Alright. Reviews appreciated, and if anyone has actually -gotten- a CliffxAlbel ending for the game, I'd love to know what happened.
Summary: Starting from the Main Event where Albel is collected from the dungeon to accompany them to the Urza Lava Caves. I want shameless smut, but apparently I have a dire need for it to make sense, so this may take a while. What will Albel be forced to confront at the Caves? Why does Cliff get so annoyed with our favorite bundle of Elicoorian angst? Let's find out today!
Warnings: This chapter's pretty easy on it all. Infatuation more than anything. Fluff, I guess. Angst fluff, yeah.
Chapter: 1?
Spoilers: Sort of. This story will revolve around actual events and speech of the game, but will mostly be non-existent PAs that give these characters due credit!
Pairing: Cliff x Albel (and later I might do a Fayt x Albel one. Yes. In that order.)
Disclaimer: I don't own it. Would have made them the stars if I did. Quotes and characters from the game Star Ocean: Till the End of Time are property of SquareEnix and Tri-Ace (but not respectively).
s - Refer to the bottom Notes
BChapter One: IDamn Gravity/I/B
'Young men of Airyglyph! You kingdom's armed forces need you! Excellent pay. Three square meals. All weapons and armor provided.'
One would think after reading it for the last two hours it would lose its appeal. Truthfully, Cliff continued to stare at it to make sure his vision was in order. A disappointed grimace went to the insipidly sweet contents of his glass. It was common sense that the colder the weather, the stronger the spirits to fend it off, but apparently common sense wasn't all that common.
This also wasn't Klausian ale, a fact he disliked to no end. Given, the cider was tasty and full-bodied - like a certain 'Roger' blonde and he could come back from the dead for a bit of both. Still, he had hoped to get even a half-satisfying buzz to tick off the shorter hours of this planet.
A born-and-bred warrior of Klausia (and handsome to boot as he liked to think) had a higher tolerance to a great number of things and that meant he liked everything strong: his jaw, his fists, his brain - his women.
His drinks.
Stashed away against the back wall of the 'Dragon's Breath' tavern meant the fire wasn't nearby, but neither was the nip of winter that would come skittering in whenever a patron was ready to turn in for the night. Dark azure hues went for the recruitment poster again. It reminded him of the days he had been at home, listening to the Federation preach about how noble it was to serve them - which immediately meant the Klausians weren't listening.
Several of his kind became mercenaries, or neutral scienticians that would assist anyone with the same goal as them - brains for hire. Those were the kind that creeped him out more than anything, knowing if one of them went sour they would team up with anyone that would help them build a protovirus that would turn all the fish in to ginormous dog-eating mudskippers.
At least then he'd have a challenge.
So far their mission tomorrow was only to engage the Marquis and make a bargain with him. That didn't explain why they had to bring along the egomaniacal swordsman.
That's right. He said it. He actually -knew- such a complex word. Under that ruggedly handsome wrangler exterior was a complex man! Not that he liked people knowing.
As he saw it: the more it seemed a person would have to explain, the more they avoided it. Playing dumb had its advantages, and also helped their pubescent leader - both Fayt and Maria now that he thought about it - build confidence in their decisions. He'd gotten tired of taking the lead in politics years ago, once he had experienced how gruesomely boring and tedious they could be. It was easier to ask 'which skull am I cracking?' Since when had threatening a politician been illegal?! People needed to tell him these things instead of arresting him after the fact.
Another chink sounded from Symbol-frozen water before he polished off the glass. Back to the bi-polar weirdo they had picked up that afternoon. Woltar said the young man had committed treason for letting them go at the training facility, and then failing to apprehend them when they raided the copper mine. Actually, it had amused him to no end hearing 'Albel the Twisted' being called "boy" by the octegenariate. Looking back on it, the guy did act like more of a child than Fayt did. Temper tantrums and the fleeting interests of a toddler.
A moody toddler in a skirt. With a metal claw for a limb. On some planets, amputation and branding were a form of punishment for failures, but that didn't seem the case when he was considered one of the three strongest generals in the kingdom. Cliff had already figured the limb as artificial, powered by the planet's superior Symbology.
Still. A skirt? Things didn't add up about him. And dammit, if that bratty creature goaded him he would go inquiring. Albel could get worked up over absolutely nothing from what he had seen. To the point of sociopathic violence if he had obtained such an endearing nickname by even the gorgeous ninja girls of Aquios.
Mmm, ninja girls... Ninja -women-. Ninja Nel, now that he thought about it. And she'd been flattered to be recognized as such! Delightful woman as he saw it, uncorking the cider bottle with a grin.
The thick door of the tavern squeaked open and shut restlessly at these hours when men had wives and bunks to get back to, little else on their hands now that the war was over. So often had the noise been on his ears that he completely disregarded the next patron. Before he knew it, he was enjoying his next serving as weighted feet came up the last few steps.
Cliff choked when he tried to gasp and swallow at the same time, left to cough in to a jadine glove as he watched the pale form in dusty lilac and metal plating make his way for the farther of the tables. Before he could ask what the other was doing here, swatting at booze that wouldn't try on his fitted zip-on armor, he spotted the barrel just larger than the young man's head under his unplated limb.
Turning back over his shoulder with a stir of rat tails, frigid orbs landed on the blond man that could only grumble about a perfectly wasted drink. He supposed it was his own fault, thinking somehow Albel wouldn't show up here. The boy was as cold as the mountains around here, and so in his territory he went undetected. The spectre's touch that could put a person's hairs on end decided to tickle the back of Cliff's neck as he watched the swordsman fall in to his chair all the way on the other side of the platform.
"We didn't bail you out so you could get hammered," he stated pointedly, coughing again when the words had exposed how offset he had become in the last moments.
For a guy that had gotten served a heaping portion of humble pie -and- spend the last few days locked in the same icy dungeons that contained that nightmarish leather-faced fat man, he certainly didn't act any worse for the wear. An inky brow rose in to the thick mat of bangs crowning his features so informally. Metal digits rapped on the top of his melon-barrel as the other set of normal, elegantly slender fingers placed down his mug on the tabletop.
The spectre now couldn't help but drag its nails up the blond's spine when the silken baritone fell from lips so barely twinged in a sadist's amusement. "You're going to stop me?"
For being all talk, he could be scary when he was talking. Or, it had more to do with the fact swirls of chaos sat in muddy vermillion spheres that bore a predatory gleam, the likes of which Cliff no longer saw thanks to the modern marvels of anti-depressants and gene therapy to erase mental instability.
He had never seen a genuinely crazy person before. Much less one that was in such good favor with such a reasonable king.
It was safe for him to say 'screw that' when a mental image of a clawed man fussing with a barrel's naval crossed his mind - only to be savagely corrected when he saw Albel lift the container up in both hands and rip the cork out with his teeth. That answered the question on whether the youth had taken drinking seriously before. The blond fist fighter eased back in his own chair to sip at his own glass, up until he heard a depreciative hnph from a few yards over. Shooting a glare towards the one that had summoned his attention and thusly greeted with the sight of the smaller warrior pouring a thick burgundy froth in to his mug.
"You were sayin' somethin'?" he offered. Albel didn't even bother looking to him until he had the cork safely put away again, righting the melon barrel and then curling digits around the tall wood carving soon to be his drink. When he received no response there was a shake of sun gilt feathers before he tipped his head back to continue on his glass.
"Is it wise for your leader's second-in-command to be getting 'hammered' the night of a mission?"
As Cliff was concerned, this counted as a civil conversation, as the other had gone two breaths without adding in 'worm', 'fool', or 'maggot'. Maybe he had eaten too many bugs as a child?
"Nah. This is kid's stuff. It'd take more than some cider to ruin my technique." Another disappointed look to the bottom of his glass, finding it once more so despairingly empty. Maybe if he thought and glared hard enough...!! ...No dice. Damn. "And Fayt's not my leader, and I'm not his second-in-command," he thought it vital to point out as he freed his own bottle once more for another serving. This guy irked him to no end, if only because he was such a sore loser.
Hearing this over a swig Albel peeked at him from beyond the wide mouth of the mug. It wasn't good for a crazy man to be amused. Even more so when he intended to compete about this little dilemma that had sprung from its safe hole out in to the open for claws (sans plural in this case) to butcher it.
The sickeningly sharp knife made another pass at Cliff's throat. "So then you're the leader? Last I saw, he was the one ordering you not to kill me. Such a fool." Their civil conversation had just ended, Albel's grin pulling wide with a tempting hiss that could only come from Eden's serpent. "Had you not listened, I wouldn't be here laying testament to your inability to take initiative."
So simply, a fist became the throne for his cheek with a roll of his eyes. "Saying you got a death wish?" When he wasn't given an answer, he had to blink his smoky sapphire hues over to the young man that had buried himself in his drink. "Take it easy will ya? I was just kidding. Not much point getting upset over us creamin' you anyway." Oh heaven forbid, was he consoling the bi-polar psycho at the other table? A look to the film building at the bottom of the glass for being empty. Maybe it had been stronger than he'd anticipated, giving it a thoughtful noise before abandoning it on the table. "We aren't even from this planet, so you're just setting your standards too high."
It now occurred to him that Albel wasn't even paying attention, only glaring at him over a fist in his cheek and inky fangs in his face. With his drink, a great deal of the edge had been sanded off, but that didn't make him any less a spitting cobra that Cliff couldn't bring himself to look at. All of the guy's reputation had been obliterated by them, and now if he wanted it back he was having to behave himself. The Klausian couldn't blame him for being upset - but he -could- blame him for going overboard.
"Er ah... Just why -do- you have to come along anyway? That's the only part I can't figure out. That old man didn't seem all too keen on letting you salvage your reputation with this little errand. It seems..."
Floundering for the words, he was rather amazed with what he found, and the fact eyes now had their full attention handed to him. "I dunno, beneath you." Knowing what buttons to push didn't seem very difficult. Exactly how far he would go about getting teased was the hard part. Murder was illegal on most planets, but he was sure the other could find a way around it if he was desperate enough.
And it was impossible to know how desperate the swordsman could get.
What was clear, however, was that the young Elicoorian had it in his head he could so easily stroll out of here after drinking something like that. From what Cliff could tell, he could bench the rat-tailed weirdo twice over with muscle to spare to tame his ego. Not that he would ever try. In any case he knew whatever he had swallowed was potent, and so watching the rustle of scabbard, steel, and odd fabric he made sure the other wouldn't waver.
Not a faltered step all the way to the door, now fully aware of how touchy the ocelot turned neutered housecat could be.
With a huff he rose to his feet and made his way for the other table where the personal container sat all by its lonesome and the mug abundant with company if air counted. Hefting it up he rolled it until the naval glared back at him, in all its dented, teeth-mangled glory. A faint chuckle bubbled out of him as a glove closed around the cork. It squeaked in protest, but he could melt any fine shape to his will with enough coaxing.
"Jeez, he doesn't do anything without being angry about it." Leaning in to sniff at the essence inside, he had to reel his head back and cough to expel the burn riding from his nose to his gut. "Whaoh!!" Eyes still bleary with his initial whiff, he couldn't keep lips from twisting wide.
Okay, so maybe Albel wasn't so bad. He knew a good drink when he had it!! Now he didn't feel so put off with being ignored while the boy had been drinking. Dumping himself back in to his own chair he poured a serving of the foamy broth, a rich maroon that could have contested with the swordsman's eyes were those ever-manic things not tarnished with some unknown element.
And he highly doubted the other had gone to just relieve himself and come back, which meant he was this nameless gal's company for the rest of the evening!!
Hardly an hour later he was resting the pierced belly of the container over the waiting maw of his glass, dribbling out the last few precious drops of what had become his new best friend. When a fluid like this was tempting to knock him in to a solid night's sleep and a painfully inescapable day after, it occurred to his fuzzy, fevered self that Albel had downed his own portion of this.
Cliff had seen hope in his fair share of eyes - for a great different number of reasons - and far be it for him to make assumptions about it, but...
Earlier that day, when they fetched Albel the Twisted from the dungeon...
He looked like Albel the Hopeful. And any man that could drink the likes of this and simply waltz out of here had to have one hell of a chip on his shoulder.
A blink, listening to the last drop sing with rejoining its brethren in the glass.
...Enough that it could take up his whole arm?
Note 1: 'Arbel the Twisted' is the Japanese name, and I thought Wicked sounded far too childish anyhow. Wicked scares little kids like Halloween witches. Twisted implies cannibalism.
Next Time: The mining town of Kirlsa is the home of the Storm Brigade and its captain, the oldest of the three: Woltar. Not only does he hold a past with Nel Zelpher, the prideful errand-girl for Aquios, but also the demented Albel Nox. How could such an honorable man feel indebted to obtain the well being of such a sadistic brat?!
The unedited copy of this fic can be found at aff . net under the same title.