AN: This chapter is pretty much just fluff and smut; you have been warned. Also, a huge thanks and shout-out to fightingcomet for letting me know that at least someone is enjoying this story; this chapter is dedicated to you.

Cloister Eleven

"Did you realise that I lost a hair tie because of you?" were the first words Beclem heard when he awoke late the next morning. His blankets were pulled off quite suddenly, and he shivered as his half-naked body was deprived of its current source of warmth.

"I am quite serious Beclem," his attacker continued. "I returned to Cloister Zero earlier this morning and it was gone. I didn't even realise I had left it behind until this morning, and now some fiend is probably running around with my hair tie."

"Why are you so worried?" Beclem moaned. "All your hair ties are plain and cheap anyway. Now give me back my blanket. I'm cold."

"But that one had sentimental value after yesterday," Isaaru said. Beclem soon felt a warmth at his back that was definitely not his blanket.

"What are you doing?" he asked, as Isaaru's arms snaked around his stomach.

"Keeping you warm," Isaaru whispered, before giving Beclem's ear a gentle nibble.

"Are you crazy!" Beclem objected. "They could catch us. Hey!"

Beclem's protests went completely ignored as Isaaru got back to his feet, pulling Beclem with him. Beclem soon found himself flung over Isaaru's shoulder, a rather uncomfortable bone digging into his stomach.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing!" he screamed, just a little loudly.

"Ssshh," Isaaru shushed Beclem. "I'm taking you somewhere a little more private. How does Cloister Zero sound?"

"I'm not even dressed yet," Beclem objected.

Isaaru just smiled even more enthusiastically than he had been, before plonking Beclem back on his bed and finding a place to lean on one of Beclem's walls.

"Fine," he said, still smiling. "Get dressed then."

"With you in here?"

"Yes," Isaaru answered. "Why not?"

Isaaru soon ran out of the room as Beclem threw a boot at him in playful attack, chuckling as he did. He turned around just in time to see the door slam shut behind him. When he faced the rest of the hall once more he realised he had almost ran straight into his younger brother.

"Maroda!" Isaaru exclaimed. "How are you this morning?"

"All right," Maroda said, noting how flushed Isaaru seemed to be from laughing. "What's up with you this morning?"

"What do you mean?" Isaaru asked, still grinning from ear to ear.

"I haven't seen you this excited or happy since…" Maroda paused for a moment to think. "Since ever!" he concluded.

"I just… well," Isaaru said, still grinning. "I… you know…" Maroda just stared at his older brother, wondering what could have possibly brought on a spout of such uncharacteristically cheerful behaviour.

"I just love the world this morning!" Isaaru concluded, throwing his arms up to emphasis the statement as he walked away from Maroda.

"By the way Beclem," Isaaru said, knocking Beclem's door as he walked past. "You are invited to attend the council meeting today. It starts in half an hour."

A string of curses followed Isaaru from the direction of Beclem's room as he walked off towards the meeting room.

"See you at the council meeting," Isaaru said cheerily, waving back at Maroda as he left.

Maroda waved back nervously.

"What in Sin's name…?" he pondered.

Beclem checked to make sure that there weren't any important councillors around before turning to talk to Isaaru.

"Are the meeting's always that boring?" he asked.

"Not always," Isaaru answered. "You just happened to be witness to a particularly boring one."

Isaaru started to walk incredibly slowly, and Beclem fell back to walk beside him. Isaaru soon stopped completely. Beclem did similar, wondering what it was exactly that Isaaru was planning, because judging from the look on the ex-Summoner's face, he was definitely planning something.

Isaaru looked around them for a couple of moments. Beclem wondered what Isaaru was looking at. The hallway they were in was completely empty.

Suddenly Isaaru's hand tightened around Beclem's wrist. Isaaru opened the door nearest to them, and pulled Beclem inside with him. Beclem found that they were in an incredibly small room that looked like it was currently being used for storage.

"Wha…?" Beclem began to ask, but his lips were smothered with Isaaru's before he could complete his question, and before the door could even finish closing.

Isaaru wrapped his arms tightly around Beclem's lower back, pressing against him so that before he knew it Beclem was stuck with his back pushed against the wall. He wrapped his arms around Isaaru's shoulders, trying to pull his mouth impossibly closer.

Isaaru pulled back away from Beclem as suddenly as he had kissed him.

"I have been wanting to do that all morning," Isaaru said.

"No complaints here," Beclem said as Isaaru moved to plant a trail of soft kisses and tiny bites down his neck. "Isaaru…" Beclem whispered, as both Isaaru's lips and his hands began travelling lower.

"Ssh…" Isaaru said, placing a finger on Beclem's lips in an effort to silence him. "We wouldn't want anyone to hear us."

Isaaru fell silent as Beclem kissed the finger Isaaru had put to his lips, before taking it between his lips and sucking on it gently. Isaaru removed the digit and replaced it with his lips, enthusiastically kissing Beclem.

Soon light flooded the room, and Beclem and Isaaru pulled away from one another immediately. They looked in shock at the open door and the person standing there.

"Um…" Baralai began, a blush quickly forming on his cheeks. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

Isaaru's hands were still on Beclem. Their faces were still only inches away from one another. There was no way that Baralai could think that they had been doing anything but what they had been doing, yet he didn't seem at all disturbed by it.

"Are we in trouble?" Isaaru asked.

"What?" Baralai said, turning around just before he had been about to leave the room. "No; you're not in trouble. Might I suggest you find a more private spot for this though? This supply cupboard is used more often then you would think."

"You mean you're not at all disturbed by this?" Beclem asked.

"No," Baralai said, smiling gently at them both. "You see, I had this Al Bhed friend a few years back. The Al Bhed are a lot more open about this sort of thing. Let's just say that my friend and I used to be very close. I couldn't very well convict you of something when I'm guilty of the same thing."

Beclem and Isaaru pulled back very slowly from one another as Baralai closed the door, and then both sighed in relief.

"That was close," Beclem said.

"I am glad it was Baralai and not someone else," Isaaru added, before placing a soft kiss on Beclem's cheek. "I will see you in Cloister Zero again tonight then?"

"Tonight," Beclem answered with a smile, "and every other night that I can make it."

For two weeks life went on as normal. The residents of Bevelle Palace began to become accustomed to this new joyful mood of Isaaru's, and to Beclem's newfound politeness.

And every night two people met in Via Infinito's Cloister Zero, and for an hour or two, forgot that that rest of the world existed.

One night Beclem arrived in Cloister Zero to find that Isaaru was not only already there, but had laid out a blanket on the cold floor and had brought red wine and glasses for two.

"If I didn't know any better," Beclem said; one hand on hip. "I'd say you were trying to seduce me."

"Are you complaining?" Isaaru asked, a mischievous grin suddenly finding its way onto his face.

"Not at all," Beclem replied.

Isaaru offered a glass of wine to Beclem, but it was ignored, Beclem finding his hands instead too preoccupied with Isaaru's neck and waist.

Beclem leaned in slowly but deliberately, capturing Isaaru's lips with his own.

The glass dropped from Isaaru's hand and landed on the floor beside them, spilling its contents in a puddle of red that stood out against the pale blue marble.

There was a strange, fierce passion between their lips that hadn't been there before. If either of them pulled away, then it felt that the whole world would fall out from beneath them; the human body's need for oxygen be damned.

Isaaru found his hand moving to rest on Beclem's hip, sneaking in to make a space between his trousers and his shirt so that he could feel the warm skin beneath. Beclem let out a soft moan at the touch, and the hand that had moved up to tangle in Isaaru's long hair attempted to pull Isaaru's mouth harder against his own.

Their other hands reached up to find one another; their fingers entwining within and around each other. Isaaru's other hand crept around to rest on Beclem's back, beneath his clothing.

Beclem gasped as Isaaru caressed that particularly delicate spot the other man had found, involuntarily breaking the kiss.

"So this is it, huh?" Beclem whispered with an enthusiastic grin on his face as he felt Isaaru's body reacting in the same way that his was.

"Yes," Isaaru answered with a smile, before pressing his lips against Beclem's once again.

They gradually pulled one another down to the floor. Isaaru had already removed Beclem's shirt by the time his bare back touched the marble; the blanket having been completely forgotten and left to lay unused where Isaaru had placed it.

Isaaru's outer robe practically fell off as soon as Beclem slid his hands beneath it, pooling around their waists and becoming their new make-shift blanket. A few more minutes saw their other clothes lying with it.

Isaaru lay above Beclem for a moment, pulling back to stare at Beclem's face for a while, his eyes asking a question that he couldn't with words. Beclem caught the look, and simply nodded once, smiling warmly at Isaaru. He was ready for this.

Isaaru moved slightly, Beclem spreading his legs submissively as the other man positioned himself, placing a trail of kisses down Beclem's jaw and neck as he did so. Isaaru found his way inside Beclem, and the ex-Crusader moaned loudly as he found himself caught in a mixture of pleasure and pain that was completely intoxicating.

It was an adventure, an exploration, as they became lost in one another, and Isaaru found that moving just like this made Beclem throw his head back and moan in pleasure, and Beclem discovered that caressing a certain spot that was part way between Isaaru's leg and other more sensitive areas made Isaaru's smile in a way he had only ever hoped he could make another man smile.

Isaaru barely made a noise, but Beclem found that he couldn't stop moaning. They slowly rocked in sync with one another; their bodies sliding against, around and inside one another. Their hands continued to caress each other's bodies in every place imaginable, until Beclem's hands finally came to rest on Isaaru's hips, pulling the other man further inside him, and Isaaru's moved down to caress Beclem's more sensitive areas.

With every movement either of them made, they found themselves slowly loosing more and more of themselves, until finally, they were one another, and their minds and bodies collapsed into one. As one they found a place higher than the sky, brighter than the sun and a pleasure more powerful than Sin itself.

Then it disappeared, and they were themselves once again. Their surroundings turned back, once again, into the pale blue marble of Via Infinito. Pyreflies flew overhead, and the ambient noise of Via Infinito, which always managed to sound like a mismatched chorus returned to their ears, but tonight it was the most beautiful noise either of them had ever heard.

Isaaru captured Beclem's lips again, and smiled at the man that he could now, without a doubt, call his lover.

"I love you," they said at the same time as they parted. A short laugh followed their mutual confessions, before Isaaru let his head rest against Beclem's chest for a while.

"Congratulations," Beclem said after he had remembered how to breathe properly. "We are now officially criminals."

Isaaru sighed against Beclem's neck, and wrapped an arm tightly around Beclem's waist.

"I wish we could just lie here like this for a while," he whispered.

"Me too," Beclem replied. He took one look at his lover's downhearted face and melted. He placed a gently kiss on Isaaru's forehead and sighed. "I guess a couple of minutes couldn't hurt."

"Maybe one day," Isaaru whispered. "We'll be able to fall asleep together like this."

"I hope so."

They lay in one another's arms in silence for a couple of seconds, simply listening to one another's breathing and heartbeat, before Isaaru spoke up.

"So was that," he took a deep breath, before continuing. "Was that the first time you have…"

"I had never even kissed anyone until you came along," Beclem confessed.

"Me either," Isaaru admitted, placing a tender kiss on Beclem's neck.

Beclem breathed in deeply right against Isaaru's neck, making his lover shiver. "You smell so good," he suddenly announced. "It's so addictive."

"I smell nice?" Isaaru giggled.

"Yeah," Beclem answered. "I can't even describe it, but it's the most intoxicating smell in the world."

Isaaru pondered this statement for a moment, before taking a deep breath near Beclem's neck, sighing in pleasure as he pulled away.

"I see what you mean," he concluded. "Very nice."

The two men did no more than talk, occasionally planting a soft kiss or two on one another's skin, but they didn't leave Cloister Zero, or pull apart from one another for over an hour.