A Love on the Sidelines
By: 4quintessence
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Square Enix, the fanfiction to me.
Pairing: CliffxFayt
Rating: PG-13
Summary: More delays on the journey to save Sophia in Greeton! Fayt, Cliff, Nel, Albel, Mirage, and Maria stumble upon an 'interesting' village in the middle of the jungle. The leader asks for their help in return for pointing them to Granada. Fayt and Cliff pick up two new companions for the trip and then celebrate with a festive bonfire.
Shout Outs - Zel: Yay! I'm so glad u like my lemons. That waterfall scene was in my mind for a long time and I finally got to write it out in all its glory. Sorry for pushing the revealing of the 'visions' to next ch., I gotta do this village idea I got before they get to Granada! OMG u want me to torture Sophia!? LOL hmm ill think about it :D AFI is my favourite band btw. 'Silver and Cold' & 'Love Like Winter' are their best songs. That's pretty funny about your granddad driving the wrong way in Spain!! haha he was way off! Is there a Star Ocean TTET manga in english?? i saw that on your profile page. Spectral: How's it going? Hope you like this chapter and can't wait for your next review. Blackdragon3: Thanks for adding my story to your alert list! Feel free to review I'd love to hear from u.
Chapter 13 (for fun this ch. is from Cliff's perspective):
Fayt and Cliff met up with Albel and Nel and they walked together through the jungle to the village that Maria and Mirage had stumbled upon. As they stepped out of the shadows of the trees they came to a serene riverbank surrounded by an open area scattered with huts made of wood and straw. Young men were standing in the water or sitting on the river's edge fishing and chatting with each other. There were some horses, goats, and chickens running around the place and male children were kicking a ball to and fro while some older chaps were lying in hammocks enjoying the warmth of the sun.
Cliff noticed something strange though. All the villagers were men. Not that he had a problem with that. In fact some of them were damn hot.
It seemed as if everyone was wearing loincloths and nothing else — no shirts, no shoes, a bit of body paint on the chests of several of the men. Most of them were nicely toned and in shape from all the work they likely had to do gathering food and toiling around camp. From what the blond could see, none of them seemed to have long hair though, which was bizarre considering it didn't look like they had scissors or any sort of modern technology. How can there be a place like this so close to the technological superpower of Greeton? he pondered. Fayt was looking rather happy, his eyes bubbling with awe and disbelief.
"Cliff, I think I've stumbled into my dreams…" the bluenette joked breathily, squeezing the other's hand.
"No kiddin'. Whaddya think of that guy over there?" the Klausian asked, pointing to a handsome man by the river.
"Hot….Oh, stop looking! He sees us...Okay now he's bending over to pick something up...and yup, that loincloth's a little too short there."
Cliff burst out laughing and slapped the bluenette on his back. They noticed that Maria and Mirage were just over the way talking to a man holding a staff near the largest hut. Fayt rushed ahead to greet them. The blond continued chuckling to himself as his lover was walking a little lopsided...obviously sore from the hot sex they had just had under the waterfall. And Albel was snickering behind Cliff as he noticed the blond was walking rather funny as well: God, I don't even want to think about what they just did...
The group converged on Maria and Mirage.
"Hey guys, you made it," the female Klausian said, staring at Fayt as he walked like he was limping up to her.
Maria gestured to the man standing beside her. "I want to introduce everyone to Braedon, the leader of this village they call Wizaria."
The man bowed to the party. He had dark blond hair and his eyes immediately caught Cliff's attention. The left one was navy blue and the right one was forest green. He was wearing a sparkling necklace made of white jewels and a round pendant hung from the middle that seemed to contain a purple mist that made the blond's eyes go blurry when he looked at it.
"Welcome to our home. Maria here has told me about your journey and that you are from far away from here. Let us go into my house and we can discuss how I can be of help," Braedon offered, casually scratching the painting of a roaring lion on his chest.
"First things first Mr. Leader," Cliff said as he interlocked his fingers behind his neck. "Why am I seeing only men in this village?"
The chief motioned around to all the villagers with his staff. "It has always been this way, far back to the time of our ancestors. We never knew there were such thing as 'women' until a while ago when people from Granada found our home deep within this jungle."
"Huh, is that so...one more question then. Uhh, how do you reproduce?"
Fayt glared at Cliff, royally peeved at his nosiness.
Braedon waved his hand and pointed the crew towards his hut. "I'm sorry but we cannot reveal that secret to you. You must understand. Certain knowledge is sacred to Wizaria."
The blond stood there scratching his head as some wacky theories ran through his mind. Mirage and Maria had already gone into the house when all of a sudden four men in their twenties emerged from different huts and with jaws dropped approached Albel and Nel. Whispering to each other and pointing, they came up to the two and walked around them, looking them over. "Come with us," they beckoned to the Elicoorians. Before they could answer, one of the men had disarmed the two and then the others dragged them into their huts.
"Do not worry my friends," Braedon promised. "They will welcome them and treat them well. Let's go."
Fayt looked anxiously at his crewmates as they were being taken away, their faces a muddy bog of bewilderment. Cliff chuckled and urged the bluenette ahead. "Have fun you two! Be nice to our hosts."
The couple went into the main hut and sat down at the dinner table on a bench beside the other girls. "See Fayt," Maria whispered to him, "I told you you'd like this place," she said grinning. "Hell I like this place." Hearing their conversation, Cliff went and sat down between them.
"Well let's get right to it then," Braedon began. "We have no problem helping you find the way to Granada but I must ask something of you in return. I know you are warriors from what you travel with and I have seen the runes on that man with the red hair outside."
"MAN!?" Fayt shouted as the others suppressed their explosion of laughter. "Chief, that is a woman and her name is Nel. She is from Aquaria."
"Oh, I'm so sorry! I was confused. You see we figure that if visitors have short hair they are male and if they have long hair they are female. So I guess that woman outside with the bleached hair and artificial arm isn't actually a woman then?"
Cliff laughed so hard he started to cry. "Oh man, you just made my day," he finally managed. "No I'm assured that bastard is a man. Fayt can bear witness to that right?" he said, nudging him in the side.
Fayt glared at him through squinted eyes before kicking the blond's leg under the table. Maria and Mirage stared inquisitively at the two until they remembered the night Cliff was referring to.
"Okay then," Braedon continued, "You see Granada is threatening to take over our village and we need a way to defend ourselves against them. There is a temple nearby that contains the power of Ultima magic that our ancestors built if we ever needed it for our defence. But a monster has taken up residence there and we can't get in to reach the spell. Most of us are mages you see. We use simple magic to help with our survival."
Fayt raised his hand to his chin and started rubbing his afternoon stubble. "So you want us to get rid of this creature? What is this Ultima magic?"
"It is the strongest spell ever known. It is a sphere of destruction. It can focus on something very small or expand to engulf an entire town. If you help us I will allow you to use it on your journey. We won't actually use it on Greeton — the threat of having it is enough for them to back off."
"That could really help us out, Fayt," Mirage said, bending her head down to look past the others at him, her hair touching the table. "We don't know what we're up against in Granada."
Cliff thought otherwise and glanced at Fayt out of the corner of his eyes. "Kid, I think we should stay out of this. We can find our own way there. Shouldn't we be going as soon as possible? For Sophia's sake?"
Fayt chuckled. "Says you who didn't mind our little fling by the waterfall. No we're gonna help them. If we don't they might be completely wiped out or assimilated into Granada's culture. It's amazing there is still a place like this. Since we aren't actually sharing any of our technology, I don't see the problem."
The blond rolled his eyes and shook his head as he looked around the room. Surprisingly, he then decided to respond: "Okay Fayt that's probably the right thing to do."
Fayt stared intently at his sweetheart with one eyebrow lifted in shock. But within a few seconds he flashed an immense smile and reached an arm lovingly around Cliff's back.
-------------------------------------------
They were soon trampling down a path in the rainforest on the way to the temple. The group had decided to leave Nel and Albel behind since apparently the villagers were having a lot of fun with them. A few men were tagging along to accompany the party to their destination. Cliff struck up conversation with one of them and found out that he was also trained in fighting with his fists. He had some trouble though focusing his eyes on the other's because they kept wandering downwards. Fayt decided to talk to one of them too when he saw Cliff doing it, and this young man was full of wonder over what Fayt's home was like. Maria, for her part, was determined to discover how they reproduced before leaving the village, but so far was having no luck. Mirage was walking with Braedon and they were laughing over something.
As they approached the stone doorway of the step temple — which was entangled in vines — Cliff marvelled at the beams of light that streamed through the woods like it often does through clouds on an unsettled day. Oh man I wanna take off my shirt it's so hot…
Up ahead though he spotted the monster stomping through the shadows towards them. It was a giant stone beast with a massive club in one hand. Where the hell did that come from? I'm gonna blame it on Roger. This whole mess is his fault. Remember to give him a beating later, Lord Cliff.
The villagers stood back and let the group rush ahead towards the creature. They tried to help by shooting basic fire spells at the beast from a distance. Cliff adjusted the gauntlet that went up his left arm and charged in first like he was invincible. Which of course he believed he was.
The battle didn't last long as the monster was no match for the well-travelled foursome. Cliff and Fayt attacked together, the former using Sphere of Might and Hammer of Might by raising his hands into the air to form an orb of vicious magic that sent its noise and luminosity roaring to the jungle's depths. His fists finally battered the beast soon after. The bluenette shot up effortlessly towards the treetops for Air Raid, and after crashing down he ran right back at the thing to finish his combination with Blade of Fury, shouting loudly for everyone to watch out for the swinging club. In a blinding blast, Mirage critically injured the creature with Triple Kicks to its weak joint areas and Maria shattered it to smithereens with an icy detonation from her gun.
"Wow you truly are something," Braedon exclaimed to the victors.
Maria blew the frosty mist off the end of her gun. "I know."
The other young men came up and were chattering profusely with the party, impressed with their fancy moves. Braedon proceeded to walk up to the temple entrance and Cliff saw the strange pendant on his neck glow with the light of the fireflies as the stone door slowly slid aside. Everyone ran down the hallway to the centre of the temple and a pedestal soon became visible within a dim chamber where water dripped down between cracks in the old stone walls. They all stopped and stared at Ultima. Its essence was contained within a violet crystal sitting there in front of them, surrounded by engravings of lions that spread out around the room like the longitude lines of a globe.
"I must thank you very much for helping us get back into the temple. Now that we have this our village will be safe. And as I promised I will share its power with you for your long journey and I trust you will use it well."
As the chief motioned towards Fayt, the bluenette turned to look at his boyfriend. "Cliff, I want you to take it. I'm afraid to have that sort of power. You should hold onto it."
"Sure, whatever lessens the load on yer mind." The blond stepped up to Braedon who touched the crystal with one hand and had Cliff touch the pendent on his necklace. As his index finger made contact with the sphere of purple mist, he felt a warm tingling sensation bathe his body like he had fallen into a splendid hot spring.
"Cliff," Mirage piped up as the magic transfer ended, "You do know that no magic is allowed when we duel so you're still going to lose badly to me. As you do pretty much every time." She was trying to keep a straight face as he jerked his head to give her the evil eye.
"SHUDDUP! I thought ya said we weren't gonna tell anyone what the score between us was! Now Fayt's gonna think I'm a wuss."
"But you are Cliff. You always let Mirage boss you around," Maria teased, flipping her hair to the side.
"He isn't a wuss in bed!" Fayt shouted loudly, feeling the sudden urge to passionately defend his lover.
"Atta boy Fayt, you tell 'em!"
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When they arrived back to Wizaria it was early evening and the sky had darkened even though the jungle heat hadn't abated one bit. Braedon had insisted they take a look around the little marketplace in the village to pick out any animal they wanted as a token of his appreciation. Fayt had expressed his excitement about bringing a pet along for the journey since he had left his dog back home on Earth. Cliff had never had a pet before but admitted that he was interested in getting one and he definitely wanted to go along with whatever made Fayt happy.
They strolled through the marketplace holding hands and looking at the different animals. There were parrots, monkeys, cats, ducks, and ferrets. Cliff was fascinated by the ferrets.
"Look at these things! They're so long and so soft…" the Klausian said, stroking one of them as it squeaked cheerfully. The vendor explained that the two ferrets he had were brother and sister and that they could understand simple commands like 'go fetch' something. They had cute little rounded ears that stuck up by themselves and adorable faces with a dark stripe across the eyes, similar to a raccoon. For Fayt it was love at first sight.
"Aww Cliff they're perfect! Look they really like you. They're snuggling up against your hand. I can carry them in my bag if they get tired from walking. Let's get them!" The bluenette picked one up and fondled its little black feet. "Say hi to your new daddy!"
The blond snorted and told the merchant they'd take them. "So I guess that makes me the mommy, huh?"
"That's the idea! You've got the boobs. So what should we call them? Hold on, it's coming to me...COCO AND LOCO! You can carry Loco, 'cause your crazy," Fayt joked, passing Loco to Cliff.
"HAHA! Awesome. And you can carry Coco, which I assume is short for coconut, cause yer definitely a nut."
Fayt smacked Cliff in the shoulder before they continued on. The couple walked back to Braedon's hut with the ferrets curled up in their arms, their heads poking out to watch the bustling village pass them by. In the central area surrounded by huts someone had started a roaring bonfire so they went and sat down in front of it with Braedon.
Mirage and Maria were off looking for Nel and Albel. Mirage peeked into one of the homes nearby and was greeted by the unexpected sight of two hot men having sex. She quickly closed the drape over the door, paused for a moment, and then peeped back in again. They didn't notice her so she figured she'd have a little look-see. And who can blame her.
Braedon explained to Cliff and Fayt that the villagers were going to put on a ritual ceremony for them with lots of dancing and singing around the bonfire. Men of all ages were arriving from different areas of the camp to join the growing crowd around the central square. It was completely dark now and the fire crackled and sputtered as it lit up the faces of the observers with an orange glow.
Just as Maria and Mirage returned empty-handed from their search, Nel and Albel became visible in the light of the flames, surrounded by a flock of flirtatious young men. Cliff wasn't sure if he could laugh any harder than when Braedon had mistaken Albel for a girl, but what followed came close. The villagers had drawn a moustache and beard on Nel's face and painted red lion symbols on her cheeks and arms. She was in a loincloth and a simple shirt, obviously because she would have killed them if they made her go topless like a man. Albel, on the other hand, was dressed in just a short skirt, apart from a bikini top they had scrounged up with some pink cloth. His hair was gathered into two pigtails that stuck out on each side of his head like an unfashionable schoolgirl. Cliff and Fayt fell off the logs they were sitting on in hysterics and almost squashed their new pets in the process.
The strange part was that Albel didn't seem angry at all, in fact he looked rather pleased with himself. I wonder what they were doing all that time...ahhh, maybe he gotta little somethin' somethin' in return, Cliff pondered as he finally got up off the ground and helped Fayt back up. Nel looked truly pissed off but it was obvious that she didn't want to offend the villagers by not playing along with the ceremony.
A group of guys wearing a band of parrot feathers on their heads got up from their seats and began to dance around the fireplace as the sound of drums started echoing through the night. Cliff noticed something oddly familiar about the things they were wearing over their noses as part of the costume…
"Hey Braedon, is that what I think it is?"
"Yes, my friend. The penis is sacred to our people and to our way of life."
"Huh," the Klausian replied, not sure whether to laugh or not. It looked pretty funny watching the dancers with these pretend penises flopping around over their noses as they hopped about.
"Do you two want to join in? You'll have to change first."
Fayt nodded up at Cliff and they snuck into the main hut and came back out in sexy brown loincloths. After giving Coco and Loco some food to munch on under the watchful eye of Braedon, the couple joined the celebration as more and more residents jumped to their feet to dance among the others. Nel and Albel were trying to follow the moves of the main dancers while Mirage and Maria were content to just watch.
Fayt and Cliff danced spiritedly in the circle of revellers around the fire for a while before breaking off and just holding each other while swaying back and forth within the crowd. The blond embraced Fayt from behind as they watched the grand spectacle surrounding them. It felt so good to have someone to hold onto, someone so lean and beautiful that fit perfectly within his grasp. His muscular arms brushed lightly over the bluenette's bony shoulders and smooth chest like a gentle summer breeze. Here, at nirvana's doorstep, Cliff was cuddling the only person he ever needed — his guiding light in the darkness, his shining star in the abyss of space.
Wherever he looked, the Klausian saw flashes of colour that flickered on smiling faces as they heaved up and down like a sunset on a stormy sea hit by the winds of gaiety. A peculiar fusion of smells filled his nostrils: a bit of tropical flower fragrance, some musky burning wood, and the pleasantly salty scent of sweat. His euphoria was abruptly interrupted by an urgent voice that spoke to him out of nowhere: "What the fuck are you doing? Why are you taking so long? Get to Granada pronto if you want to figure out what all those visions are about!"
The bluenette turned to Cliff just as the voice faded. He pressed his hands to his lover's bulky pecs and watched as the firelight shimmied over the curves of his body. They looked into each others eyes and saw the confusion swirling within them…
"Did you hear that too?!" they both exclaimed at the same time.
TO BE CONTINUED!
(A/N: Yes, Cliff calls himself 'Lord Cliff' in his thoughts :D)