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"Did you ever meet Tatatru Taru?"
"Who?"
"The young Lalafell woman who came in with the Warrior of Light's group. Absolute darling of a woman given her situation, if she'd decided to stick around she'd have had six marriage proposals within the month. You'd have liked her."
Charlemend gave the polite nod of 'I don't know where we're going with this but I assume we'll get to the point eventually'. With Edmont's retirement, he'd found himself with a lot more free time - time to go on as long a walk as his aching leg would allow in the cold, time to try new things, and time to restoke the fires of friendships he'd let cool to mere ashes.
Charlemend, meanwhile, had been at total loose ends. At Edmont's gentle suggestion he'd started volunteering at the veteran's hospital and working on trade agreements, but some part of him always seemed…scattered and lost in this strange new world, while Edmont had found the chaos oddly liberating.
"She's done quite well for herself since they left here, started her own business and everything. It's quite inspiring. Anyway, ever so often she sends me these little care packages from her travels - that silkscreen print you were admiring when you were over last week was one of them."
Edmont drew an envelope out of the inside pocket of his coat and waved it at to Charlemend. "And then this week she sent along this - a pair of tickets for a free stay in Costa del Sol, they have an exclusive resort there that's supposed to be the best in the region."
"Ah. I'm sure you and Emman–"
"The only rule is, I cannot bring another member of my family." At Charlemend's raised eyebrow he added, " I think she wants me to take a little time away from my responsibilities, you see. Such a thoughtful lass."
"So who are you–oh. Me?"
"The hospital can spare you for a few days. And you could use the excuse to get out of town as much as I could."
Charlemend took another look at the envelope. At the bottom of the flyer, an etching of a barely dressed Miq'ote woman with honey-colored hair beckoned the viewer towards a sunny beach and sparkling ocean edged by palm trees. Guests wearing flowered tunics and culottes raised wine glasses and bottles at the viewer in welcome. The evening's cold seemed to settle even deeper into his bones than it usually did.
"I suppose I could, at that."
—-
"It meant a lot. What you said after the funeral, I mean."
"I don't. Look, I'm not even sure it was true."
"Hm?" Edmont looked up at Charlemend, slouched on the bed while Edmont knocked back the last of his glass of wine. Costa del Sol was known for top shelf liqours, not to mention the winery nearby, and the two noblemen had imbibed quite a lot of all three (including that strange and exotic treat known as a 'mimosa').
Even with the sun-warding cream that the staff had left in their room Charlemend had taken the worst of the coastal sun's assault, his skin slowing tinging towards pink as the day wore on. Instead of his formal robes or the battered second-hand attire he wore to his work at the veteran's hospital he was stripped down to a floral print tunic and knee length linen cullottes, an attire that he complained made him feel as if he were walking around in his underwear.
"I mean. What you and Haurchefant had…my son and I never did. I just wanted to say something to make you not feel alone, but…when my Carvellain…I didn't feel as much as I should have. I didn't miss him as I should have. I grieved for lost opportunity, not what I actually had. Is that bad? I think that's bad." Charlemend shifted forward to lean his face into his hand, his shirt gapping further and giving Edmont a view through a thicket of ginger chest hair that went nearly to his navel.
Edmont snorted. "I don't know. I'm not bloody Halone. I just knew you were trying to comfort me, in your muddling way, and that was enough."
"Do we have any more of those little drinks in the coconuts?"
"No, and the stand closed already."
"Oh."
"Anyway, point is I'd be a hypocrite to call you anything. I," And here Edmont shifted to sit up, hand pressed to his own floral chest as if he were giving testimony to a congregation. "Am an adulterer," he pronounced, making Charlemend buckle over snickering.
"You're an escapee, is what you are, I'd met your wife. I'd cheat on her too if I were married to her."
"Your wife was all right."
"Yeah. Yeah, she was." Charlemend stared into space again, morose. "I don't know. After her, and then Carvellain, I just didn't have the heart to try for anything else. Always rather admired how you work, you know? You see a thing, you go for. I wish I had that liberation."
"Don't make me out to be that much of a debauched rake."
"In your younger years, you were! But I suppose age has…tempered us both."
Edmont reached for the bottle and coughed. "Not entirely tempered."
"What?"
"Look, you can't tell Barendouin."
Charlemend shifted over down the bed, closer to Edmont, as if they might be heard all the way back in Ishgard if they weren't careful? "'What am I not telling him?" he asked in a loud whisper.
"You remember when I had Lord Manderville staying in my manor for that business trip, and then his son and his friends spent a month living in my back garden for some reason?"
Charlemend wrinkled his nose. "Yes, I remember that was. Unusual."
"Well, the son's unusual but the father is…also unusual." Edmont took a long drink before adding, abrupt and impulsive, "He propositioned me."
"He did what?"
"Well, it started as offering me some balm to ease the aches in my legs, but around the time he offered to rub it in for me it was clear what he wanted." It was hard not to let a smile come to his lips, both at the memory and at Charlemend's aghast expression. "Said it was just something between friends, no bearing on our business arrangements. He was very polite about it, but incredibly up front. They really do handle matters differently in Ul'dah, I suppose."
"Yes, I suppose…You didn't actually–you did! I see you smirking! You assented?"
"It was quite informative," Edmont admitted. The night's chill was warded off by the flush of his cheeks. "He's a very accomplished man. Also a very powerful one."
"Good gods." Charlemend stared with a mixture of horror and cautious admiration. He let the matter sit, and then abruptly blurted out "Can we go in the j'accuse?"
"Ya-koo-zee," Edmont corrected, feeling about in the dim light for his cane. "Yakuzee."
Charlemend stuck his tongue out at him. "Fine, can we go in the big bubbling soup pot?"
"I suppose. It's ours for the duration."
They staggered against each other as they went out the back door of the cabana, facing away from the ocean and the rest of the resort. Edmont patted at the levers and crystals off to the side of their private tub, activating first the fire-aspected crystal structures to bring up the heat and then the water ones that sent the delightful little currents and pulses through it. The lass who'd escorted them to their cabana had been very effusive about how it was the latest of its kind, like an artificial hot spring but even more effective for good health and bloodflow. "Masterful technology," Edmont noted. "I wonder if I can get one put in at the manor."
Charlemend shucked his shirt and culottes off, and Edmont saw the moonlight glint off a pair of globes even more dazzlingly pale than the orb in the starry sky above before Charlemend slid himself into the heating water. A long, loud sigh echoed his way through the man's entire body. Edmont undressed and joined him, sitting across from him with their legs slotting crosswise into each other.
"Beautifully clear night," Edmont noted.
"Such a blessing," Charlemend agreed. Clear but not silent - besides the cacophony of coastal insects and birds, he could hear the faint sound of music and laughter from a private party happening further down the beach.
"Was it…good?"
"Was what good?"
"With Lord Manderville."
"Oh. Yes. Yes, it was. Have you never–"
"Not with another man. And not since my wife passed."
"It has—I know I'm more the whore, of the two of us, but this whore can at least vouch for the appeal of whoring." The vile word, from such cultured lips, set them both to giggling as the currents of the jacuzzi stroked gently against them. As if gravity had tilted, Edmont found himself falling against the other nobleman, sliding next to him to look at how the moonlight painted his sunburnt face and thinning hair.
"Do you…want me to show you?" he whispered.
"Mm." That, and the way Charlemend closed the distance between them to let their lips meet, was answer enough.
Little of it was graceful. Their hands were unpracticed, awkward, and on top of that quite intoxicated. Edmont tried to get cocky and climb up onto Charlemend's lap, only to realize his bad leg wouldn't let him stay up. Charlemend attempted to kiss his way down Edmont's chest and got water up his nose when he got too far down, glaring at his laughing friend as he sputtered and snorted.
Still, they got there eventually, skin sliding over wet skin, mouths tasting lips tinged in sea-salt air and the faint hints of chemically treated water and the last traces of sun cream. Nothing rushed, nothing urgent, just a slow build and then a soft breath out and then Edmont was slumped against Charlemend's soft chest, fingers trailing over his thigh fondly. The sound of sea birds played on against the faint crashing of waves, so far from anything that would reach their ears back in Ishgard.
"You know what I will tell Barendouin?" Charlemend mumbled. "When we get back. When this is…when we're done with all this?"
"What?"
"I'll tell him to have his bluestocking son figure out how to build a yakuzi already. It's uncivilized living without them."