needing is one thing (getting's another)
FIC INFORMATION
Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Relationship: Basch van Gabranth/Sartauvoir quo Soranus
Character: Basch van Gabranth, Sartauvoir quo Soranus
Language: English
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2022
Published: 06/08/2022
Words: 2,036
written by: speperteristico for Salamander
"I need a contingent of mages to fight against the Dalmascans." van Gabranth said. "And I want you to lead it."Notes
"Plenty of knight-mages out there you could ask." Sartauvoir joked, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his tone. "Why me?"
See the end of the work for more notes
Sartauvoir smiled when he spotted a familiar armour walking through the fields.
"Still not giving up?" He shouted at the figure approaching, perching himself on the wooden fence that separated his shack from the fields he had been trying to cultivate.
"Why would I, professor," Sartauvoir couldn't help the snicker that escaped him. It was nice, for once, to hear the moniker be pronounced with as much disdain as he felt for it. The soldier marched on. "when I need you?"
This one had come unarmed, it seemed. No sword at the hip, no blade on his back; alone, too.
His face wasn't hidden by the usual helmet, and his hands were covered with leather gloves instead of gauntlets. He was either a very brave soldier or a very stupid one. Or, maybe -
Sartauvoir was curious to find out which one it was going to be.
"You need my power." Sartauvoir corrected, and conjured a small line of fire that circled around the soldier's feet. If he tried to get closer, the flames would grow higher and erect a wall. So far, this one had stayed still. "You don't need me. There's a difference, don't you think?"
The man, unexpectedly, knelt, and calmly patted the flames around him, extinguishing them. Smart move - stomping over them with his boots would have only fanned them.
Sartauvoir whistled; it was the first time someone figured out the trick, and he was impressed. But then again, the man wasn't just a common soldier, wasn't he?
"No."
"No?" Sartauvoir echoed, curious. He got off the fence, and grasped at the thick aether surrounding them until he was standing on the line of burnt terrain. This close, he could see that the armour had been forged specifically to fit the man in front of him. A legatus, then. Not many high-ranking officers would have faced him, not to mention alone. And not a simple legatus, at that, but it had to be the famed van Gabranth. Who else, if not him? He had been courting Sartauvoir for so long, it was finally time he either gave up or showed up in person.
"No." van Gabranth repeated, and Sartauvoir found himself wanting to see how far he could push him. It had been quite a long time since he had a worthy adversary, after all; it was going to be fun.
"Is this what you need, then?" Sartauvoir didn't take his eyes off van Gabranth's armour plate as he let the flames engulf himself completely, attuning all of his aether to the fire. He liked the way the brass steel reflected the bright red hue of his magicks. "A walking hazard?"
"I need a contingent of mages to fight against the Dalmascans." van Gabranth said, just like many of his soldiers had done when they'd come pleading him for help. Van Gabranth wasn't pleading, though. "And I want you to lead it."
"Plenty of knight-mages out there you could ask." Sartauvoir joked, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his tone. "Why me?"
Van Gabranth crossed the line of burnt terrain that stood between them and grabbed Sartauvoir's chin, forcing him to look the legatus in the eyes. Sartauvoir wondered if he could burn himself onto the legatus' retinas.
"I need you, pyromancer." van Gabranth said, again, and Sartauvoir considered letting his flames roam free from where the legatus was caressing them. It would have been a child's play to engulf his fingers and spread further: to his arm, to his face, to his body; he could have melted the armour and the body beneath it if so he wished. But there was something in the way the legatus had acted; not mere bravado, for it wouldn't befit a man of his rank - but like, Sartauvoir realised, he knew that he wouldn't get burned.
Like he trusted him.
Thing is: there were no calculated risks when playing with fire. Sartauvoir had come to learn that lesson the hard way and he ought to teach van Gabranth that. Or, at the very least, remind him.
So Sartauvoir stared at him as he shifted, his aether thrumming happily as he let it succumb to the alluring call of flames. "Do you need this, legatus?" Sartauvoir asked, once again, as he took the mantle of Living Flame. "Do you want this, legatus?" He repeated, when van Gabranth didn't answer. "Do you not fear the flames," Sartauvoir wondered, when he realised that the gloved hand was still on his chin, thumb ghosting over his lips. "Basch?"
Van Gabranth did flinch, then. Was it the smell of charred leather that woke him up from his reverie? Or -
"Answer me, Basch."
Now that he was towering over the legatus, Sartauvoir could observe him better. He would have otherwise missed the way his eyelashes - blonde, almost white in the light - fluttered when Sartauvoir had roared his birth name for the second time. It would have been a shame.
"I respect them."
Sartauvoir scraped the thumb with his teeth as he spoke. He considered biting it. "That does not answer my question."
Van Gabranth had the kind of face that looked beautiful under the ever-shifting light of a flame; the scars and the lines that came not from the battle but from the age were casting shadows now in a direction, now in the other - but no matter what, his resolute expression never faltered.
It was, Sartauvoir reckoned, the kind of face he wouldn't mind finding in the mirror, one day, thirty years down the line, when he'd get to be as old as the legatus.
Still, Sartauvoir was never one for quiet contemplation. "Answer me, I said." He urged.
Van Gabranth remained silent, but he shifted his hand just a little and put his lip together, blowing a gentle gust of air close to Sartauvoir's own. It was enough to make the flames swing a little. "I would stroke your flames."
"And yet," Sartauvoir roared, not bothering to move his face apart from the legatus', and the leather of van Gabranth's glove yielded to the heat and cracked before it turned to dust. "you come in the name of the Empire that extinguished this very flame, legatus."
"Have I not come alone?" van Gabranth pointed out. "Have I not answered your question?"
"You do not fear me, but -"
"Are you not your flames, Sartauvoir?" The tables had been turned. It was Sartauvoir who felt himself grow hazy when van Gabranth called him by his name. He had not anticipated that, nor that the words the legatus spoke would trouble him so. "I am asking not as a legatus, but as a man. I can't reforge the battlefield without a fire. Let's set the field aflame, together."
The life on the farm had been mundane, if not downright boring. Research was useless, a mere way to pass the time, if he couldn't apply the knowledge on the battlefield.
Once the option of joining the fray once again was on the horizon, he felt an itch in his fingers. Abandoning the ways of the knight-mages of Mannatheihwo to become the fire that would temper Basch van Gabranth's steel was better than wasting away in the countryside.
"And how would you fan the flames?"
Van Gabranth had closed his eyes, and his now ungloved hand had drifted lower, from Sartauvoir's chin to his sternum. His fingers were tapping along to the crackling of the fire.
"I would train you myself, to start. Your magic is unparalleled, but your melee technique could be improved, I believe. You think yourself untouchable, protected by your flames. But that makes you overconfident,"
Bold words, Sartauvoir thought, for a man that has come to face me unharmed.
"and, most importantly, vulnerable." He grabbed Sartauvoir's neck and brought them even closer, their lips now brushing, before pushing him back with such strength the flames waned when Sartauvoir's back hit the terrain.
Basch had fallen right with him; his armed thighs were bracketing Sartauvoir's hips. With the gloved hand, he cradled Sartauvoir's head, as to protect him from hitting it during the fall, while his bare fingers kept on tapping a quick rhythm on his chest.
"I would do this, also." He announced, before dripping down to kissing Sartauvoir's mouth, and then his neck, his shoulders, his chest. "Would you join me, Sartauvoir?"
"I am yours," to command, Sartauvoir had meant to say, but the last part was swallowed by the whimper that escaped him as his aether struggled keeping the attunement to the fire. It was hard to think with the way Basch was mouthing a trail of kisses over his robes, down to the inside of his thighs.
Basch van Gabranth crawled his way back, and Sartauvoir could not take his eyes away from the way Basch's imperial armour reflected the light of his flames, painting them both in flickering shades of gold and magenta.
"As I am yours." van Gabranth announced, pulling back and putting his ungloved hand in front of Sartauvoir's face. There was a small burn running through the palm, nothing that could hinder the legatus in battle, but there it was, nonetheless, a trace of this encounter permanently etched into Basch's skin. Sartauvoir kissed it, and when he caught sight of the way Basch's lips trembled at the gesture, he let the flames that were still enshrouding him dissipate.
Sartauvoir lapped at the scar with the underside of his tongue and pecked each calloused fingertip before wrapping his mouth around them, teeth scraping the knuckles of van Gabranth's battle-worn hand. He wondered if Basch's cock would sit just as well in his mouth or if it would be too big for Sartauvoir to swallow comfortably; would Basch have to help him keeping his jaw open?
"I believe it's wet enough, don't you think?" van Gabranth pulled back the hand unexpectedly, and Sartauvoir whined at the sudden lack of weight on his tongue; he whined again when van Gabranth shoved it under Sartauvoir's pants and wrapped the soaked fingers around his cock before starting to stroke it. When the scarred skin caressed the head of his cock, Sartauvoir almost came - he tried to bite his own fist to keep himself from spilling too early, but van Gabranth intercepted the motion and put his own gloved fingers in Sartauvoir's mouth instead. The texture was different; smoother, cooler. They felt heavier, too. Like a sheathed cock, Sartauvoir thought, and the idea of taking Basch in his mouth was enough to make him come.
Van Gabranth pulled away slowly, fingers dipping teasingly behind Sartauvoir's balls before he raised his hand in the air and cocked his head to the left.
"You are quick on the uptake, pyromancer." Basch said, when Sartauvoir undid the laces on his pants for him. "I wouldn't have expected anything less from a knight of your calibre."
Basch's cock was thicker than Sartauvoir had imagined; he wanted to feel it in his hand, to trace the veins covering the length with his own fingertips and to tease the leaking slit with his thumb.
Instead, Basch wrapped the same hand that was covered in Sartauvoir's own spent around it and started jerking himself off to the same unrelenting rhythm he was pushing his fingers in and out of Sartauvoir's mouth.
As Basch came, he bent down to suck a bite or two on Sartauvoir's neck, beard scratching the delicate skin. To think that van Gabranth had managed to burn fire itself! Sartauvoir's cock twitched at the delicious irony of it all.
"I assume you'll follow me to our base, yes?" van Gabranth asked when he had sprung back to his feet, mumbling something about his legs starting to cramp.
Sartauvoir still sat on the ground. He found the sight of the legatus towering over him interesting. "Dunno, ser. Are all training exercises going to be like this?"
Van Gabranth stared down at him with an indecipherable expression. "No."
"No?"
Basch caressed Sartauvoir's face, wiping away a stain of saliva from Sartauvoir's chin. "Even better."
Sartauvoir let out a laugh and rested his head against Basch's leg. "I can't very well refuse an offer such as this, can I?"
"Then let's get going, my flame."
