Disclaimer: I hope Konami's not paying attention to my unauthorized fannishness of their characters, or I owe them lots of money.
Notes: Spoilers for Suikoden 3, since it's sometime post-game. Flame Champion's name is Mars, the one time he's mentioned briefly.
Inspired by a particular scene right after you choose Geddoe as FC. In this fic, he's not the FC, but playing through that way sure makes this pairing obvious.
This is almost PWP, falling just short of actual smut, but hey - the first couple paragraphs say it all.
There wasn't really any romantic prelude like you might expect. No dramatic declarations or teary-eyed confessions, it just happened.
I'm not sure why we were sitting on the bed in particular, except that it was comfortable, and we'd sat next to each other on that bed at that inn in Vinay del Zexay plenty of times. It was late afternoon, Joker and Aila were downstairs, Ace was off getting supplies, and Jacques was who-knew-where as usual, and the two of us were up in my room, almost back-to-back with a beer in hand, which wasn't unusual. She'd touched my hand before too, more often since she found out what it held, like it was a strange fascination for her. It seemed like a natural thing when the touch became more of a caress and hand-holding, and I suppose it was instinct as much as anything that caused my own hand to idly caress her wrist in return.
From there, it didn't seem like a big stretch to have her fingers slide up under the sleeve of my shirt, and after a few drinks, it was a natural reaction for me to rest a hand on her knee. Such minute changes, advancing little by little over the course of perhaps an hour or so, eventually led to arms around each other and a cool, comforting kiss. I was laying her back against the pillows before either of us realized what we were doing, and possibly the only surprise was that neither of us was particularly surprised.
Also I was mildly surprised that when she raised her foot, it wasn't to kick me in the stomach with the heavy boot she wore. Not that I'd have expected her to kick me, but it seemed more like something she would do than what she was really doing, which was taking the boots off. And that was where I stopped, leaning over her on one hand while the other rested against her side.
She noticed my hesitation, and laughed quietly as she loosed the laces on her boots. "Cold feet?"
Not exactly. I shook my head, and her expression grew more sober as she reached a hand up to touch my cheek, her fingertips skirting the edge of the eyepatch. "Listen, I know you've got issues. Like this," she specified, lowering her hand to mine. "But even if you're not mortal, you're still a man, and you still have a man's body. When was the last time, Geddoe?"
I closed my good eye, my memories wheeling back to a time over fifty years ago which had unfolded in much the same way. "Before you were even born."
It didn't faze her, and she shook her head in what seemed like slight exasperation. "I expected as much. Doesn't it drive you insane?"
I shook my head also. "You get used to it."
When I opened my eye again, she was looking up at me with a little knowing smile. "You shouldn't have to."
But I do, I meant to say. But although my body was used to being ignored, half a century was a long time, and with this turn of events, it was beginning to agree with her words. There was lightning coursing through my veins that had nothing to do with the rune in my hand, and everything to do with her fingernails against the skin of my chest as she started to pull my shirt over my head. I sat up again, lifting my arms to make it easier for her, and as she tossed the shirt aside, she moved to sit up with me, shifting her weight into my lap and wrapping her legs around my waist.
I'd neglected my body's physical nature for years, and while her fingers on my back found the scars of hundreds of battles, scars over more scars, it was as if I felt those wounds for the first time. There had been little pain; to feel pain would have meant that I could succumb to other sensations my flesh might inflict on me, and it had been easier to think of it all as inconsequential. But my skin felt alive under her touch, marred and uneven and ugly, and everything I'd not let myself feel for years returned under the pressure of her hips against mine.
When I reached the point where I knew I couldn't just sit there and feel her lips against my neck forever, I lowered my head to nuzzle at hers as well. My fingers were always nimble enough, and even with the lack of recent experience, I managed to undo her shirt and belt with a minimum of fumbling around. I sat back when I'd removed them, and just looked for a moment.
Her hands remained on my waist for balance, and she looked somewhat amused. "Am I not what you were expecting?"
Her skin bore a lot fewer scars than I might have expected, some slashes across the collarbone and stomach, but that was the least of the things I was trying to come to terms with. I couldn't have put it into words without it sounding wrong, but... "No offense, but I've spent years not thinking of you as a woman - just as a skilled fighter."
She raised an eyebrow, placing a hand on my chest in an almost challenging way, as if she was considering pushing me over. "Can't I be both?"
"Of course..." My own hands wanted to touch her as boldly as she touched me, but I forced them to remain on her sides, both my hands and my eye frozen a little ways below where they really wanted to be. "However, the former plays no part when considering those under my command in the Defense Force. Gender has never mattered to me."
She cocked her head, amused. "...Never?"
She was only teasing, and I knew it, so I ignored the whispers of memory that her implication brought to mind, and shook my head as I stroked up her sides. "All right, so maybe now and then..."
She chuckled, and that sudden movement of her torso against mine made my desire even more evident. She seemed to feel it too, for her hands went immediately to the waist of my pants, loosening them as I did likewise to hers. We parted long enough to strip away the last few layers between us, and as her legs tightened around my back again - bare this time, skin on skin - I was surprised by how much I wanted her.
Though it had been generations, it's not something one forgets how to do easily, and instinct took over, finding the right places to touch, how long to wait before the anticipation became painful, how to support her as she took me in, still straddling my lap, our arms wrapped around each other.
I wasn't sure what I expected of her, what I thought it would be like, because I'd never let myself think about it long enough to get that far before. But I laid her back against the pillows, still locked together, and even though I was running on instinct, too swept up in the moment to think, there was a part of me that held back and just watched her as she moved beneath me, breathing in little gasps with an open-mouthed smile of bliss. That part of me that held back and watched couldn't help remembering another face long ago, full of relief and silent laughter, but it was not a face I would see again, and I pushed the thought away. The past was past, and the present was, for once, far too enjoyable to dwell on a memory.
After, my hand rested on her hip. She didn't back off, just settled down a little deeper into the sheets and blankets and gave a contented "Mmm..." sound as she closed her eyes.
She really was nobility or something like it, from what I hear. Of all the times to see dignity in her, this was an odd one. But then, so was she.
I wasn't moving either, whether to roll over or to pull her closer. I'd never really been the cuddly type, so I doubted that she'd be disappointed by that. Besides, for all the casual friendliness of the encounter, there was something awkward about it now. If I'd been Ace, or pretty much any other ordinary guy, and it had been any woman but her, I'd have chalked it up to wondering how serious she'd think I was, or what the implications were since I was technically her boss, or whether I'd have to say those three words that seem like a man's payment for taking his pleasure even when it's freely offered. A lot of times he means it, but it's difficult to say even so, and not something I think I could ever say myself.
Thank goodness she's not that kind of girl. This was freely offered and freely given - and the look on her face said she thought she got a good deal even without the three words. No strings attached, because she wasn't interested in tying me down.
I could forget myself for a little while, yes, but you always remember sooner or later. I was lying there on my side, hand still resting on her hip, looking down at her face and remembering how it felt to kiss her, to touch her...
It was like I could see the years falling away in a split second. Wrinkles forming at the corners of the eyes and mouth, spreading out over the cheeks, skin growing tight and dry and eventually disappearing.
Another man might have vomited. I just stood up and went to the window. I was used to seeing these sorts of scenarios in my mind, even if they usually served as a deterrent. They'd never happened after the fact, because I'd never let anything get that far before.
I could feel her eyes on me again, and the bed creaked a little as she turned onto her back. "That's right," she muttered, and her voice held a hint of a chuckle, husky as it still was. "I didn't think you'd be into cuddling."
"Nope." I drew back the curtains and pushed the shutters open. It was raining a little - still sunny, but the rain had just started, and it was a cold rain. Hard to say whether it was beautiful or depressing to see the rain falling through sunshine, or the sun shining despite the rain.
"Well, that's all right with me," she said, and there was another creak as she shifted a little. "Just don't catch your death, okay?"
"I can't."
"...Oh. Right."
She could, though, so I closed the shutters anyhow. No sense in inviting the inevitable to come early.
On my way back to the bed, I grabbed a couple of beers from the table and handed her one, just out of habit. I probably would have opened it first if I'd thought about it, but she cracked it open as easily while nude as she did fully clothed. I think it was the first time I really made the connection that I was actually looking at her body, and not just her head on the shoulders of some random woman I didn't have to think about repercussions with. But it had the same masculine mannerisms as Queen did, this body that was so inviting and feminine, that I'd just...
Of course she noticed me looking as I sat down on the other side of the bed, and she smirked. "So, do you like what you see?"
I couldn't help smiling a little at her, over my shoulder. "If I didn't, I wouldn't still be looking."
"By all means, then, look all you like." She turned onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow so that the curves of her body were accentuated by the way she lay. "As long as I get to look back, I won't complain."
I've never thought much about my appearance, so the suggestion puzzled me a little. Apparently it showed, because she laughed under her breath as I turned away. "You really don't think much of yourself at all, do you?"
"I try not to." I meant that in more than one way.
"Geddoe..." She stopped, and sighed softly, tracing along the scars on my back with a fingertip as I kept working on the beer. "There you go with your tough face again. But that's all right - as much as I liked the face you showed me just a little while ago, it was the tough face that first intrigued me."
"Yeah...?"
"Yeah. It makes people wonder what's behind it, what's going on up in your head that you're not letting them in on."
I shrugged. "Not much, really."
She snorted faintly in disbelief, and I felt the prick of a sharp nail as she poked me in the back. "You're really something. I know better than that, and so do the others. Do you think we'd still follow your orders if we thought there wasn't more going on with you than we could see with our eyes?"
"True enough," I admitted. As much as Ace might have said otherwise, even Wang wasn't in it for the drinks - he had too much integrity. So did everyone in my unit, and that was why I'd stayed even after the Grasslands/Harmonia conflict had ended.
It was really more that I could never explain what went on in my head in a way that they could understand. Already I'd lived through almost two average lifetimes, and with the knowledge that more were to come. Wyatt had seen visions of the future just as Luc had, and I'd caught a few glimpses as well. Even if we interpreted them differently, the runes gave us things that couldn't be expressed in terms a mortal could comprehend - I couldn't be sure if there were words to explain in any language, or time enough to tell the tales to a person whose days were limited.
After a moment, she went back to tracing the scars on my back. "I don't begrudge you your secrets, you know. None of us do. We have our own, after all - you don't even know my real name."
I wondered if that should have made me feel bad, but she wasn't saying it in an accusatory way. It was just something I had no urgent need to know, just as she had no urgent need to know the things I had never told her.
"I've come this far knowing even less than I do now," she continued, still running a light-fingered caress across the old gashes and wounds. "So I won't ask for anything - except an answer to this one question."
I nodded a little and turned around so I was half-facing her, still sitting on the side of the bed. Her eyes looked mischievous rather than curious or anxious, and she tapped her fingers on the side of the bottle in her hand. "Do you think we might do this again sometime?"
A sharp, incredulous chuckle burst from my throat before I could stop myself, but I stopped to think about it before answering. Not that I hadn't enjoyed it, but I wasn't sure.
The thing was, if she was doing this for me, I'd have told her not to bother. No sense in trying to get through to me, to get me attached, when a few years down the road it would all come to nothing but memory. No matter how I might decide I felt about her, I couldn't do what Mars had done for Sana - not after seeing what he'd left us to deal with as a result. But she wasn't just doing this for me - she's nicer than most people think, but not the type to sleep with someone out of pity. Also not the type to tumble into bed with anyone after a couple beers, even if that had been the prelude this time.
"...If you want to... I guess I don't see why not." If she'd done this because she wanted it as much as because she thought I wanted it, who was I to deny both of us what we wanted? It wouldn't last forever... but then, after seeing what had happened to Wyatt, you never could say if forever was an option. As long as I kept myself from getting too serious...
She smirked and laid back again. "Glad to hear it."
I chuckled and stood again, looking around for the scattered articles of clothing that belonged to me so I could get dressed again for dinner. The others would think it strange if we didn't show up...
Something occurred to me, and I looked over at her sharply as I pulled my shirt on. "By the way... don't tell Ace or Joker about this."
"Right, we'd never hear the end of it," she agreed with a laugh, catching the pants I tossed in her direction. "I won't say a word."
Not yet, anyway. We had a smart team, and at least one of them would figure it out sooner or later, if she was right and it wasn't a one-time thing. Maybe we'd luck out, and it would just be Jacques - he'd never say anything about it either.
Looking over at her buckling her belt and stretching to make sure nothing was too tight, she looked like the same old Queen, and I couldn't help thinking that so far, my luck was holding pretty well.