Chapter Text
Aymeric’s hunts are easier with Estinien by his side—a local boy who knows every hillside and every creek and is fierce enough to slaughter anything that otherwise might try to make a meal of them.
Their togetherness becomes habitual, repeated until guilt no longer haunts Aymeric as they stalk the dark-shrouded winter woods together. Hunting becomes his favorite occasion, better even than feast days or folk celebrations. Whether it’s making a kill to sate Aymeric’s hunger or picking off prowling voidsent and scalekin together, the night always ends the same: falling to the forest ground to lie together, Estinien largely unbothered by the winter chill and Aymeric numb to it.
Never had Aymeric imagined himself cultivating a relationship at all, much less a physical one. And as a lord’s son—one of the clergy, at that—he had certainly never pictured himself naked and mounted in the middle of the woods at midnight, his knees cushioned by moss and dead leaves.
The moon’s patterns take on new interest for him, the lunar rhythm a shaping hand in their relationship. For three nights each cycle, Estinien retreats deeper into the alpine woods to weather his transformation alone. It is the longest they go without seeing each other.
Those empty nights are spent on practical matters and housekeeping, like stitching tears in clothing or mending the books he lends out to all of Ferndale. He’s also become something of the village go-to for penning contracts, wills, and formal letters, so there is always some work at hand to keep him busy.
Tonight, Aymeric whiles away his waking hours writing home and scratching down notes for future homilies. The solitude and the soft scratching of his pen is soothing in its own way. Aymeric loses himself in his thoughts…
Until a strange feeling comes over him, the hairs on his nape rising. Ink begins to blot under the tip of his pen, his hand frozen still. He is no stranger to being watched. Of late, it’s even become a comfort.
The slow scrape of a sharp edge against glass draws his ear. With trepidation, Aymeric’s gaze slides over to the window across the room, fearful of what sort of Dravanian spawn might have found its way past Estinien in his full wolf state.
He is met with a pair of large, predatory eyes looking in. Aymeric startles up and out of his chair, now frightened for an entirely different set of reasons. He remembers too well the way his bones had ground together as those jaws squeezed tight around his shoulder. He knows how Ferndale would erupt if it witnessed a loup-garou within the bounds of their little village.
“Estinien?”
Paralyzed, Aymeric watches as white ears and a long snout appear alongside the almost-glowing eyes, Estinien’s head looming close to the windowpane.
When the loup-garou presses his nose firmly to the glass, upper lip drawn up to reveal gums and pearly teeth, the tension in Aymeric snaps like a thread.
He hurries to the window. “Estinien, why are you here? Are you… yourself in there? Can you hear me? Are you hurt?”
Aymeric had forgotten just how enormous Estinien’s wolf shape is. Risen up on his hindlegs, the pads of clawed hands pressed to the window, he must stand eight fulms tall.
His jaw drops open and his tongue lolls out, more a picture of a friendly pet than a cursed creature. His panting breath fogs the window and yet… his eyes, so keen and so vivid, peer through the haze and into Aymeric with a single-minded fixation.
If he really wished to come in, he could no doubt break the glass and force himself through the opening. That he waits outside is a reassurance that Estinien has some measure of control and presence of mind, even if his baser instincts may war with him. And if he’s come here, it must mean he has enough recollection to know Aymeric is no meal or voidsent foe… or so Aymeric hopes.
“Someone will see you, Estinien, and you’re too big to come indoors! Run along home.”
The moon is bright tonight and such pale fur is easy to spot. The last thing they need is for Ser Gabriele and Ser Jacques to make an impromptu round of the village and spy a loup-garou sniffing around the church.
With an anxious sigh, Aymeric moves to the back door attached to the mudroom and unlocks it. If he can lure Estinien away from the village-facing side of the cottage, he’ll be more likely to go unnoticed.
Tentatively, Aymeric peeks out and takes the first step. He keeps one hand on the doorknob and tries to ignore the throb in his shoulder, where the scars of wolfish teeth lay. It’s merely the shade of past pain, a flickering ghost conjured by his nervous mind.
“Estinien?”
Barefoot and clad in just a thin, wispy nightshirt—looking rather ghostly himself—Aymeric descends another stair step and glances around. Even though he very well knew what sat waiting outside for him, he still leaps from his skin as Estinien rounds the corner, hunched on all fours.
He stifles a cry as a long snout lined with wicked teeth lunges toward him, the mass and momentum toppling him from the steps and barreling him down to the snow-covered earth.
Aymeric is immediately assaulted with lashes of a long, wet tongue, his face scrunched tight against the coating of saliva left behind. Trying to push Estinien’s furred head away only results in wet, sticky hands and argumentative little noises as this fearsome loup-garou mouths at his fingers.
“Listen to me,” Aymeric says, finally managing to clasp both hands around the breadth of Estinien’s snout. Those tufted ears twitch back for a moment, but he doesn’t move to break from Aymeric’s hold. “As much as I love your company, it is not safe here. If you want to see me so badly, I can come to you after the full moon is done.”
He spies the swish of a long, almost fluffy tail from the periphery of his vision and sighs. There is relief in being recognized and in the affection of this unexpected greeting. Feeling brave enough to slide his fingers into the dense mane of fur around Estinien’s neck, Aymeric scratches under his lover’s long jaw and down his throat.
He has not seen Estinien like this ever since that bite, half-fearing that the man simply sees him differently through his wolf eyes—as more nightkin than Aymeric, the void scent on him overpowering Estinien’s other senses. Estinien has steered clear of him as well, either worried by the sway of his animal instincts or simply mirroring Aymeric’s own apprehension.
“What got into you, coming here like this?” he wonders, nose wrinkling when Estinien answers by licking at his chin.
Aymeric lets his loup-garou linger for a minute longer, indulging Estinien’s loud sniffing at his hair and nightshirt. When the full moon approaches, Estinien likes to borrow Aymeric’s spare sheets or sleep clothes; the familiar scent comforts him, he said, when his mind is not all there. Now, Aymeric wonders if that scent is what lured Estinien back here, heedless of being caught.
“You are so much sweeter than I thought you’d be like this. But for your own good and mine, you really must go,” he says, kissing the tip of Aymeric’s nose.
When he pushes away this time, Estinien allows it. His clawed hands are not too rough in pulling Aymeric to his feet. And as Aymeric takes to the stairs on slow, shaky legs, he is surprised with one last parting lick—right up the back of his neck and into his hair, leaving a wet, sticky stripe.
By the time Aymeric whips around to shoo him off once more, he sees only the bounding shape of an unnatural wolf weaving through the moonlit trees and away into the dark.
Come Starlight, Aymeric knows he is besotted. He has been for a while.
He makes a tenuous peace between his feelings for Estinien and the oaths he’d made at his ordination, now broken: obedience and chastity. The former had always been a struggle, for he questioned even the Church’s dogma when it felt unjust. The latter is only a recent failing, but Aymeric wishes he might have succumbed a little sooner.
After moons of contemplation and late conversations with Estinien, Aymeric has found himself here: he fulfills his duties of sharing the Enchiridion and its wisdoms; he oversees marriages and blesses newborns on their name days; he offers his counsel and aid to any who ask for it; and he instructs the handful of fourth- or fifthborn children who have their sights set on finding clerical work in Ishgard or being accepted into the Scholasticate themselves.
And when his flock is sleeping, his life is his own to enjoy. If the Fury cares not to strike him down for his indulgences of the heart and flesh—nor his nightkin tastes for them—then he will not fret it. Not terribly, at least.
Ishgard does little in the way of trade with outside nations, but the Starlight season always sees the markets flooded with exotic imports. Aymeric has sweet La Noscean citrus fruit delivered all the way to Ferndale to hand out for the holiday, along with the same homemade sablés he’d baked for special occasions in the Brume, too. They’re just as well-liked here, if the compliments are genuine—the smiles plastered on the faces of children not used to such sweets certainly seem to be.
With dark clouds hanging over Ferndale, threatening to leave another heavy blanket of snow this evening, the village bubbles with concern over whether they should celebrate their Starlight Mass early.
Aymeric is inclined to agree. The dense cloud cover turns the skies dim as dusk, allowing him to make a rare midday appearance. The fur-trimmed hood of his red cloak shields him from any stray drops of sunlight as he makes the short walk from his home to the church to finish the last of the decorating he’d begun the night before.
Papercraft stars made by some of the children hang from low ceiling beams and doorways. The pews are decorated with garlands of pine and poisonous Dravanian mistletoe. The same mistletoe is strung above the doorway of the small vestibule, ostensibly by one of the villagers who’d helped with the decorations.
Aymeric avoids the trap, having learned his lesson regarding such setups while he briefly served in the Pillars—that, and the one soul he would love to meet under the mistletoe won’t be joining them here.
To ward against the dark and the cold outside, the church interior is set aglow with candlelight and roaring hearthflame. Even so, the damp chill of winter keeps everyone in attendance bundled up tight, their hands gloved and mittened while steepled in prayer.
Aymeric is the exception, his ghostly fingers bare as he turns the gilded, illuminated pages of the altar’s Enchiridion. The collective joy and excitement in the room—dinner feasts are not far off, along with gift exchanges and hours of drinking—has him smiling throughout his brief homily. He blesses everyone gathered under Halone’s roof to celebrate, bids them a warm and happy Starlight, and makes sure that no one leaves without a sablé or two.
He gently refuses several invitations to join his congregants and their families for supper, insisting that the cold leaves him rather tired and without appetite. By now, most of them have taken up the belief that he is of terribly poor constitution, pale and reclusive due to his health. They do not press him further, but they do make sure his arms are laden with small gifts to take with him.
Once home, Aymeric gathers the ingredients for a proper, albeit small proportioned, Starlight meal. Well after the sun has set and the snow has begun to fall, whilst the rest of the village is drunk on spiced wine and slumbering off so much merriment, Estinien arrives upon his doorstep.
He knocks the snow from his boots, shrugs off a heavy fur, and peels away his mittens. Before even answering Aymeric’s greeting, he closes in and takes him in a kiss, hands cupped around Aymeric’s head and thumbing the softness of his earlobes.
Aymeric lets himself soak in the warmth he’s so freely offered. At this point, receiving kisses and soft touches from Estinien might be as vital as taking blood.
He steps aside and lets Estinien follow his nose into the small dining nook, where the man walks wide-eyed and ravenous alongside the table filled to the edge with numerous small dishes: freshly baked bread, carrots and beets glazed in birch syrup, poached sweetfish, buttered harvest squash, caramel oranges, and a snurbleberry tart.
“You made all this,” Estinien says, already picking up a piece of brown bread, “for me?”
“I imagine it has been some time since you had a full Starlight spread,” Aymeric says as he pulls out a chair for Estinien. “The roast dodo will take just a few minutes more.”
It takes a moment for Estinien’s surprise to give way to a smile—which then flickers into some sort of half-grimace.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You made me a table fit for a prince. And I…” He sighs, quickly digging into a pants pocket. “Well. This is what I have for you.”
He holds out his hand like the offering within is nothing at all.
Aymeric takes it between his own, gently uncurling his fingers until he spies the stone sitting in the middle of Estinien’s palm. He plucks it out and finds it is still warm to the touch.
“A gemstone? It’s beautiful,” Aymeric says, grinning in delight. He moves closer to the light of a candle, turning the gift around between his fingers. It’s rough edged, mostly translucent, and has pretty variations in its blue: dark around its edges and fading into a pale azure. It’s large enough to be cut, too. “Where did you find this?”
“In some gravel on a riverbank as I was scaling a fish. I don’t know if it’s worth anything, but it caught my eye.” Estinien’s smile is soft as the shadows cast by the candlelight. “Made me think of you.”
“Well, I am touched regardless of its material value,” Aymeric clarifies first, clearing his throat, “but as it happens, I think this may be a rather nice sapphire. Many Borel heirlooms make use of them.”
“Really?” Estinien’s eyebrows lift. His gaze darts from the sapphire in Aymeric’s hand to the one set upon his pale finger, as if comparing the two. “Perhaps a more fitting gift than I thought, then.”
“It is lovely and I will cherish it,” Aymeric says, ducking briefly into the bedroom to tuck the raw sapphire into his jewelry box. “You have already given me a great enough gift in just returning my affections, though. You need not worry with finding others.”
“Surely that cannot count for much,” Estinien scoffs. “The most beautiful man in Ishgard shows up in my village, in my woods, undresses under my roof, sweet talks me, feeds me, looks after me, forgives me after I damn near took his arm off... what chance did I ever have to resist? You had my affection before I had yours.”
“Truly?” Aymeric wonders when. Certainly not that first night in the church. Not the full moon when they crossed paths in the woods, either. Yet Estinien had spared him both times—and probably on several more that Aymeric is not even aware of. “For a while, I assumed you merely tolerated me for the sake of Ferndale keeping a priest.”
“I had my selfish reasons, too. Perhaps I’d been alone too long,” Estinien mutters. He rarely looks so shy. “Even having cause to flush you out, I didn’t exactly… well, I was in no rush. I was watching to see if you would err and show some devious intention, forcing my hand. But I was also… just watching.”
Eyes of a darker, greyer blue squint at their corners as Estinien shows the hint of a smile. His stare breaks from Aymeric’s and dips lower, down his front, before slowly rising again.
Aymeric licks his lips and steps in closer, bridging the gap between them. “Was it boring, looking in and seeing me mopping floors and re-stringing rosaries?”
“No.” Estinien shrugs a shoulder. “I imagined it was as close to you—to anyone—as I’d ever get, so even at your most mundane I’d linger a while. And you’re not bad to look at, of course.”
Aymeric hums under his breath, the faint shape of a smile curling at the corners of his mouth. His hands go to Estinien’s waist. His hold is gentle. Thoughtful. He appreciates that he may do this: touch someone warm, enjoy this intimate closeness, entrust himself fully to another.
“I am glad you took an interest in me,” Aymeric murmurs as Estinien leans in to kiss his cheek. “Even if it began with suspicion.”
He wonders if, in all his hours of stalking the rectory and studying Aymeric for any glimpse of danger or evil, Estinien ever caught sight of him in a state of undress. It excites him a little to imagine so. And it embarrasses him that it excites him.
“And I am glad Halone or whoever brought you here.” Estinien’s forehead rubs against his own, unbothered by the stark contrast in their temperatures. “Else I’d surely be spending Starlight in the company of a far less pleasant, less charming voidsent. And without so much as a morsel of a well-cooked meal to look forward to, ei—”
“The dodo!” Aymeric gasps out, for the first time in too long remembering that the centerpiece of the meal is still roasting.
He pulls away from Estinien and darts to the kitchen’s small hearth oven. In a flurry, he grabs two thickly knitted pot holders and slides out the pumpkin-shaped baking dish.
“I’d have let you know if I smelled anything burning,” Estinien scoffs, a slight smile set in place as he follows Aymeric to the table. “Not that I’d turn my nose up over a bit of char.”
Aymeric shakes his head, even if Estinien speaks true. No, he wants this supper to be perfect—inasmuch as he can manage, given his inability to properly taste test his own creations. For the comfort he daily provides, Estinien deserves a grand feast befitting a manor in the Pillars. The least Aymeric can do is pour himself into a meal that will hopefully be as memorable as it is filling.
Once set at the center of the table, nestled among the other dishes, Aymeric lifts the pot lid to reveal the golden roasted dodo within. He sighs, relieved, and breaks into a full grin. It looks pretty enough for a still life.
Estinien whistles low at the sight, his pursed lips quickly yielding back to a smile. Aymeric allows himself a moment of pride over the outcome and the praise—without downplaying his efforts or his hopes or how wonderfully it’s all come together.
There is a vermillion tinge to Estinien’s ears and the sharp heights of his cheeks as he sits down before the one-person banquet. It only deepens as Aymeric starts filling his plate for him.
“Thank you.” It’s quiet. His elbows are propped on the table and his mouth hidden behind laced fingers. His stare moves from the food to its maker, dark irises finding Aymeric from under the fringe of lashes that shade them. “It brings back memories, doing all this. The smells. The decorations. Don’t think I didn’t notice the mistletoe over the bedroom door.”
Aymeric smiles as he finishes carving off a thick slice of dodo for Estinien’s plate. “That’s for later, after you’ve eaten.”
He’s barely set aside the carving knife and undone his apron when Estinien catches hold of his hand.
“You know, hungry as I am,” Estinien says, drawing him closer, “after so much labor, I think it only fair that you get the first bite.”
It does not take much effort for Estinien to pull Aymeric down into his lap. He looks no less hungry now, staring up at Aymeric rather than at the dinner on the table.
“So considerate,” Aymeric says, leaning down to place a kiss on Estinien’s throat.
He can feel the quickening of blood in response to the featherlight touch. His lips brush across the myriad marks of previous bites—pale little spots of healed over skin dot Estinien’s neck like faint, ever-evolving constellations.
“You enjoy yourself, first,” Aymeric tells him, lamenting the thought of all his cooking going cold while Estinien sits caged under him, writhing on his fangs. “I’ll enjoy you after.”
Winter passes and for the insatiable want of Estinien’s company, Aymeric grows greedy.
It is not enough to see Estinien in the woods and the cabin and in secret moments in his little cottage on church grounds. Aymeric wants to have him at all hours, in all places. He wants Estinien to pass in Ferndale as he pleases; the man deserves to see the fruits of the small community he has so zealously guarded for decades.
It takes many nights of silver tongued assurances for Estinien to agree to his little scheme and to convincingly align their stories, but Aymeric gets his way. He is becoming spoiled for it, even.
After their next Mass, he tells his flock this: a childhood friend and hunting partner from his family’s country estate will be coming to visit for spring. He can lodge in the rectory’s spare room, if that is fine with Ferndale’s small governing body. He’ll assist Aymeric and help with odd tasks around the grounds. He may even be useful in protecting Ferndale, avid and accomplished hunter that he is.
Judging by the way Aymeric is instantly swarmed with excited chatter and questions, his fellow villagers ravenous for any morsel of gossip on someone new, they take no issue whatsoever with him keeping a guest.
Naturally, Ferndale remains abuzz at the prospect of a new neighbor. When word spreads that this man Monsignor Aymeric mentioned has finally arrived, a small crowd forms in the central square to greet him. All Estinien has to do is play the part of a traveler who’s just arrived in Ferndale for the first time—right at dusk, on foot, his most essential belongings slung over his shoulder.
Etienne is the name he introduces himself with, for it bears a familiar enough sound while remaining distinct from the name carved into his family’s tombstone. And though he is initially skittish—these are grandmothers and now-grown children he’d known as a boy, who’d known his family in turn—it quickly becomes clear that no one in Ferndale recognizes him. Not as he is. Not compared to the child he was when last they saw him. Not with the Varlineaus long since buried and relegated to distant memories.
Aymeric watches on, mostly amused, as Estinien fields offers to stay in roomier homes or join them for supper—until he notices the flustered frustration tightening Estinien’s jaw and steps in to part the crowd, reminding them not to overwhelm the poor man.
“Pleased with yourself, are you?” Estinien asks as they toddle their way toward the church grounds, still ruffled from all the attention and pleasantries and handshaking.
With a backward glance to check that they are alone in the deepening shadows of dusk, Aymeric loops his arm through Estinien’s and pulls him closer. “Quite.”
Being known to the village does not stop Estinien from retreating into his woods or to his cabin. Aymeric never meant it to.
It does give him the freedom to come and go as he pleases, though, without fear of being sighted. Aymeric is likewise pleased to see how much the man enjoys floating around on the periphery of village life—even occasionally dipping his toe into voluntary social interactions.
Estinien seems to like talking with shepherds as they cut through town, idly thumbing at the soft ears or karakul and their lambs as they mill comfortably around him. He lets himself be conscripted into retrieving cats stuck on thatched roofs and tasting new pie recipes. He fells an aevis descending upon Ferndale’s fields and cements himself into the people’s hearts and minds, toasted in the tavern for weeks after.
And he happily spends Aymeric’s gil in the market—to an alarming tune, Aymeric learns, when the time comes to settle several open tabs.
It makes sense, as they sit down to go over his finances and their limitations, to discover that Estinien’s grasp on the value of coin is a bit… abstract. The poor man nearly retreats back into the woods when Aymeric softly coughs and shows him how the cost of blue silk, fine wine, and hunting knives bites into even his generous monthly income.
It is a pretty bolt of silk, though. Not Borel blue in color but powdery, silvery, and soft.
“You’ve probably paid for Jehanne’s daughter’s new draught chocobo with this,” he teases Estinien, smiling as he gets an exasperated rolling of eyes in return. Fabric like this is usually bought by the half-fulm around here, and even that is a luxury reserved for weddings and courtships. “‘Tis fine stuff. As good as the Church uses in our finest vestments. I had no idea I was bedding a man with such expensive tastes.”
Estinien rubs his red-tinged face, groaning.
After having a laugh at his expense, Aymeric adds, “I could cut you some proper hair ribbons out of this. And make a set of pillowcases. There might be enough for sheets, too.”
“A priest with silk sheets,” Estinien teases back, his eyebrows lifting. “Not worried about that vow of poverty, are you?”
“Why would I worry for one I did not take? Most highborn clergy skip that vow, unless they stand to inherit little,” Aymeric explains. “Fifth- or sixth-born children, typically. As an only son, I stand to gain too much. If I took a vow of poverty, the Church would acquire my parents’ estates in my stead.”
Estinien’s nose wrinkles, his whole expression sour.
“Yes, exactly,” Aymeric says, emphasizing his words with a poke of his pen. “And they wouldn't exactly be put to charitable use, I can assure you. The silk sheets are more for your benefit, anyway. They will keep you cooler come summer.”
“I have you for that.”
Aymeric flashes him a sly smile. After long hours of splitting firewood and working up a sweat, Estinien loves to come plaster up against him and let the heat be wicked from his skin.
“Well, yes. But the silk will still be of some benefit,” he says, already set on it. He has not slept on silk since he left his parents’ home; Estinien has never enjoyed the luxury at all.
Estinien props his chin in his hand and stares across the table. The ledgers and papers spread about—tracking his stipend, his income, his expenses on little projects around Ferndale, and Estinien’s exorbitant tastes—hold none of his attention. There is a gentle creasing to his downturned eyes and a slight slanting of his mouth: the signs, Aymeric has learned, of Estinien’s pleased satisfaction.
“And you will look quite nice upon it.”
“Will I? The color suits you more, I think,” Aymeric adds matter of factly, returning to his sums while Estinien turns a bright vermillion and starts muttering about how he picked that silk for him.
The fabric and finances are forgotten as Aymeric is then whisked up from his chair and onto his toes, the soft velvet of his cassock crushed under the grip Estinien has on his waist. He’s surprised it’s taken this long for Estinien to tire of humdrum household management and hunger for touch instead.
The dance to the bedroom is a familiar one. They know all the steps. They can do it blind, while wrapped up in each other.
The bed is still too damned small, as Estinien is quick to point out. The one in the tiny guest room is no better. Aymeric has yet to find a delicate way of arranging for a wider bedframe to be made and moved in…
Regardless of the physical difficulties their current living arrangements pose, Aymeric has little in the way of complaint. Estinien can now sleep here whenever he wishes and none who see him leave the rectory will question it. They can have midnight supper together. They can come home muddy from a hunt and take turns in the small bath, helping to warm water and scrub each other down. Even during daylight, when Aymeric is trapped indoors behind heavy layers of curtain, Estinien is here to make sure he needs for nothing.
It’s a blessing, having him. Aymeric does not take it for granted.
To his own surprise, he soon finds himself praying again—sincerely, with hope, and out of gratitude rather than fear, no longer horrified by his thirst or his nightkin state.
If not for his curse, he would never have come to Ferndale. The village would be without a priest. Estinien would be as alone and unknown as he ever was. And Aymeric would still be quietly toiling in the Brume—but perhaps only as long as he remained a non-threat to the order imposed upon all of Ishgard from a single cathedra at the heart of the city.
Maybe this life has been Halone’s plan for him all the while, as obfuscated as a frost-glazed window and as impossible to predict as shifting winter winds. Aymeric cannot say. He does not care to speculate or agonize further on the unknowable, especially at the expense of taking joy in his earthly life.
What matters lies here, in his arms. He finds the certainty he has longed for in the beating heart under his palm, the hands that cradle him close, and the mouth whispering obscene, adoring things in his ear. He exists on the blood and affection Estinien freely feeds him; he is spoiled by it, made rotten with the need for Estinien’s touch, be it gentle or firm, and his company at all hours.
Aymeric hopes he nourishes Estinien’s body and soul just as well. He certainly tries.
Estinien attends Mass more often than Aymeric would’ve expected.
It is a delight to look out over the gathered congregation and see Estinien there in the pew, staring up at him with a dark intensity that makes him stumble over his homily’s words more than once. There is a strange, exciting irony to it, too—the both of them being some kind of monstrous and sharing this holy space with dozens of people who are none the wiser.
Nor do they know their resident priest’s lover sits among them. Nor is his flock aware that they’ve kissed in these very pews.
“I could not even count all the doe eyes being cast your way during Mass,” Aymeric tells him after the early morning Mass is finished and all others departed. His grin cracks wider at Estinien’s derisive snort.
It’s a dreary day and Aymeric is in no terrible rush to make the short jaunt over to the cottage. The church stands empty for now. Estinien lingers with him in the narrow storage room back behind the altar, helping to trim candle wicks and decant holy water and anointing oil into smaller bottles.
The smell of incense still hangs in the air. Aymeric has not even removed his long, golden chasuble yet, its front and sleeves embroidered with vines and blooms for spring.
“Don’t be shy, Estinien. You have the attention of half of Ferndale, I would wager.”
“Does it make you jealous?”
“No. Of course not.” Aymeric hardly begrudges Ferndale’s isolated sons and daughters for staring so wistfully at a handsome new resident. Were he in their boots, he imagines he would do much the same.
With heartier meals regularly on his plate, Estinien has lost the sunkenness in his cheeks and deep circles under his eyes. While he might not turn heads in Ishgard, his features are shapely and striking; matched with his long ears and the sharp glint in his half-lidded, slightly drooping eyes, he is easy to stare at for hours at a time.
Aymeric would know. He’s done it too often.
“Should I be worried?” he wonders aloud as he pours out the ash from the thurible, almost entirely teasing. “Have you your sights set upon some farmgirl—”
His back meets the wall with force, a strong hand splayed out over his ribs. Estinien’s mouth covers his before he can finish that thought.
The thurible chain slips from Aymeric's fingers and the metal clatters to the stone floor, but he hardly hears it. He smiles against the hungry teeth that bruise and bite his pale lips until they’re flushed a lifelike red; he opens wide where Estinien’s tongue presses in, letting him sweep the rest of those words right out of his mouth.
“You,” Estinien hisses in between greedy mouthfuls of Aymeric, his hand curling into gold-threaded silk, “know full well where my sights are set.”
Ah. Aymeric does.
He has never been given cause to doubt Estinien’s faithfulness. But under his temperance and tolerance, in spite of his knowledge and better nature, he cannot help but feel something when others look upon Estinien with lovestruck infatuation. It’s not the villagers’ fault, no—to them Etienne is capable and available and most certainly not spending his nights in the arms of their priest—but it nonetheless leaves Aymeric a little… dissatisfied.
It’s the knowing that they’ll never be able to mark each other with public vows or affections. It is never being able to tell his parents what Estinien means to him. They are for each other only, but no one else can know. Aymeric consoles himself with quiet amusement at how bluntly Estinien rejects every flirtation cast his way—when he realizes he is being flirted with, at least.
“I have had to listen to endless confessions about you, you know,” he whispers against Estinien’s cheek. Even here in trusted company, he curbs his words and keeps more salient details sealed behind his wet lips. “You collect admirers without even trying, Estinien. You are making my flock restless. You're tempting them.”
“Nonsense.”
It is his unwavering assurance in Estinien’s loyalty that allows Aymeric to tease him so. Thus far, the only consequence of idly speculating on whether Estinien’s local fame may lead him to another bed has been Estinien making a point of ferociously fucking the thought away. Even now, Aymeric has to bite back a sound as he feels the familiar shape of Estinien pressing into him, searingly warm even through all the fabric that separates them.
“‘Tis true. And why wouldn’t it be? The more aloof you are around them, the more they delight when you do glance their way. How does it feel, being the most eligible bachelor in the village?”
Estinien snorts. Still, his heart beats faster, the perfect sound of it whetting Aymeric’s appetite.
“My novelty may grant me some short-lived appeal around here but it’s nothing for you to worry over.” His lips brush the shell of Aymeric’s ear as he crowds in closer. “You, on the other hand… a menace. Imagine the filthy things they would say of you if you weren’t the one taking their confessions.”
Roughly, urgently, Estinien hikes up the expensive vestment fabric and puts his hand between Aymeric’s legs.
“I do not think—”
“You have no idea,” Estinien murmurs, “the whispers I hear, Aymeric, in the tavern and the fields. The way I catch them staring after you. They surely conjure your voice in the night just as I do, in their dreaming, and imagine sinful sounds on your tongue. They fantasize about the body hidden under that cassock. If you weren’t of the cloth, they’d try to take you for a wife, for a husband.”
Aymeric closes his mouth, uncertain when it had fallen open. He rises up on the balls of his feet, nearly onto his toes, and squirms between the wall and the firm hand wedged between the clench of his thighs. Estinien’s palm presses up against Aymeric’s constrained arousal and his fingers ply themselves under his hips, between his cheeks, feeling him through the cloth.
“How anyone can have a pure thought while you’re up there on the dais is beyond me,” Estinien says, voice too level as he tugs Aymeric’s undergarments aside and slips a finger slick with anointing oil inside him. “And even so, I hate it. How dare they imagine what is meant for me alone…”
“Ah!” A second finger works inside him and goes right for the spot Estinien knows to coax and bully. Aymeric’s hands curl into the fabric of Estinien’s shirt, nails digging into the shoulders underneath. “You… ah, you assume they are all as shameless as you.”
Aymeric says it and means it fondly. His light, breathy laughter is smothered by the mouth that falls on his, Estinien’s teeth and tongue on his lips.
“I know they are as mortal and inclined to worship as I am,” Estinien mutters in between hungrier and hungrier kisses planted down Aymeric’s throat.
“You?” Aymeric keens softly as Estinien happens to rock three fingers into him just right. His chasuble has never felt so unduly cumbersome, all the excess fabric and stiff golden brocade bunching up between them. “Never seemed the spiritual type.”
“I just lacked the right deity.”
“Estinien.”
That’s too far—far too far while they’re a scant few fulms from Halone on Her altar. Aymeric would protest more if he were not precariously close to finding release from the well-practiced work of Estinien’s hands.
“One who sees me, comforts me,” Estinien rambles on, pausing only to drag his tongue along the underside of Aymeric’s jaw. His other hand squeezes at Aymeric's waist while grinding inside him up to the knuckle. “One who answers my prayers.”
Aymeric forces Estinien’s head up so he can look him—and his heretical flattery—in the eye. The unabashed sincerity he finds there is enough to make Aymeric’s face feel as though it is on fire, even if his feverish blushing is far from what it used to be.
“And I am jealous. All of Ferndale gathering to watch you day in and day out,” Estinien grumbles. “And the way some of them stare… I’d like nothing more than to lay you out on the altar and make sure they know I’ve a claim to you. Before they do. Before Halone does, even.”
“Estinien,” he groans again, half in pleasure and half in scandal. The barefaced honesty in Estinien words is enough to make him even weaker in the knees.
“Have I offended you?”
“N-No.” The assurance comes easy for Aymeric, the waver in his voice stemming from something else entirely. “You simply stun me… speaking like that in a holy place… while doing this.”
“Is this not a place for speaking truth? And showing reverence?”
In the Holy See, a whiff of this talk would get Estinien a visit from the Inquisition at a minimum. Then again, Aymeric would fare no better if caught like this—arched against Estinien in ecstasy, coming where he’s pressed against his heavy vestments, his nails raking into Estinien’s upper back while those fingers relentlessly massage him through the whole thing.
By the time Estinien withdraws his hand and lets Aymeric settle onto his heels again, he feels like his legs have cartilage in place of bone. His mouth hangs half open as Estinien kisses him soft, gentle, and lingering. Aymeric’s eyes flutter shut, content in ways he’d not dreamed possible, personally.
And then he sinks to his knees—slowly, one hand trailing down Estinien’s front, until he is kneeling with fine, golden fabric pooled around him. His eyes stay trained on the blue-grey pair staring down at him, smiling sweetly as he unbuttons Estinien’s trousers without looking. The moment he has Estinien free, he feels it: a solid, searing weight bumps against his cool cheek, twitching on contact.
Aymeric tilts his head, letting the length of it rub against his jaw—then over his closed lips, featherlight as he trails them up and down its entirety.
He runs the flat of his tongue along the underside of Estinien’s cock, over the noticeable outline of a vein, before carefully working him into his mouth. The hard, hurried throb of Estinien’s pulse presses down on his tongue with every pump of his heart. As his cold saliva and breath engulf Estinien’s flushed length, a shiver shakes the man head to toe.
So much blood concentrated in one place is so warm and enticing… and very forbidden. Estinien is amenable to being fed on just about anywhere but here.
“You chastise me for my words and then do this,” Estinien grumbles, his fingers combing through the waves of Aymeric’s hair.
Aymeric would smile if his mouth weren’t already stretched so wide. He really is no better…
They’ve both improved greatly at this over the last few moons—not a high bar to pass, considering the unfortunate fang incident on Aymeric’s first try and Estinien’s tendency to gag—but Aymeric is rather confident he’s the better of them, even with minding his teeth. Not requiring air helps, of course.
Short nails dig softly into his hair and the back of his skull, Estinien urging him closer and worming the length of himself further into Aymeric’s throat with each short thrust. It gets messy quickly, like always, wetness building at the corners of Aymeric’s mouth and dripping down his chin.
Aymeric moans through it, eyes half-open, until his noisemaking is choked off by a hard jerk of Estinien’s hips and a solid fullness lodged in his throat. The hands clasped around his head hold him still as Estinien grinds himself deeper, not satisfied until Aymeric’s nose is tickled by soft, silvery hair. Halfway down his throat he feels Estinien twitch; his spend scalds like hot tea going down, warmth spreading in Aymeric’s belly like he’s had a mouthful of blood.
He patiently waits until Estinien’s spasming and shuddering cease before slowly pulling back, careful not to nick anything delicate with his short fangs. There’s just enough seed still clinging to the tip that Aymeric gets a taste of what had mostly gone straight down his throat.
“Holy…” Estinien’s hand trembles in the short waves and curls of Aymeric’s hair. “Aymeric.”
Aymeric has to swallow again, then clear his throat. “Yes?”
Estinien wipes the back of his hand over his eyes and across his sweat-dotted brow, still catching his breath. With a lick of his lips, he asks, “Care to let me bend you over back here?”
Aymeric holds onto Estinien for stability as he rises to his feet, stare drifting to the hymnals and candles all over the only available table, which is quite narrow, anyway.
“Maybe in a proper bed.”
“A proper bed,” Estinien scoffs back, already tucking himself away and buttoning up. “That thing is going to collapse under us one night, mark my words.”
“Well, if it would give me an excuse to get a new one that’s a bit roomier…”
Back in their room in the cottage, Estinien once more puts the bedframe to the test. Though it creaks and squeals as it butts against the wall, it miraculously survives.
While coupled together, Estinien hungrily fills Aymeric’s ear with all the other ways and places he’d like to have him: in the church, both occupied and empty; on his knees, like he’s taking communion; with Aymeric giving him orders, like a spoiled lord; with a hand under a table, forcing Aymeric to hide his pleasure while he sups with guests; and on a full moon’s night, twice Aymeric’s size and ravenous for more than carnage.
The pictures he paints in Aymeric’s head are enough to have him squirming with shame and excitement both. It’s ever more less of the former and more of the latter, though.
Aymeric takes the wrist offered to his lips without a second thought, always hungry for whatever Estinien is willing to give him. Thin little lines of blood seep from the corners of his mouth, a little dribble of blood lost with each thrust that rocks into him and budges the bed under them. His legs squeeze tight around Estinien’s middle to keep him close, lost in the dual delight of feeding while being laid. Only once he’s satisfied in both senses does he let Estinien withdraw, gently licking the underside of his wrist until the two punctures begin to clot and close.
Still wetly sticky between his legs and damp where sweat had dripped off onto him, Aymeric wraps himself up in a quilt and tucks himself up against Estinien’s naked, scarred body. The bed might be painfully narrow but at times like this, Aymeric doesn’t much mind. He never tires of tangled limbs and the weight of a warm, familiar form pressed to his. He cannot again live without the stroke of fingers in his hair and lips on his, nor all the other affections Estinien shows him.
Estinien readjusts until he’s half-draped across Aymeric, as comfortably wedged together as they can possibly be. He then nuzzles against the ticklish spot just under Aymeric’s ear and kisses a small mole usually hidden under waves of dark hair. Those soft kisses swiftly turn to suckling—the kind that leaves marks, and Estinien is ever more careless of leaving them where they’ll be seen above his collar.
Or, more likely, it’s deliberate. He is terribly possessive, after all, and nowhere near as adept as Aymeric in downplaying it.
“Before you fall asleep, I have something I’ve been meaning to give you,” he murmurs, gently prying his lover off of him.
Estinien allows him the room to reach over and fish within the nightstand drawer, half-lidded eyes lazily following Aymeric’s every move. His brows rise once he spies the chain clasped in a pale hand, then lift higher still as he watches Aymeric slide a golden ring off his finger.
He slips the ring onto the chain before offering it to Estinien. Having witnessed Estinien turn into his wolf form a number of times now, Aymeric thinks it might be safer to wear loose around his neck rather than squeezed upon a finger.
“My mother gave me this. Lady Borel, I mean.” Perhaps that’s obvious enough to go unsaid. Estinien knows that he never knew his birth mother, much less had anything to remember her by. “It has always been one of my favorites.”
Even though he lived under the roof of Borel Manor and bore the family name, it had never stopped the sons and daughters of other noble houses from reminding him that he did not truly belong—that under all that blue velvet and gold thread lay just another common Greystone. When higher born students made their subtle little digs at him throughout his years in the Scholasticate, Aymeric would rub the underside of the band with his thumb or twist the ring around his finger. Its solid presence was an assurance wherever he went, a physical marker of how worthy a son his parents found him, even if none other did.
“All the more reason you aught to hold onto it,” Estinien quietly argues, stubborn even as drowsiness aught to be making him more pliant. “I hardly see you without that ring on.”
Aymeric smiles. He does not know if he still deserves to cling to this particular piece, in truth. And he would rather see it on Estinien—to let him have that same assurance and remember Aymeric whenever the band presses into his skin.
“That is because it means a great deal to me. Which is why I would like you, who means even more, to have it.” Aymeric pinches the ring between his fingers and taps a nail against the gemstone set in its middle. “This star sapphire was supposedly once part of a dragon’s hoard. I think every old house in Ishgard has some such story, though, so take it with a grain of salt. I thought you might appreciate the leaves and vines engraved all around. It suits you.”
Estinien allows Aymeric to uncurl his fingers and gently lay the ring and its accompanying chain in his calloused hand.
“You give me too much, Aymeric.” Estinien stares down at the ring sitting in his palm, looking upon it with a muted awe better reserved for holy relics. “I don’t have anything half as nice to gift to you in return.”
“You speak as if you do not regularly give me life itself,” Aymeric reminds him, fingertips gently touching a pair of the pale little scars that dot Estinien’s neck. “I can’t think of anything more precious.”
He brushes aside the curtain of Estinien’s hair and clasps the necklace on for him. The ring falls pleasingly against the considerable muscle on his chest, its rich gold complimenting his living skin.
“Besides, the next time I find a jeweler, I think I would like to have the sapphire you gave me used for a new ring. I would wear it and think of you in turn.” The thought already pleases him: a subtle but tangible token of their belonging. A matching pair. A set. “Does that not sound nice?”
Estinien thumbs at the golden Borel ring he now wears, thoughtful. His other hand then seeks Aymeric’s, fingers winding together.
With a peculiar softness, he answers, “Mm, so it does.”