Chapter Five
"It . . . it's huge!"
The statement was, in fact, quite an understatement, but as they were all just standing there, gaping at the wide expanse of grass and eternally-scarred earth, there was nothing else to describe it as; Jecht had put it quiet eloquently, it seemed, considering the dumbfounded nods from Braska and Auron.
Braska smiled out at the Calm Lands, and took a big, deep breath, which he exhaled slowly in an elated sigh. His shoulders sagged generously, as though loosened of the weight of the world, and his eyes brightened at the sight.
This was a far different man than the one that had left his daughter in Bevelle for a second time not two days ago. Yuna had not been stoic then, not so willing to let go; and Braska had been firm with anguish sparkling in his blue eyes. It had been Jecht to assure Yuna that everything was going to be alright this time. She had seemed to believe him far more than she had believed Auron, though she did look to him for a reassurance as well.
Then, she had valiantly released her father, and stepped back to watch him go north this time, her lower lip quivering but her eyes firm.
Braska had not spoken for the rest of that day, and Auron had made a conscientious effort te let the summoner deal with his grief as he felt he needed to. He'd sat up with Jecht's watch that night, curled over himself close to the fire and wondering what he had been thinking; could he really protect Braska from Sin when he couldn't even protect him from the woe of his daughter? Or was he comparing two completely different things?
Jecht slung his arm over Braska's shoulders, and gestured around at the fields. "That, my friend, is one fine piece of landscaping right there."
"I couldn't agree more, Jecht."
"If you're both done complimenting an old battle scar?" Jecht smiled at Auron, and slung an arm over his shoulders as well, tugging him close; he shoved at Jecht, and grumbled, "Get off me."
"What's the rush this time? We can waste a couple of days, can't we?" There was a desperate edge to Jecht's voice, one that made Auron look up at him carefully, watching his profile with an intensity he hadn't mustered for the man since the day he'd seen him in the prison.
A warm breeze wafted off the plains, bringing with it the smell of a campfire or two, and the sharp warble of chocobos. Auron could not help the pleased little smile that broke over his lips.
They had made it this far. Perhaps . . .
Perhaps they would turn doubt and fear into praise, and defeat Sin once and for all.
The Calm Lands were perhaps not entirely aptly named. Fiends were everywhere across the plains, and harder than they had expected or prepared for. Skolls and Coeruls moved in quiet packs, occasionally stalking each other, or a passing chocobo or traveler. Off-center of the wide expanse, there sat a lone group building—a market place, and the tents they secluded, which seemed a silly thing and yet strangely appropriate, where Auron thankfully stocked up on antidotes and some of the better Potions.
Braska watched the fiends move about as though they were a natural part of the cycle. Auron supposed they were, after all. He lounged beside Braska with his back to the wide, almost dizzying display of tall grass, and watched instead the other Summoners that had made it so far as the Calm Lands, as well as the Al Bhed who ran this tiny commune.
Jecht had wandered off again. Auron sighed a little, and crossed his arms over his chest. Braska's smile was in his voice as he said, "Don't worry too much, my friend. Jecht won't have gone far."
"How did—?" He sighed, and shook his head. He supposed, after all things, there was no use denying it any longer. With a light chuckle, he cradled the back of his head, and looked up at the sky. Braska was smiling, watching him.
"I know that look," he said. His eyes were sad. "Young love."
"My Lord," Auron grumbled, blushing slightly. Braska touched his shoulder, his smile growing sadder.
"Hold on to it while you can, Auron. And keep holding on, even after this is all over."
"What're you old fuddy-duddy's talkin' about this time?" Jecht's sudden voice at his shoulder made him gasp and jump. He reprimanded the older man sharply, but got only a smile, laugh and slap on the shoulder for his troubles. Braska smiled knowingly.
"Nothing of interest. Just watching the clouds pass." He stretched, and yawned widely. "I'm going to rest for a while," he informed his Guardians, and wandered towards the tents without a backwards glance.
Jecht slid under the railing that did little at holding out most of the fiends—though the Al Bhed machina seemed a good enough deterrent—and lounged beside Auron silently. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, he asked, "What were you and Braska really talking about."
"Nothing, really. Just a bit of . . . fatherly advise." It felt odd to call it that—he hadn't gotten fatherly advise in almost fifteen years—but it was the closest thing Auron could think of to call it. Jecht smiled a little, and cast an arm over Auron's shoulder.
"Never was good at that sorta stuff. The best I ever got and gave was 'no use cryin' in a salt-water ocean!', but Tidus didn't think it was all that funny. Little shit didn't talk to me for a week and a half."
Auron knew Jecht's son and wife was a sensitive subject. He didn't press the matter, simply leaned his weight against Jecht's side.
They were quiet, before Jecht finally blurted, "Are we actually sharin' a tent with Braska?"
"Uh . . . I don't think so." He looked up at Jecht and demanded, "Why?"
"N-no reason." There was a bit of color on Jecht's cheeks, and his hand felt a bit warmer on Auron's shoulder. He sighed, and shook his head a little, grumbling. Then, he grabbed Jecht's hand, and started dragging him towards the inn.
Sure enough, Braska had had the 'foresight' to pay for a second tent for his Guardians to sleep in. Auron had a very sudden urge to cut the entire venture short, march over to where Braska was resting, and throttle the meddling summoner in his sleep.
Jecht made a good show of distracting him, pulling him onto the bed and simply running his hands slowly up and down Auron's arms, his sides, legs and back. It was soothing, in some obscure, almost ticklish sort of way, especially when Jecht worried him out of his jacket and shirt, and only his rough fingertips were darting over his skin.
Auron turned his face away, embarrassed by the intimacy. Jecht leaned their brows together, his red eyes shut, and slowly wrapped his arms around Auron's waist, pulling him up onto his knees. He nudged them apart, slipping his thighs between them as Auron shyly wrapped his arms around his shoulder.
Jecht was a long, insistent band of heat on Auron's chest and side, his breath a humid puff against Auron's lips. He tilted Auron's chin up when he tried to duck it away again, watched his eyes and the subtle flush that grew on his cheeks as he rocked slowly against him.
Auron licked his lips absently, wanting to break Jecht's gaze, wanting to jump off the bed and run until there was nowhere else to run. But Jecht suddenly had him pinned—physically, in that they'd tumbled back on the bed and Jecht's gentle roll of the hip became a bit more aggressive; but also a bit more mentally. He couldn't bring himself to break gaze with the older man, like it was some sort of competition or something.
His fingers idled down Jecht's sides, and rested on his shorts shyly. Jecht smiled against the underside of his chin.
"Ever done this before, kid?" Slowly, shyly, Auron shook his head—which wasn't a complete truth, because he'd gotten just a little beyond the kissing and into fumbling adolescent touches the last time he'd tried anything like this and the chief warrior-monk in charge of the dormitory had beaten them for sick and deranged thoughts.
Jecht smiled a little, and moved Auron's hand up from his hips, resting it casually on his chest. "Not today, okay?"
"We don't have many tomorrows left for you to put this off to, Jecht," Auron hissed, but didn't replace his own hand. Instead, he grabbed Jecht's and, without a moment more hesitation—he might lose his nerve if he thought about it—he brought the hand down over the bulge in his slacks. Then, and only then, did he break his gaze from Jecht's, looking off to the side and blushing hotly.
Jecht stared at him, frozen by Auron's brash action, and then chuckled softly in Auron's ear. The hand covering his tightened a little, almost painfully, and his bent his own fingers with the pressure; Auron gasped lightly, his breath spreading to ruffle across the pillow.
"I ain't laughin' at you, kid," he whispered, moving his hand gently along the proffered prize. "Just wanna make sure . . . this isn't really a spur-of-the-moment thing, okay? Once I start goin'—."
"Don't treat me like a kid, Jecht," Auron demanded, though he still couldn't quite look at him. He shook a little under Jecht's subtle ministrations, and slowly forced himself to drag his gaze up to Jecht's face. His hips rose into the firm caress of Jecht's palm, and he wrapped his arms slowly around the older man's neck, drawing him down for a lingering kiss.
"Right, right," he murmured against full, kiss-bruised lips. His thumb caught on the waist of Auron's slacks, and he grasped there, tugging slowly downward. Auron lifted his hips obligingly, watching Jecht's slow movements through loosened wisps of his hair and thick, half-mast lashes.
He traced the twin scars on Jecht's face, making him start a little, and stared at the glossy skin for a long moment. Jecht covered Auron's hand with his own, hiding those scars, but simply displaying different ones.
"Well fuck," Jecht grumbled, leaning his head against Auron's chest. "You're just making me feel like one ugly son of a whore."
"You're not . . . ugly, Jecht," Auron said softly. Jecht snorted on his collarbone, and raised his head as he settled his palms on either side of Auron's face. Auron made an effort to kick his pants off of his ankles without upsetting the hot line of Jecht's body over his.
"Don't wax poetic, kid. It ain't your style."
"Don't call me kid, Jecht. It makes me think you like little boys." Jecht snorted a little, kissing Auron gently.
"Wow, a sense of humor? Imagine that."
"Hm. Weren't we planning on . . ." His hand skated down daringly, and pushed at Jecht's shorts, sliding them down slim hipbones. Jecht grinned against Auron's cheek, darting back to nip his earlobe gently.
"You're really okay with this, Auron?" He swallowed heavily, and nodded, a jerk of the chin that echoed the sudden tremors in his frame. Jecht smoothed a hand over his thigh gently, over his breastbone and his neck and shoulder.
There was a shuffle outside the tent, the quiet voice of a young woman calling to see if the tent was in fact empty or if they'd need anything or Auron knew not what, too distracted by Jecht's wandering hands. Jecht snapped something at her roughly when she got too insistently annoying, and Auron chuckled softly.
He managed to get Jecht's shorts off over his hips before he'd have to move. Jecht obligingly undressed himself the rest of the way, and casually settled over Auron, his skin fever hot and just as rough as his hands.
If Auron closed his eyes, he could rely more on touch, rather than sight, and that was a marvelous thing. Without sight, he could, for a moment, forget about the pilgrimage and their impending venture up Mt. Gagazet and down to the valley that housed Zanarkand. Without sight, he could forget that they lay in their last refuge before their final battle. Without sight . . .
Someone was outside the tent again, their presence more insistent and noticeable than the woman from before. Braska's voice was a quiet, heavy strain through the thick canvas. Auron started, and reached for his clothing; Jecht slammed a hand on his shoulder, and pinned him to the mattress.
"Where're you goin'?"
"Jecht," Auron whispered, his voice a little warning. He shook his head, and shoved at Jecht's shoulder roughly. "Let me up."
"He wasn't callin' you out, so you're gonna stay put and get what you've been askin' for." The sticky slide of Jecht against his thigh made him flush in embarrassed shame and push at Jecht's shoulder again. That hand stayed heavy on his shoulder, and those red eyes caught his worried, troubled gaze.
He demanded, "What's the big idea? You're the one so intent on gettin' me naked this time."
"Jecht . . . please."
It seemed to break the angry little trap Jecht had fallen into, but he still didn't let Auron up. He sat back on his heels and Auron's thighs, dragging him up with him. His hands skated down Auron's chest, landing unceremoniously in his lap and curling around his arousal.
Auron blushed, and tried to bend in on himself, muttering a complaint. Jecht kissed him, smothering his quiet rebuttals and encouraging the more favorable noises of their encounter; after a time, those willingly overpowered Auron's objections.
He lay there afterwards, spent and buzzing, quiet ministrations his only seeming link to the natural world as Jecht cleaned him dutifully. His face was a little sullen, and Auron spotted the obvious strain in the crouch of his shorts, which he'd replaced some time in Auron's haze. Making a plaintive little noise, he reached—.
Jecht batted his hand away, and nudged his clothes towards him as he stood and approached the hang of the tent, warm buttery light seeping through the break in the canvas there.
"Jecht," Auron breathed. He turned and looked back at him sourly, cocking a brow in half interest. Auron couldn't think of anything else; he said his name again, and got a sigh and up-turned red eyes in response.
Jecht left him then, without a word, and Auron dressed in confused and shattered silence.
This was it.
Mt. Gagazet was a towering pinnacle, its head in the clouds with cold winds flashing down its slopes to tease at the still warm air in the Calm Lands. The menacing holy mountain brought home the firm seriousness of the situation, making it sit like a heavy stone in Auron's gut as he craned his neck up and up to try and spot the summit.
This was it: the final leg before Zanarkand and the end of their pilgrimage.
Some small part of Auron reasoned that if he were going to stop the pilgrimage, now was his last chance. He smothered that voice beneath thick layers of guilt and ardent dedication, trying to bury its little insidious words of love more than its blasphemous idea.
The mountain made them quiet and solemn. Braska's eyes were not distant, but firm now. Perhaps, until they stood at the foot of that mountain, he too had been thinking of turning their procession around and disgracing himself as a summoner, just to live out his life with his daughter. Jecht was sullen and dedicated, his jaw set and his ideas on the entire situation surprisingly silent.
That worried Auron the most.
The Ronso of Gagazet supplied them with food for the last leg of their trip, some better weapons and various bottles of whatever they might need—Antidotes and Ethers and X-Potions.
The winds swirled dangerously, almost seeming to murmur encouraging words to pitch oneself over the precipice and to the ages-old tumbled and jagged rock below.
The first words Jecht spoke to him on Gagazet, as Braska wandered off with the sphere-recorder and a solemn face, only proved to make Auron's heckles rise. "Have you told him how you feel yet?" was the quiet demand, drawing Auron's startled glare. He stepped away from him, and stood before one of the memorials of a fallen summoner and their guardians.
Jecht persisted: "You have to tell him at some point."
"No, I don't. The time to have told him is long since passed." Jecht scoffed, crossed his arms over his chest, and frowned at Auron's stubbornness. He stepped passed him, and looked down over the side of the path; he cringed a little at the long tumble. Auron watched him. "Why do you want me to tell him?"
"Because it's tearing you apart." Auron watched Jecht's profile carefully, a small frown on his lips. Jecht slowly looked up at him, then up towards the summit and the too-blue sky beyond that. "I would've liked to have seen more of Spira."
"You could always turn around and go back," Auron pointed out brutally, gesturing back down the path. "What dedication do you have to Sin? Nothing. Your home has not been scarred, your family destroyed, your hopes and dreams—."
"I've gotta make sure you idiots get to Zanarkand, don't I?" Jecht whispered, his voice almost lost to the wind. Auron glared at him sharply, some insane part of him telling him to shove Jecht over the edge.
Jecht was watching Auron through the ruffle of his hair and the tail of his headband, his gaze slow and warm. He stepped back from the edge, and stood at Auron's shoulder, a hand gripping him just above the elbow. Over his shoulder, he could see Braska's return.
Jecht's voice was a quiet, husky murmur. "You have to tell him at some point. Saying goodbye after someone's dead is one thing. But you can't tell a ghost you love them."
He stepped around Auron, and started up on the path ahead of them, leaning into the wind.
Auron wondered if that, in Jecht's obscure fashion, was some sort of confession.