Title: Word of the Day v. FFIV
Author: Garnet Eyes
Archived: fanfiction .net, livejournal .com
Last Updated: 26 Feb 2011
Summary: 26 November 1999 edition.
Rating: M
Characters/Pairings: Cecil, Kain, Kain x Cecil
Author Notes: surfeit, noun;
1. An excessive amount or supply.
2. Overindulgence, as in food or drink.
3. Disgust caused by overindulgence or excess.
transitive verb;
1. To feed or supply to excess.
Disclaimers: Final Fantasy IV is owned by Square-Enix and I in no way, shape, or form profit off of my writing. This is simply for my own pleasure, and may at any time be removed and/or modified as I see fit.
...
Cecil had found girls off putting since he had been old enough to think. It had only gotten worse as he'd gotten older, because older did not mean taller in his case and it simply wasn't proper, the way the courtesans and maidens squealed and clutched him to their breasts and cooed about how "cute" he was. Cecil didn't like being cute, not when he was assaulted so flagrantly for it. He'd taken to hiding himself as much as he could in odd corners of the castle, and it had been sheer chance that Kain had found him that first time. Rosa's appearance had cowed the prince, for he did not wish to have his cheeks pinched or to be picked up and carried around like some doll. It had surprised him when she hadn't done any of the things he'd been expecting, and he had grown fond of her the more time he spent with the two blondes, although her inherent femininity put him on edge for a long time.
Being around Kain, especially, meant that Cecil was always off somewhere out of sight and out of reach of the court ladies. Being the smallest of the three of them, even, turned out to be advantageous at times, because Cecil could fit into places that neither of them could and that talent had been put to use more than once. His slight frame also meant that it was easy for Kain to give him a boost, which was nice when they wanted to collect some of the ripe fruits that would otherwise be just out of reach on the low-hanging outer branches of the trees.
By the time they were in their teens and their hormones had begun testing them, Cecil was prone to turning on heel and backtracking the moment he saw the hem of a skirt. He was still embarrassingly small for a man, almost a head shorter than Rosa, and the court maidens and noble ladies were getting frighteningly aggressive with him. Kain laughed about it, not unkindly, the first time that he'd born witness to it because Cecil had spun automatically and had ended up thumping face-first into the blonde's chest directly behind him. After he had settled his chuckles, the larger boy ruefully informed the young prince that most men would kill to have women chasing them so readily. Not more than a week later, the dragoon-in-training had bent down and kissed Cecil soundly on the lips. His aggression more than made up for his lack of experience, in the smaller teen's opinion, and he, for once, did not mind when he was called "cute," by Kain of all people. Being little apparently had its advantages, even now. It was easy to burrow against Kain's larger frame at night during the colder months, and the dragoon-in-training was big enough for Cecil to hide behind if he otherwise couldn't escape certain women of questionable morals who hounded him at every chance. Sometime after Kain had begun pushing for more adventurous experimentation, which had turned out to be something amazing after the initial awkwardness had worn off, they'd discovered another relieving advantage of the younger teen's height: they'd been caught that once, and their only saving grace was the fact that Cecil was tiny and the only part of him that could be seen under the blonde's braced weight was his legs splayed up on either side of the larger man's hips; it was assumed that Kain had been coupling with a courtesan, thankfully, although no one could figure out which one and several of them were arguing over the "honor." Such greed in those women.
Cecil had not liked growing, when he finally did. It was pleasant in and of the fact that he wasn't "cute" and ladies didn't smother him in their breasts excitedly when they managed to corner him, but that was about it. He'd been a head and a half shorter than Rosa at the midpoint of his sixteenth year, and a little more than half a head shorter than Kain at the start of his eighteenth year. His joints – especially his hips and knees – had hurt terribly for the entire year and a half that he had spent growing so dramatically, he'd barely been able to walk without tripping on most days, he could sleep for an entire day or more if left alone due to unflagging fatigue, he'd been hungry constantly, and he'd been little more than skin and bones. His forms were all wrong all of the sudden, and he'd turned into such a pathetic sparring partner that he'd apologized to Kain practically every other day. After retraining himself in the basics every other week, it felt like, Cecil all but gave up trying to use the sword when his hands hurt no matter what he did. He still wanted to be active, though, so he continued to do all of the training he could. A few days after his eighteenth birthday, the miserable prince realized that his hands didn't really feel painful, and he'd delicately begun the process of building his forms from the ground up once more.
He'd fleshed out again in his eighteenth year, although he'd been none-too-pleased to see that his late growth had changed his very awkward body from "childish and tiny" to "completely androgynous." He didn't look right, and he knew he didn't look right, but the most he could do was wear clothing that was designed to hide his features. His loose shirts and tunics hid his too-narrow-for-a-man waist and his trousers did an acceptable job of covering up his too-wide-for-a-man hips; nothing could really hide the soft curves of his face, a far cry from the angular lines of the soldiers' faces, of Kain's face. Now he was called "beautiful" and "gorgeous" and "precious," but not "handsome" - never "handsome" - and the ladies were still alarmingly aggressive but at least they couldn't pick him up and carry him around anymore. Kain still did, just because he knew that it had bothered Cecil to no end in his youth, except it wasn't the same when the dragoon hoisted him into the air because Kain had never bothered him. Equally, it wasn't so frustrating when Kain called him "beautiful" or "gorgeous" or any of those other adjectives that the adopted prince hated only because they typically reminded him of his weirdly feminine body. But, then, Kain loved Cecil's body and made sure there was no question in the shorter man's mind about that. Exhausted satisfaction was a good enough reminder, especially when it was almost a nightly experience. And it was a wonderful way to unwind after a long day of delicately dodging harassment while honing his skills as a knight.