Work Text:
It's not that he's ungrateful.
When Louisoix brought him to Sharlayan, Thancred had known instantly that he wasn't supposed to be there. It's a sense you train very quickly as a child alone; the places where you are tolerated and where you are not. With a heavy hand on Thancred's shoulder, too scrawny still so bear the breadth of it, he'd introduced him to the curt immigration official as his ward. With a look that told him all he needed to know, she'd sent them off with a warning not to bring home any more strays.
Thancred thinks about her now, sitting in the cot in the storeroom the servants had hastily prepared for him, staring down in disbelief at his laced fingers. His grubby nails. His scabby knees.
"Careful," she had said, without looking up from her ledger. "People are starting to talk."
It's a few weeks later when Louisoix touches him for the first time.
He wants to get him started on arcanima, he says, and that's a word Thancred hasn't heard before, but he tells him not to worry about it yet -- for now they'll just focus on learning his letters. And Thancred hates that he's embarrassed about it. He's quite sure everyone in this house, down to the servants, know how to read and write, and Thancred thought he knew well enough, too. Enough to get by, enough to know what the numbers mean and when a fence is stiffing you -- and yet, he struggles to sound out even a sentence. Louisoix is so very patient with him, then, smiling, providing the syllables where none come to mind.
He's a strange man. But Thancred is starting to feel like his first reaction was unfair. Perhaps he does see some kind of potential in him -- perhaps he really is being honest. He'd like to believe that. He's being taken care of better now than he'd ever been in his life. The servants have made a real home out of the spare room they'd found for him; he has a real bed and windows that face the ocean, books written simple so he could learn from them, clean clothes washed by unseen hands each night. It was like all his bitter little fantasies played out on a stage, for how real they feel to him, even weeks later. But maybe it is real. Maybe Thancred is simply experiencing the only run of good luck he's ever had in his short life.
A warm, long-fingered hand comes down on his thigh and his blood turns to ice.
Thancred drops the book. It falls from his lap and tumbles face-down onto the floor. Louisoix -- when had he come that close? Louisoix is looking at him with what can only be called concern, and Thancred's gut twists. His hand is still on his thigh. Louisoix looks at him like that, then at his hand, then, as if only now dawning on him, fingerpads dragging across his skin, removes it.
"Too soon, then?" Louisoix smiles, sadly, and Thancred's heart pounds staccato in his chest. What? Why was he reacting like that? Was something wrong? "I had worried as much. So much you must have endured already... too much for a boy your age. No matter. I am sorry."
"S-sorry?" Thancred's voice sounds so thin, reedy in the claustrophobic press of the room. Confused.
"I had forgotten myself." Louisoix picks up the book from the floor, dusting it off, running fingers along its dented spine. "I shall leave the primer here; you're quite free to make use of it." He looks at Thancred again, smiles that rueful smile, and sets the book upon the crate serving as his bedside table. And then, he stands, and leaves.
Thancred stares at the door. His fingers feel numb.
There's a boy his age in the house.
Maybe a little younger. It's so hard to tell with Elezen; they look so small and pretty 'til practically adulthood, then explode outwards all at once, all gangly limbs and two left feet. But the boy, he's seen Thancred too, exchanged that silent acknowledgment that is the way of children, only for a servant to shepherd him off with little explanation. He'd had white hair, olive-toned skin, though sallow as if he didn't see sunlight much. He dressed nice. Nicer than the servants, who still wore nicer clothes than Thancred had ever seen in his life.
Thancred is again left feeling that he doesn't belong here. He isn't reprimanded, but he doesn't see the boy again for a long time.
It was strange he'd had white hair. Well, not too strange -- Lousioix did, after all. He was probably his son.
Thancred's studies are not going well. He can read, now, more or less -- Louisoix had taught him how to use the dictionary and he'd been able to work it out from there. He's not stupid, after all. He has to tell himself this often, a prayer as he stares at figures that make his eyes hurt. He'll understand it, eventually. If he stares at it enough. He has to. The alternative was letting Louisoix down, and being alone again. Alone in an unfamiliar place, where the winds bite and the nights are long.
He hasn't come by again as often since he'd dropped the book. The memory of it still sits heavy in his guts. Embarrassment. Shame. So the next time Louisoix puts his hands on him, he's ready, steeling himself to accept his touch. That's what he wanted, right? There was some reason he couldn't touch his son, and so Thancred must be some kind of substitute. Yes, he thinks. That makes sense. So Louisoix reaches for him, holds him closely, praises him, brings him off with his hand and shows him the right way to lick his cock. When Thancred cries, afterwards, he still holds him, and tells him he's done a good job.
Thancred isn't stupid. He's twelve. He knows what men like this are, and he knows what they want with boys like him. But he doesn't think the boy down the hall does, and if he can. Thancred would like to keep it that way.
Years pass. Thancred watches the boy across the hall grow into a man, and, he supposes, he does, too. And as he does, he sees him less and less, even around the Studium -- he graduates well before Thancred does, and is gone for quite some time, and then, he's back, with twins. Alisaie and Alphinaud, they are. Tiny, tiny little things, quickly growing, and yet not quickly enough. It turned Thancred's stomach that the first thought he had when introduced to Louisoix's grandchildren is not to ask their age, but to wonder how much time they have. Fifteen years? Ten? For whatever it is that fans the flames of Louisoix's interest, Thancred can't let it happen to them. He won't.
Thancred was sixteen summers old, then, and Louisoix had interpreted his worry as fear he'd be replaced. He'd reassured him at the time, fingers carding through his hair, told him he was still his favorite -- And he hates to admit it may have worked. For a while. Long enough that when he brought the Elezen youth home four years later, he was shocked. Then disgusted, then afraid.
"We've been over this before, Thancred," Louisoix says, later, in his chambers. He's trying to write a letter, and Thancred isn't letting him; hands on the table and meeting his gaze. He feels weak in the knees. He always does while looking at Louisoix; while being looked at by him. "You're doing wonderfully in the studies you have chosen, but I require individuals with..."
"With what?" Thancred's voice cracks.
"...A certain aptitude for arcanima, within my Circle, that you lack. It's no matter, of course; Thaliak simply blessed you in other areas." His eyes flick to Thancred's lips and his guts clench. Louisoix moves right along, as if seeking to reassure him -- "Don't misunderstand me, son. Espionage suits you, and I daresay the art will serve you well in the days to come. Isn't your master talking about giving you your Archon mark, soon?"
Well, Thancred would not be reassured. "You're not going to..."
"Do what, child?" Louisoix drops his voice down low, and it feels like a punch in the gut. He leans forward, elbows on the table, knuckles close as if to brush Thancred's hand; his fingers curl rather than allow it. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be a bit clearer." Thancred grits his teeth.
"Don't touch him. Don't touch any of them."
The corners of Louisoix's lips quirk, a crack in his grandfatherly facade. There's a moment, two -- staring Louisoix in the face, Louisoix staring back, as if daring him to stop him. Daring him to try. Thancred's stomach twists, his nails digging into his palms there on the table.
After a moment more of that terrible silence, he straightens. Louisoix doesn't stop him when he circles round to behind his desk; he doesn't stop him when Thancred drops to his knees and goes for the fastenings of his trousers. He chuckles, actually, a hand coming to lightly stroke his head. His hands had grown old before the rest of him, grown gnarled and lean with age, but no weaker when he curls a possessive hand in his white hair, when he tugs insistently. Once upon a time, his hand could easily span his whole face; hold his waist between them with fingers touching. Even now, one long-fingered hand can still grasp much of his hair in its grip. Thancred hides his shiver with a yank on his smallclothes, freeing Louisoix's soft cock from their confines. Soft, of course. Likely to stay soft without quite a bit of effort. Thankfully, Thancred knew well what got this old man going.
"Why, Thancred," Louisoix drawls, spreading his knees to allow him a place between them, symmetry through years of practice. "I had no idea you felt so strongly..." The sound of his voice coming from above him prickles the hairs on the back of his neck. It's a familiar place, this; between his mentor's legs, beneath the desk of his study. Hands on his prick. Thancred tongues the shaft from its resting place between Louisoix's balls, eyes sliding shut of their own accord. Sucking gently upon the flared head of it. From above him, Louisoix sighs softly, settling his back into his office chair as Thancred sucks his soft cock and massages it with his tongue, one hand holding him steady and the other cupping his balls with a gentle touch.
"Ah..." Louisoix grunts, speaks again; grip loosening to stroke through Thancred's hair as he gently bobs on his cock. "You missed this, didn't you?" He croons, "missed being good for me."
Thancred tastes bile in the back of his throat. He shoves it down, simply humming something noncommittal around Louisoix's prick and redoubling his efforts to bring him to hardness, feeling the warm length of it twitch in his mouth. The old man could think of this what he wanted -- just as long as it drew his attention from the others for a while. A week, a day. Any amount of time he could buy was well worth the humiliation, settling hot in his cheeks, his hands. The pit of his stomach. He can feel it in his jaw already, lets out a breath through his nose in a whimper; the debasing spectacle of sucking his limp cock to life. Inevitably, though, results; he feels Louisoix's cock finally fill and swell in his mouth, pulls off of it with a wet pop and a dribble of saliva and slick, sticky down his chin.
"You don't need to," He insists, stroking Louisoix's cock now with a hand. "You don't need to train another pet. I already know..." He smears the saliva and slick he'd left there all along the length, looking up through his eyelashes at Louisoix's face."Just what you like."
Louisoix's jaw sets in a line, tipping his head back and hissing through his teeth, but one lazy eye still fixes on him. Appraising and appreciative both. Good. Let him focus on Thancred alone, holding his gaze as he takes one of his balls into his mouth, lavishing it with attention from tongue and hollowed cheeks. He watches Louisoix's face go tight, feels his cock twitch in his hand, spilling pre over his knuckles and dripping into his hair. Let him forget he's collected any more toys than him.
Thancred doesn't know how long it is before Louisoix pulls on his hair again, and, wincing, he glances up again in time to see his pointed look. Obediently, he pulls back from his balls, following the line of his frenulum up with his tongue dragged up the underside, 'til his lips met around the firm, flared head of his cock. In this moment between, he realizes with shame that though he hasn't so much as touched his cock, he's half-mast in his own trousers. Thancred feels a hot flush to his ears. Shame follows it through his body, settling alongside the humiliation and conditioned arousal in an awful cocktail of emotions. He knows he likes sucking cock, but as ever, he can never be sure where his preferences ended and Louisoix's expectations begin.
"You know better than to tease, boy," Louisoix's voice is a throaty hum, and when his second hand settles in his hair, Thancred knows what he expects. He slackens his jaw for him, allowing him to fuck his hips upwards into his mouth as his hands guided him down, down to the base. Lousioix's cock isn't thick, but like his fingers, it's long, and three-quarters down the shaft Thancred takes a deep breath, opens his throat, and lets it inside with a wet sound. Louisoix lets out a long, low, groan under his breath, grip in his hair tightening as Thancred's lips finally press against the base of his cock, nose to his crotch, every inch of him invading his mouth.
Thancred can hold his breath for a long time. And whenever he tells people that, he thinks of this. Thinks of the long minutes he's spent held here, speared upon Louisoix's length as he chokes and gags and struggles to keep his composure, as he sighs above him, as his cock twitches in his throat. He's not gagging now, though; that reflex has long since been fucked out of him, allowing Louisoix to thrust into the wet clutch of his mouth with little resistance. Spit and pre run down his chin. Though he tries to hold his gaze, Thancred's eyes tear up and slide shut after a few moments of hard use. It doesn't matter. Louisoix has looked away, tilting his head back and stifling his grunts into a hand. Thancred's throat now a hole for his use.
His lungs burn for want of air. He doesn't know how long he's been choking on prick, and though he knows he can push it further, Louisoix is no longer the man who'd have him warm his cock for hours on end. Thancred feels those wiry hands grip harder in his hair, and seamlessly takes him to the base and holds him there, tongue working at his frenulum, swallowing down around the invasive press of his glans stuck in his gullet. For all the obscene noises Thancred knows he's been producing with his attentions, Louisoix's release comes all but silent, a long sigh. Cock pulsing in his mouth, the bitter aftertaste of his emissions follow up his throat as he sucks it out of him.
Thancred only gags a little as he pulls the cock out of his throat. He drags in a ragged gasp, milking the last few dribbles of spend from him with a hand until Louisoix chuckles and swats him away.
"My, lad, you have been craving my attention, haven't you?" The words sting, especially as he's wiping his come from the corners of his mouth, from down his chin. He hides the stain on his sleeve by rolling them up to his elbows, but his red face, his swollen lips, even his voice would tell the tale. Disgust curls in his belly, and even still, his own cock still throbs needy in his trousers. He only hopes Louisoix doesn't notice, or doesn't care. The only thing worse than Louisoix's attention is his reciprocation.
Loath to say the words out loud, Thancred simply nods. Louisoix smiles, smooths his hair back into place fondly. Thancred feels sick. "Well, if you've been feeling lonely, my boy, perhaps I can make some time. It wouldn't do to have you and young Urianger being at odds, after all."
Thancred let in a deep breath, then out. Again. So, Urianger was his name. He must not have caught it when they'd been introduced.
Urianger.
Thancred leans his head on Louisoix's thigh as he tucks himself back into his trousers and returns his attention to whatever document he was penning, allowing Thancred the moment to catch his breath.
Whatever it takes.