few people can, where a person may be good if he endeavors to be so, and there are endless possibilities and occasions for change," Ramza had no doubt that he spoke to him and he was stung to think Delita fancied him so innocent and idealistic.
14. music
Convinced that he knew better than his noble friend, Delita interrupted his lute practice and forcefully attempted to guide his hands to strumming the correct chords, then found the sensation of his hands forcing Ramza's to move in the manner he wanted to be strangely exhilarating.
15. silk
Just on the cusp of outgrowing childhood games, Ramza and Delita raided the seamstress's closet in search of something with which to dress themselves as ghosts; 'twas a bolt of silk they found, and finding it so pleasing on the skin, they disrobed and wrapped it all about their naked bodies.
16. cover
"I was a'frenzied with fever but am faring far better now," Ramza said to the dormitory warden when he threw back the boy's bed curtains long past wake-up call to find him flushed, naked, and all twisted in his matted sheets.
17. promise
When the squires went to the monastery to swear eternal adherence to the Church of Glabados and its ways, Ramza thanked the gods that it was only in silent prayer and he bowed his head and thought he should ask for forgiveness, but could not for he took too much delight in his sins to cease them.
18. dream
Lying naked in the grass, Delita was furious with Ramza for being able to sleep so soundly, untroubled by cares about the future, or the safety of his sister, or what would happen to them should their sins be discovered, and even more furious that it was not merely in dreams that these thoughts did not plague him.
19. candle
At a very young age, Ramza was once awoken by Delita crying softly, for he had walked across the whole of the castle to his bedchamber carrying for light a single, naked candlestick from which much of the wax had melted onto his tender, child-sized hands.
20. talent
Fed up with Ramza's constant insistence that he was no more at home at court than he, Delita jested, "Courtly manners and formalities elude you, yet you've a real knack when it comes to swordplay…ever thought there might be some other implications in that truth?"
21. silence
Ramza too was awake but Delita could not yet find words, so he lay listening to Ramza's breathing smooth out from a half-exhausted pant to a steady calm, which was more than he could say for his equally loud and racing heartbeat.
22. journey
He asked him where it was he wished to go more than anywhere else in the world and Ramza naively answered "heaven", figuring that was the most logical answer since it was not technically in the world.
23. fire
His shoulder burned where the whip had struck as Dycedarg's words echoed in his head: "Never again."
24. strength
Even with Argath gone and his throat already bruising where Delita had attempted to throttle it, Ramza made it quite clear that he desired no apology and refused the coddling arms of his sometimes lover.
25. mask
Ramza took such delight in seeing Delita dressed just as finely as any nobleman on the eve of their induction to the Akademy and though he did not recognize himself and felt his identity ever slipping away from him as he partook in courtly gossip, he did not falter in his feigned contentment for fear of spoiling Ramza's.
26. ice
Up against the walls in the back alleys he is using him, hurting him, and he doesn't feel anything except raw human lust; even though he felt before, this is not the first time he has used him for sex.
27. fall
"Delita do not leave me," he begs, breathlessly from his post-coital heap on the cobblestones.
28. forgotten
He covers Ramza's naked body with his golden cloak and says, "It is best that this never happened."
29. dance
As children, both the Heirals and the two younger Beoulve children were taught all of the court dances and when they would practice on their own, Delita insisted, much to his friend's chagrin, that Ramza must dance the woman's part for he was slighter and fairer than the common-born brunette.
30. body
Ramza lay helpless as Delita undressed him painstakingly slowly, hands tentatively exploring each patch of newly exposed skin and Ramza's entire frame ached and thrilled at the sensation of being touched; for the first time he was acutely aware of every inch of himself.
31. sacred
Later, Ramza lay crying softly in Delita's arms, shoulder now soaked in blood, and to his hopeless pleas of "why" Delita could only respond, "Because love is sacred to a man and a woman, and only they may lie together pure and sinless wedlock."
32. farewells
"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," is all Ramza can keep repeating as he hammers his fists against Delita's chest in a feeble attempt to escape his embrace, meant to bid the self-exiled noble farewell.
33. world
He silences him by forcing his tongue inside that scornful mouth and then saying, "Return to Eagrose and lock yourself away before this world uses you up and you see it for what it really is."
34. formal
"SER Delita hath rescued not only the fair lady Tietra from the clutches of the evil Goblin King, but also her majesty the Princess Alma, our most beloved daughter, and so we name him protector of the Kingdom of Eagrose," Ramza said, his makeshift crown of twigs and twine falling from his head as he knighted Delita with a tree branch and his elder brothers stifled their laughter amidst their generous applause.
35. fever
Once as children, Delita lay abed with Ramza when he was ill and was perplexed by his awareness of the heat of Ramza's little shivering body against his and his inability to define the sensations that stirred within him.
36. laugh
Seeing Ramza's open and childlike awe at the spectacle of fireworks, Delita's normally aloof attitude towards these aristocratic gatherings dissipated and he laughed openly, Ramza growing red with anger, seeing it as a mockery of him, which only made the laughter all the more uncontrollable.
37. lies
"I assure you Lord Dycedarg that I have never laid with Ramza, not since we were children, and forgive me if I was too forward with my brotherly affection in kissing him so," Delita said, willing his voice not to falter and betray him.
38. forever
"I want you to stay this way forever," Delita said, pulling Ramza away from the commotion of the party and grasping his hands with an unfamiliar fervor that sent shivers throughout Ramza's body.
39. overwhelmed
Ramza was both half drunk and half naked, his lips already swollen from their previous kiss and Delita could no longer resist; he would have him tonight, right now, in his childhood bed in Eagrose Castle.
40. whisper
Ramza had insisted they must speak very softly to one another should they talk behind drawn bed curtains in the middle of the night, but Delita had not come to him for conversation and it was Delita's hand that stifled Ramza's cries of pain and of pleasure to aid in their concealment.
41. wait
So young Ramza approached his friend who had saved from drowning and, having decided to thank him, pressed up on to his tip-toes, lips pursed, 'til Dycedarg grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away saying, "How now young brother, save thy kisses for fair maidens."
42. talk
Still trembling and incapable of forming words that resembled anything in the English language, Ramza reached his hand across the darkness to grasp Delita's; it was enough to assure his friend that he was not sorry for this change in their relationship.
43. search
Gone at length during a particularly intense round of hide and seek, Delita finally found Ramza crying but very much trying to suppress it, in the foundation for a new well, unable to climb out due to his small size, and Delita too began to cry-but-pretend-not-to when he realized he too was too small to remedy the situation.
44. hope
He promises her a kingdom, a future of no darkness nor suffering, yet even while he thinks she might save him from his base desires, the image of Ramza refuses to be gone from his mind.
45. eclipse
Unable to quell his friend's rage during a particularly violent childhood fit, Delita grabbed his arms, forced him up off the floor and said with an eerie calmness, "One day Ramza I will be a king, and then everyone will forgive me my tantrums, and you will have to be well behaved and defeat dragons and rescue maidens for me."
46. gravity
It never ceased to amaze him that every time Delita kissed him, his knees would buckle and his entire body would stop fighting that natural force that keeps us all planted on the ground, which might have ended badly had he not had Delita's embrace to fight it for him.
47. highway
Delita was often allowed to go on journeys with the elder Beoulve brothers and Ramza, being particularly furious about this on one occasion cried, "I hope that you're all attacked and robbed and return hurt and empty handed"; he regretted it a few days later when they did return home attacked, robbed, hurt and empty handed.
48. unknown
Though Delita had done his best to dress the wound, a faint scar still lingered where Ramza had been lashed, and though the youngest Beoulve son would never say it, he grew found of the scar and refused to have any servants present when he dressed or bathed, for he liked the idea that only he and Delita should know of its existence.
49. lock
When they held parties at Eagrose, Alma would take care to stay up very late and be sure her brother got safely to bed, before standing watch by his door to keep him safe from the lecherous advances of any silly nobles; fortunately on the night of her brother's induction party, she fell asleep within minutes of commencing her vigil and could not hear her brother's half smothered moans of pleasure in the room beyond.
50. breathe
Ramza thinks he will soon be dead for lack of oxygen, images of the cruel ocean flooding every inch of him, until he remembers that he is not underwater at all, and that he will certainly live, maybe see his Delita again (did he not say he wished it so?), if only he can remember how to breathe.
* * *
NOTES: There's a few different little stories within the sentences here. This was completely unintentional originally; things just coincidentally worked together. Of course then it became totally intentional, but still good fun. I actually wrote this before "Substitute" and the two stories obviously have nothing to do with each other, as here Delita and Ramza have been together. Or maybe they have actually been together in the other story, only the love felt in the relationship is one-sided and unspoken? Either way, I am definitely not finished with these two yet.