Our Love to Admire – Admissions
Balthier/Ashe, PG-13
Inspired by: All Fired Up, from Our Love to Admire; Unfinished Business, from Battlestar Galactica
I am astride you with desire
The fault line, no crutch, no stall
I can bind you with no ties
-All Fired Up, from Our Love to Admire
"We're the worst mark hunters in history," she mutters, tugging the blanket away and over herself.
He laughs and tugs back. "Now, now. Sometimes they get away from the very best of us." He presses a quick kiss to her sweaty shoulder, relishing the feel of her warm skin against his own.
"Is that what you plan to tell Basch?" she inquires. "That it simply got away?"
"That would be the plan," he explains. No need to tell the good Captain that pursuing the mark was just the excuse he used to get her away from the others for a night.
Ashe sighs and elbows him. "He is not as easily fooled as you may think, Balthier. He knows precisely what we're up to."
"How? How could he know?" Shoving the blanket down a bit, he moves her onto her back once more and lets his fingers splay across the pale skin of her stomach. It is dark inside their tent on the Steppe and rather chilly, but she allows it.
She rests her own hand atop his, entwining her fingers with his. "Because he was not born yesterday. And it's not as if you were very subtle about it."
"All I said was…"
"…the Princess and I will hunt it in the north of the Steppe. You and Vaan take the south."
He chuckles. "And how does that remotely imply that I had other intentions?" He can sense that she is rolling her eyes. "Come now, we make a good team!"
She fumbles in the dark for his face and pulls him down to her. She kisses him until she is satisfied. "Not for mark hunting. We didn't even try." That was true. He'd somehow convinced her to spend her day with him out of the sun. They needed a bit of a break, at least mentally. "When we return, Basch will check your gun when you're sleeping to see if it's even been fired."
"He wouldn't dare touch my effects!"
"He would dare."
"Fine." He throws the blanket off the both of them and stumbles around in the dark for his gun. "This is for Basch then! For him and his perverted and undoubtedly correct suspicions!"
Throwing the tent flap open, the night air is positively freezing but he reminds himself that he has something warm to return to. He can hear her shouting at him from inside. "If you shoot yourself or attract the attention of beasts, I am not helping!"
He aims at the nothing in the distance and fires off a shot. "Basch fon Ronsenburg!" he screams, feeling the chill and wishing he'd thought to at least put on his trousers before running out into the dark. "There's something I want you to know!"
"Balthier!" he hears Ashe screaming again. "You're going to freeze to death, you stupid pirate!"
"Basch!" he cries again, wondering just how far his voice will carry in the night. "There is a beauty mark at the very top of the Lady Ashe's hip!" He fires off another shot. "Don't you want to know how I could possibly…"
She's beside him then, pulling on his arm. "Stop that, someone will hear you!"
He shouts as loud as he possibly can, so loud that it physically hurts to do so. "I don't care who hears how much I enjoy ravishing you!"
"Balthier!"
Even with the cold air on his skin, he feels a rush of adrenaline. These are things he wouldn't dare say in broad daylight, especially not in Basch's presence, but he knows them to be true. He rubs her arms to try and warm her. "The woman who would stand against an Empire is afraid? I'm not stopping until you give Basch a shout."
She complains once more, but her heart isn't in it. There's humor in her voice now that he so rarely gets to hear. "Balthier, stop!"
"Well, you're not shouting, Princess, so I have to keep informing the world, lest they continue to live in ignorance." He cups his hand over his mouth and shouts once more. "The sky pirate Balthier, the most infamous rogue and ladykiller has finally met his match! Furthermore…"
"Fine!" she seethes through gritted teeth. She shoves his hands away and closes her eyes. "Basch! I like…" she begins, her voice cracking and not very loud. He's known her to yell at him at a much higher volume when in mixed company. She's holding out on him. He laughs at her, and she scowls. "I, the Lady Ashe of Dalmasca…"
"Go on," he cheers her. He would jump up and down like a boy if he could. He feels as though he's been seized by an uncontrollable power, as if the stars above can absorb all of his secrets and keep them safe. These are things that neither can admit in the company of their companions, but saying them has already brought him happiness.
Her voice rings out loud and clear. "I, the Lady Ashe of Dalmasca, have been unwittingly trapped…"
"Unwittingly trapped?" he teases.
"I willfully and purposefully enjoy the amorous attentions of a sky pirate!" she cries finally, and he watches a goofy smile emerge on her face. But she masks it quickly as she realizes what she's actually admitted, although to no one in particular.
He grins and lowers the gun. "Well, the secret's out, and the gun has been fired." She is hopping from foot to foot and clutching her arms about her body, and he can almost feel her embarrassment. "It's damn cold! Why are you keeping me out here, Princess?"
Ashe pushes him back into the tent, taking the gun from his hands and setting it down. "Are you happy now? Have you made enough of a fool of yourself?"
He still feels this strange giddiness. "Am I a fool for shouting to the world what I know to be true?"
She lies back down and groans. "Yes."
He's still a bit cold, but that's nothing she can't fix. "Then let me be a fool." He knows his touch must be like ice, and she whimpers in annoyance as he joins her on the ground once more. His fingers are in her hair, on her face, on whatever he can grasp. Her lips are warm, and she keeps him there, refusing to let him ramble any further or shout more secrets to Basch. Perhaps one of them would shout something neither is yet ready to voice out loud. He lets his thumb brush along the beauty mark he announced to the night, enjoying the feeling of her beneath him and around him. Willfully and purposefully.