Chapter Text
Time passes, nights flowing inexorably one to the other, and like the lapping of the sea, they find a soothing rhythm to their new life. When there are no ships to unload, Estinien lingers in the Drowning Wench, watching the girls at work. He has come to know many of them, or at least know the names they use. (Perhaps women in Limsa are all named after flowers, but definitely not the miqo’te and roegadyn ones. So, the names are clearly aliases.) After one evening when he catches a man who grabbed onto Daphne and pulled her out of her chair, tackling him to the floor and twisting his arms up and back behind him until the Yellowjackets get there, Estinien finds himself employed as the overnight peacekeeper in his typical haunt.
He also finds himself pressed into service as an escort for the smaller girls on a regular basis. The why of that he realizes after hearing Rosemary reassuring a short hyur who had looked at him with distrust, “I know he looks fierce, but he’s only got eyes for his nobleman. Trust me, when you see that one, you won’t even wonder why someone would pick him over women!” Estinien is only grateful that he is not looking at them as heat floods his face and ears. Bloody hells but how has he become (or always been) such a fool for a man that everyone who sees them knows it?
In either case, it proves to their advantage time and again that the working girls of Limsa find them charming and a ‘sweet pair’; in particular when word of any new arrival is suspected to be from Ishgard. Twice, this means that they become aware of potential assassins early enough to make themselves scarce until they move on to seek elsewhere. Once, a panting Rosemary catches them on their way home, eyes wide, gasping out that someone had seen men with knives slipping into their building. Forewarned, it is simple enough for Estinien to run their intended assassins through before they come anywhere near Aymeric, and little care has he for the extra work it makes for the Yellowjackets.
Every few nights, someone comes by to supplement Aymeric’s meal plan; there is apparently some competition for it since the pay is good and the effort minimal. Estinien’s favorites are Rosemary, who is sensible and steady and would have made a fantastic châtelaine in another life, and Iris, a roegadyn lass who managed to talk him into giving her basic lessons in using a lance. (He suspects they will lose her in another month or two, when she uses the skills he is teaching her to make a career as an adventurer instead; Estinien cannot blame her if so.) Aymeric prefers Daphne, who has the mannerisms of a noblewoman and laughs easily.
It never stops feeling awkward and there is always the faint nauseating miasma that hangs over him when he watches Aymeric feed on someone else. Still, he learns patience and treats them as kindly as he can. His feelings are hardly their concern and more importantly, even if their schedule is packed that night, Aymeric always seems to manage to find a few moments to focus on him with doting attentions that, while embarrassing, are quite effective at chasing away any lingering ill feelings.
((-----))
Life moves on, night to night, most of their problems no more than the petty realities of normal existence.
They argue over how to arrange the contents of the kitchen cabinets, a thread of bickering and jibes and rearranging the plates behind one another’s backs that lasts for several weeks. Both of them are sure their preferences are the only rational ones.
Estinien wins.
He is the one who eats normal food daily.
(He also might have pressed his advantage by promising he would stop hiding Aymeric’s beloved birch syrup if he would just stop moving the forks and knives to the least convenient drawer.)
((-----))
They argue over stocking the bathroom. At first, Estinien tries to buy himself simple soap like he has always favored, cheap and rough and leaving his skin and hair with that harshly scrubbed feeling he remembers from his youth. Every time, the bars disappear within a few nights, leaving him with naught but the fragrant, delicate concoctions Aymeric uses. Estinien does not want to admit it, but he might not actually… mind the scent of them. Here, Aymeric has traded sandalwood and fine spice for cedarwood and green herbs, and the scent will forever bring to mind sleepy afternoons with the sun still visible past the cracked bedroom door, breathing deeply of the aroma from where his head lies pillowed on Aymeric’s bicep, warm and content and drifting in and out of awareness with lazy bliss.
In short, he loses the battle.
He might have won the war, though, because Aymeric increasingly prefers that they bathe or shower together, and while Estinien sees no point in going through all that fuss and bother on his own, well, it turns out to be a different thing when he can just relax and let Aymeric’s fingers comb through his hair, or indulge in letting Aymeric ‘make sure he is properly rinsed’ with long, lazy strokes of his strong fingers. So if this is the price for smelling and looking a bit more like, if not a nobleman, at least a merchant of some small means, well, he supposes he is willing to pay it.
((-----))
Once a month, they dine at the Bismarck with Cid and Nero, trust building in glacially slow terms as they try to piece together more of what they can know about vampires. Some seems intuitive, after a sense, such as those with more or more powerful aether make for better meals. (Which explains the Ishgardian brood’s preoccupation with the dragon-blooded, and probably why Garlemald, lacking in native magic users, is so driven by conquest.)
Other connections are not so straightforward. They had at least heard of the recent death of the Black Wolf of Garlemald at the hands of of a small group of adventurers and scholars called the ‘Scions’. When Cid speculates if the Wolf’s old occasional ally, an ancient vampire named Lahabrea, was also caught in the battle or escaped, Aymeric goes still and stares across the table. Estinien, meanwhile, has tensed and watches the other bondservant and vampire. Both are nervous, somehow, about this news, more than just because they used to be weapon experts. Maybe even worked on that very project.
A chill radiates out from that scarred point deep within. That lovely, deep voice is soft but arresting when Aymeric speaks. “Did he wear dark concealments and a red mask?”
“Was he an overdramatic reject from the worst echelons of the Imperial theatre, do you mean?” Nero’s voice is almost a drawl, but his gaze has gone sharp and considering.
A very slight quirk of Aymeric’s lips; Nero’s occasional blunt rudeness tends to cause both mirth and consternation in his vampiric counterpart. “Yes. ‘Tis odd, but the Archbishop has an occasional advisor of the same name and appearance.”
Nero’s lips draw into a thin, tight line. “An unlikely coincidence. Cidolfus, I think you have a new research project.”
Relaxed in contrast, Cid reaches to snag a roll from the basket in the middle of the table. “I think you mean we have a new project, but I agree. The name is neither Garlean nor Ishgardian and thusly unlikely to be mere chance. We happen to have done some work with the Scions before, mostly transport, but perhaps they would be willing to share some information if I contacted them. Nice folks, really.”
The conversation moves on to a further explanation of the do-gooders and various city states and their goals, but the questions linger in all four minds.
((-----))
Word comes from Ishgard as idle gossip, who knows how many weeks out of date by the time it arrives. A change in the Heavens Ward, the sudden retirement of one member and their replacement being both a member of a High House and female? Well. That was not how things were done.
The only vampire they know of who would fit that bill is Laniaitte de Haillenarte.
Aymeric broods for days afterwards, only shaken from his melancholy when Estinien, in exasperation, corners him in his favorite armchair, kneels at his feet, and proceeds to ensure that he has no mind left free to focus on anything but pleasure and his lover.
For a little while, at least.
Afterwards, he remains draped against Aymeric’s legs, content and boneless with his cheek pillowed on the vampire’s thigh, a languid hand carding through his hair tenderly. All too soon, Aymeric murmurs softly, “Thank you for the soothing, my dear, but I think it is time for me to put more effort into contacting Haurchefant safely and looking into the situation at — in Ishgard at present.”
Estinien turns his head a bit more down against that powerful thigh, nosing at the puckered scar from the bullet wound. He heard that correction, and unlike Aymeric, in many ways, he would be content to let the city burn, now that his beloved is safely away. Well. Mostly content. Leomond and Heustienne did them a kindness he would feel better to have repaid, and there are the risks Haurchefant and Artoirel took to help them, and…
Groaning deeply in regret, the dragoon presses a soft kiss to the pink scar on the vampire’s golden skin. “I am your spear. Still, I confess, I hope it takes awhile. I—“ Estinien cannot quite believe himself, but he is too comfortably used to honesty with Aymeric now to not speak plainly, “I like our life here, for as long as I am allowed to have it.”
Aymeric sighs and his face softens as Estinien glances back up to watch, full of that crystal clear adoration that he both craves and wants to shrink away from out of fear he will not be enough for it. “Myself as well, and make no mistake, I intend to savor every moment we have. Yet… I had such dreams, once, for Ishgard, for it becoming a better place. I want to be able to go back to my family home, to the place I loved and served as an honorable man as long as I could, and to be an honorable man again.”
Ambition and hope; Aymeric had been a man who always wanted to change things and while his father had thrown him from that path with his transformation, it seems he had found it again with Estinien’s bonding acting to counter that taint. ‘Tis no lie that in some dark corner of Estinien’s heart he wishes it was not so, that Aymeric would be content with a quiet, obscure life like he himself had once thought he would have in his youth. And yet…
Revenge had driven him so long, revenge against the draconic hordes that had destroyed his village. That had destroyed his family. Then, somehow, in the warping of Aymeric’s soul and his being bound to it, he found that he now had someone he might call family again. Protecting that, protecting Aymeric, mattered even more than revenge. And an Aymeric without the will to fight is not something he ever wants to see again.
Blowing out a soft huff of breath, Estinien then stretches up, pressing his lips to the vampire’s in a lingering kiss before he speaks. “Then, my lord, we will live as lovers ‘til the day comes we must live as heroes again.”