Work Text:
Once they reached the Empire, they landed nearer Albrook. The group of them decided to depart for Vector the next morning. Edgar, of course, wanted time to scope out the area and plan.
It didn’t take long for Celes to escape the Blackjack. A mixture of nostalgia and anxiety bubbled up in her chest, choking her. She wanted to set foot in her homeland again, perhaps for the last time.
Albrook was still the same. Formerly a bustling port, it had turned into a den of Imperial sin. Disguised, she could watch her men conduct themselves like animals, pushing the townspeople around without fear of reprisal. Something told her the Emperor wouldn’t care about their behavior, anyway.
A despondent merchant had his wares laid out beneath an awning.
“We have to bribe the soldiers to even do business here,” he complained in a hushed voice. “And it’s all taken from Imperial ships anyway. We’re paying them twice just to be able to sell, and nobody around here can afford the markup. Don’t even get me started on the towns on the other coasts--”
Celes didn’t need telling. Arms folded, she looked over his offerings. Simple things. Cheese, dried meat, tonic.
“Give me ten of everything,” she said, turning to clip the purse from her belt.
Wide-eyed, the man said, “What--??”
“Hurry up. Don’t make a scene. Give me ten of everything, and pack them into saddle bags.”
“Did you loot the box under Setzer’s roulette table or what?”
Turning, Celes watched Locke climb the last few steps to the second level, hands in his pockets. “No,” she replied. “I watched you do it, and then I snatched your bag when you weren’t looking. You’re much too trusting, you know.”
With a smirk, he came to a stop beside her. “What’s all this for?”
“I’ll be back in the morning,” she answered.
As the merchant did his best to wrap and cram everything into bags, Locke asked, “Where are you going?”
Celes’ first instinct was to say “None of your damn business,” but she bit her tongue. He knew it, too-- the smirk only widened as he looked at her with keen eyes. He also knew where she was going, so there was no point in playing coy.
“Maranda.”
A purse of the lips and he nodded, once. “You can’t carry all that shit on your own. I’ll come with you.”
She hated that about him. How he didn’t ask permission, he simply stated his intentions, and assumed everyone would follow along. If she really wanted to, she could tell him to go fuck himself, and to leave her alone for once. The infuriating way he looked at her, like he knew her, and what she really wanted, made her insides itch.
Mostly because she didn’t want to tell him to go fuck himself, and having him along didn’t sound unpleasant at all.
“Two saddles,” she barked at the merchant, before turning away from Locke. “I’ll find us some birds.”
They reached Maranda at twilight. It was sad and small and teeming with drunken soldiers. Since the general store had been burned to the ground, the citizens got most of their goods from the Imperials. A bottle of tonic cost almost 750 gil there.
Nothing Celes could do would erase the sins she’d committed, but at least she could alleviate their pain for a little while.
She and Locke packed up the goods into individual bags. Under the cover of night, Locke stole into the town and delivered them to back doorsteps. The only indicator of their origin was a card with the Returners’ symbol scrawled on the back.
To avoid detection, they didn’t sleep at the inn. As Locke made the drops, Celes set up their tent in the nearby forest and started a discrete fire. Just as their dinner hit the griddle, there was a familiar bird song in the underbrush and Locke emerged.
“Went off without a hitch,” he said, dusting off his hands. “Nobody saw me. Didn’t even cough.” Sitting a few feet from Celes, he said, “Aren’t you glad you brought me along?”
“Agreed to bring you after you invited yourself, you mean?”
Locke only smirked in reply, helping Celes with the food.
As usual, Celes sat in near silence as Locke carried his own conversation. She didn’t need to contribute much more than the occasional gaze or nod, because he knew her mannerisms so well. A natural study of people, Locke could read her better than anyone.
She caught him reading her as the fire began to die-- eyes trained on the embers, mind wandering. He’d stopped speaking a few minutes prior, and she hadn’t noticed. Instead of prodding her to attention, however, he simply sat and waited. The distant sound of crickets filled the silence between them, enveloping them along with the encroaching absolute dark.
Sighing softly, she said, “We had a banquet afterward.”
Arms propped on her knees, fingers clasped, she chewed on her lip. “The Emperor toasted me. I was having a portrait done. My first major military victory. And I couldn’t taste the food. All I could think of were the screams. The smell of burning flesh. No matter how much they desensitize you, you can never divorce yourself from it completely.”
Lightning a cigarette off of the fire, Locke sat back. Leveling those keen eyes on her, he said, “Can’t be that you didn’t have the stomach for it. It was the suffering of other people that you couldn’t stand, once you’d really seen it. Because you’re a good person. A noble person.”
“Am I really?” she replied, finally meeting his gaze. “One might argue that a good person would have never gone along with it to begin with.”
“You believed in it, didn’t you? Believed in the Emperor.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“It’s excuse enough for me. And I’ve seen it. I know it. The way burning flesh smells. How screams sound. How warm blood can be, pumped fresh from the artery. I’ve seen men do some horrible shit, Chere. I heard the stories about you, too. But all that’s in the past, now. We’re gonna make a better future for the world.”
Locke had every reason to hate her. She knew that now, after seeing that girl, sleeping so sweetly amongst the dried flowers in Kohlingen. Celes was part of the machinery that killed Rachel. The reason why Locke’s scars ran so deep.
But he didn’t hate her. He was capable of anger, of hatred. She’d seen it in him. Instead, he saw something in her that nobody else could reach. Some potential to create a better future. She had been ready to die in South Figaro. There seemed no alternative. Instead, he’d shown her hope and redemption.
It unnerved her. Because she didn’t feel she deserved it. No number of tonics she threw onto doorsteps in Maranda could reverse the harm she’d done. Even if she succeeded in helping Locke bring Rachel back from the dead-- if he found what he was really looking for, here in the south-- Celes would still sleep with the blood of thousands more on her hands.
The thing that agitated her the most was that she didn’t want Locke to succeed at all. Some selfish part of her, deep down within, relished the way he’d looked at her when she was all polished up in that opera gown. How could a small-town girl like Rachel really relate to him, after all he’d been through? She was still a child. Eternally a virginal maiden.
Something Celes would never be. Never had the chance to be. Did that make her better suited for him? Or so much worse?
Why the hell was she thinking about this? Cursing under her breath, she shook her head. Rising quickly to her feet, she stepped back from the fire and turned.
“Celes--??”
“I’m going to sleep,” she hissed.
“Celes, wait--”
His hand fell upon her shoulder and she spun. Her fist rose and he tensed, fully expecting her to punch him. Instead, she grabbed his lapel.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she barked. Mystified, he opened his mouth to say something-- maybe apologize-- but she jerked him forward, crushing her lips against his own.
For one terrible, awkward moment, they stood in place, frozen against one another. Regret immediately began to prickle at the base of Celes’s skull, and a thousand thoughts rushed forth from it at once.
Why did you do that? He’s the only real friend you have. You ruined everything. This is wrong. He loves another woman.
Locke’s lips parted and the softest breath left them. Eyes sliding shut, he pressed closer. And that was it.
Burying his fingers in her hair, he kissed her with the deepest urgency. Her fists curled in the material of his jacket, tongue sliding slick and hot over his bottom lip. A step backward and she drew him slowly toward the tent. As the heel of her boot brushed against the canvas, she jerked the garment over his shoulders.
He’d managed to shed the thing by the time he ducked into the tent, and Celes followed. It took only half a minute to release the buckle on his knife harness, and she drew the leather purposefully down and off of his arms.
Each time he seemed as if he might say something, he drew her into another kiss instead. His deft fingers loosened the laces on her boots and she kicked them off, into the night behind them. She straddled him, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders to curtain them both as she slid cool palms over the plane of his stomach. Pushing his shirt up to his collarbones, she found another knife. With a smirk, she flipped it to the side, watching it stick in the soft ground beside the pallet they shared. How many nights did they sleep beside one another here, to preserve body heat, without a single thought to what men and women often did together when they were alone?
The shirt came off, and her lips fell to the curve of his shoulders. His fingertips dragged upward, over her thighs, the cut of her hips, digging into the soft flesh there. This wasn’t her first time seeking pleasure with a man, and she could tell he was no wilting flower either. Their hips rolled against one another in a primal rhythm that could only be learned through experience. Her guilt at seducing this boy away from his first love lessened somewhat.
Locke shifted and pulled a switchblade out of the back of his waistband. Dropping it beside them, he breathed, “Much better.”
One by one, he released the buttons keeping her together, stripped each layer of her armor away until only her corselette remained. Her teeth dragged over the pulse at his neck and he released a broken sigh. She felt the first stirrings of his arousal between her legs, and her hips angled down, torturing them both that much more.
Finally, he freed the last stay between her skin and the night air. Sitting back, she loosened the strings on her breeches. For a moment, their eyes met. Light from the moon and stars above, filtered through the tent’s canvas, was all they had to go by. His silver hair seemed to glow, casting shadows on his face that both terrified and captivated her.
Neither breathed a word as she stripped down, unashamed of her nudity before Locke’s eyes. With reverence, he touched her, and she suddenly wondered what the hell she had done to the both of them. In a perfect world, would it have been like this? Here they were, rutting like animals in a tent in the wilderness, where any stray Imperial could stumble upon them.
In a perfect world, it wouldn’t happen at all. Locke would still be at home with his ravishing little wife, running a corner store or something. Celes likely never would have been conceived, or at the very least, she would have been born somewhere untouched by ambition and war.
Locke broke her from her reverie by pulling her down, devouring her skin with lips and fingers. A soft, startled moan rolled from her throat when his hand slid between her legs. She dragged blunt nails over his scalp, jerking his bandana off and discarding it. Heated lips closed over a nipple and her skin prickled.
“Ah--”
She felt him tense beneath her at that little sound, his breath deepening. With only minimal probing, he found her clit, drawing precise circles around it that made her mewl. Of course she should have expected that he could charm her as easily as he charmed the toughest locks. He nuzzled her breasts, the scruff on his cheeks scratching her skin in the most delicious way. She cursed under her breath and he delved downward, probing her entrance. His fingers slipped within, curling deep, and she gasped.
She hoped he anticipated this whole thing going where she did, because she wouldn’t be able to stand much more without a denouement. Panting softly, fumbling, she managed to open his belt buckle, and finally his fly. He was already almost full mast. Dragging her fingers over his length, she drew back his foreskin, feeling slick precum on the pad of her thumb.
“Celes--” he rasped against her skin, teeth dusting over the peak of her breast.
Impatient, she pressed him back to the ground and grabbed his belt loops. Hiking his hips, he allowed her to pull his pants down to mid thigh.
Another knife fell out of some hidden interior pocket.
“Odin’s Balls, Locke,” she said, picking it up and flicking it down to rest beside its kin in the dirt.
Laughing softly, he whispered, “S’only half of ‘em.”
When their lips met this time, it was fierce. She tugged on his hair, keeping him pinned beneath her as she ground the underside of his cock against her wet slit. He actually moaned, low and aching, a sound that made her heart skip in her chest. In no time at all he was rock hard and throbbing against her, hips arching greedily.
This is it.
She shifted, an elbow propped beside him as she moved him into position. How long had it been since his last encounter, she wondered? Since before they met? He likely wouldn’t last long at all. Or did he secretly palm himself during nighttime baths? Both charmed and disappointed by these notions, she slid down atop him until their hips met.
They both gasped in unison, and he kissed her messily, breathing something unintelligible and incredulous against her lips. She took her time, wanting to draw this out for as long as possible, feeling him slide deep and slow within her.
His fingers drifted over her skin, tracing scars and swells of muscle with equal affection. Soon they were moving together, kissing whatever tracts of skin their lips could catch, their moans and sighs lost in the night. With a pang of something akin to regret, Celes felt her body tightening around him as she reached that peak. Rearing back, she sped, tendrils of blonde twirling over his skin as she moved back and forth.
But it wasn’t enough. Gripping her hips, he rolled them both, stopping just short of the knife fence they’d built together. She curled her legs around his hips and he began to thrust, hard and deep, panting harshly as he held himself above her.
He looked like a man possessed, concentration knitting his brow, and the fires within her only blazed all the more brightly. Dragging her nails down his chest, she hissed, “Harder,” arching against him.
Without question, he obeyed, his body a lithe machine. And oh, those beautiful hands. His fingers slid between them and he found her clit again, coordinating his movements so perfectly with the jut of his hips. Soon Celes was blind from it, head rolling backward, lips parted on a (mostly) silent oath. She climaxed, clenching around him, and he slowed but for a moment.
“Chere--” he breathed, kissing her a last time. He moved for another moment, before it hit him and he withdrew, spilling his seed on the inside of her thigh.
Then they both were still, panting softly as the sweat dried on their skin. She shifted, letting her legs extend. Locke groped for his discarded bandana and wiped her clean before throwing it out of the tent. He collapsed beside her, pants barely drawn back into place, and they lay for a time, minds delightfully blank.
Just as she began to doze, his arm stretched over her. For a terrifying and beautiful moment, she thought he might embrace her. Instead, he grabbed his jacket and rooted around until he found his cigarette case.
Of course.
He lit up and rolled onto his back. After sending a long plume of smoke into the air, he offered it to her. She drew closer and took a drag, like she always used to do in the officer’s club when offered, choking on the noxious fume before letting it puff from her nose. A soft laugh and Locke took it back, popping it between his lips. Embarrassed, she curled her head against his shoulder, resting on his arm.
Idle fingers stroked along her shoulder blades and she watched the red tip of his smoke move in the darkness. Before he was finished, she drifted off.
Some time later, when night had engulfed them completely, she awoke again. Her back was against him, his arms curled tightly around her. At some point he’d pulled the coarse blanket over them both.
His forehead was pressed against her shoulder. She heard him exhale, so quickly, so softly. Hot tears hit her skin and she squeezed her eyes shut.
Gently, she brushed her thumb against his wrist and he stilled.
She’ll forgive you.