a mockery of his good nature
Jan. 27th, 2026 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seleniasTitle: a mockery of his good nature
Fandom: Final Fantasy XVI
Characters/pairing: Dion/Terence
Rating: gen
Word Count: 1958
Notes: LOGOS revealed a hilarious tidbit (spoilers) that it's not until Dion defends Terence's honor at a martial competition by punching a guy out does Terence realize Dion's desire for him is serious and agree to his pursuit. This fic is the follow up romcom, lmao.
-
The quiet of his rooms is a misery. Oriflamme itself holds a hostility in his heart now, that it might forever reproach him regardless of promise.
Frustration makes him clumsy; Dion claws at the vestments for his office and piles them crudely over the back of the sofa. Jewelry slips from his ears and fingers and clatter like coins in a ceramic bowl atop his dresser. The rage burning hot and shaky in his chest moves to his eyes. Dion slows and lowers himself into a chair. He had renounced his inheritance in ink and word but not his integrity — he flexes his dull, throbbing hand and considers; it’s a satisfactory purple. To change the habit of a people their beliefs must be challenged; this was a bludgeoning, shameful reckoning — but no one had dared to say a word, afraid a criticism might level more than a man. Those piercing eyes, Dion hoped, would see what he did: a silver spoon in Sir Denis’s mouth and none of the civility of Greagor.
One thing is certain. There had been blood, but he had rid his hands of it. Shame, then indignation, floods him. He had done right — and the rest could be forgiven as princely temperament.
It’s not long before Dion hears an adjacent door open and close, and then — hushed — steps treading across plush rugs, sure, confident, and easy. Indefatigable, his retainer meant to attend him. Dion closes his sore eyes.
If there was bravery in the noblemen any soldier of Greagor who knew the conduct of combat should have had the courage to step forward, but none did. He knows it was arrogance, pride, and a growing disdain for dishonor, for Terence’s keeping was not a welcome displacement to the young men that had assumed they would share and were entitled to their fathers’ successes with Dion’s own. The stars did not change their positions so fatefully without Saint Gilbard’s blessing, and any other explanation should only be insensibility—
The oiled hinge gives way to sure steps, a gentle rattling of iron or silverware — celebratory vestments, Dion pictures. A pin for his collar; a jewel at his throat.
“The court gave itself to ugly sport today,” Dion says in measured greeting, busying himself with his boots. The waxed laces slips between his fingers neatly. “I feel intolerable; I’m afraid I am not good company now.”
Dion struggles for self control for a grave few seconds, tense and promising as a brewing storm, and looks up into silence.
Terence holds his winnings in a tight fist like caught game; a silver tray decorated with food rests atop his folded arm with down turned goblets and a polished pitcher. He’s returned to the cordial clothing of his office, white and gray starched vestments with teal trimmings, unremarkable and safe for Dion’s eyes to rest on; it marks him still as a retainer of the Lesages, honored staff and friend. Dion’s vision swims with relief. Terence had not absconded with his treasures, but returned to share his savagery and joy with him. He’s smiling because he’s happy. “What is all that,” Dion croaks, laughing some. His hands hang useless and still, shoulders bowed over his anxious heart. “You should share it with your family.”
His retainer’s face falls to surprise, then amazement. “I will honor my lord first, and there I see no difference.” Terence crosses to the dresser in quick, strong strides, pivoting on flared thighs and high boots, the modesty of his tunic leaving only the suggested gait of the dragoons who paraded their bodies with confidence. It was always a pleasure to watch him walk, run, or fight — as long as he was near, out of danger, or coming toward him.
Terence sets his entreaties aside and turns to crouch swiftly at Dion’s feet, batting his hands away — like the rumors foretold. “What are you making a mockery of our happiness for, hiding like a bandit?” Dion feels no better with Terence at his feet than he had when Sir Denis had sneered and pushed him to do so, then toppled him on to his back to make a mockery of his good nature— he doesn’t hear his own demand, voice thick with fresh rage, that Terence rise and remain on his feet in the Prince’s whoring rooms.
Silence reigns, heavy and tense as the court. Then:
“I shall not,” Terence retorts, civil and cool even in his disobedience. “Perhaps it will begin a revolution for men to consider the matter of their liveries going forward.”
“Forgive me,” Dion murmurs, “that I find you lack judgment.”
Terence looks amazed, then laughs, short and angry. His hands make fierce, quick tugs until he gathers Dion’s calf, braces the heel on his thigh, and pulls the boot loose with restrained violence. He leaves it where it falls and seizes the next. “I have lived with shame plainly because I cannot refuse how it hangs on my name. You claim the misdeeds of another as your own. Lift your head! You refused them. I shall not forget your courage even if you grieve it because you’ve discovered and now loathe your ignorance.”
Dion tips his head back, face hot, and crushes the upholstery in his fists.
It is not only the murmurs of the court and the augers that tip Dion’s mind to worry, but the way his body grows feverish and swollen, his mouth dry with the grain of truth that parches him. Terence remains touched by the armiger’s oils and old perfume of the court; the smell of field sweat and sun has followed him here in salute. He’s marked every bit as the impoverished party approaching ruin his father superciliously left trails of as he mounted Whitewyrm’s steps with a babe in his arms, and Dion the unprincipled mongrel son in search of an easy fuck in unremarkable and disadvantaged house Bellamie.
He cannot say it doesn’t entirely displease him how Terence folds so easily at his feet, that if he were a braggart, and they knew wherein value and worth lied, it would be the honor of Terence’s company at his leisure.
“It’s true that it has not been easy; imagine my happiness today that you understood,” Terence muses. “It’s made me greedy, I’m afraid. Would my prince at least do me the dignity of a kiss for my whoring trials? I thought I had your favor. Have the tables turned so swiftly?”
Dion raises his head to glare, but Terence catches his chin with new boldness, then cradles his face and pulls him low and close. Dion feels the pulse in his jaw leap, Terence’s fingers tracing it and combing back his hair from his flushed cheeks. Dion’s breath is harsh, his chest shudders. He holds fast to the chair and allows the manipulation. “You do,” he says. Then, helplessly, “Have my favor. Too much of it.”
“On the contrary, this afternoon, I have never felt so wanting,” Terence murmurs. Then he presses his dry mouth to his own. Dion’s heels dig into the carpet and he detaches his fingers from the chair to grip Terence’s shirt, twisting his fist in the material until his bruised hand is flush with the heat of his body. It had been like this before, too — Dion, starving and mad with want, and Terence deliberate and measured with exactness. Dion feels the memory of fractured ribs and the puncture of steel anew as Waloed ran him through — but Terence is breathless and panting when he pulls away, lips obscene with the terrible suggestion of themselves in a stolen rendezvous.
“That’s enough,” Dion murmurs, kind and dulcet, trembling with pleasure, and relinquishes his iron grip. “You have made yourself clear.”
“No, I have not if you’re cowering. Let me speak,” Terence retorts. It sounds like babbling to Dion’s ears, like a brook, and he the ice bounding down in the first spring thaw. “I disregarded your sincerity,” he mocks, low and deprecating. “I thought my lord’s confession unsustainable. You could not know what you were promising me — men, soldiers, we appeal to vanity for hope! I’ve felt your gaze, but I did not allow you to know mine. It amazed me that it gave you no trouble.” Terence’s mouth trembles, then he laughs. “Greagor, it was absurd — I was terrified, and I thought you still might die, and you wanted then companionship—anyone’s. I could have been ruined, later. You would not do me that disservice intentionally, I know this, and I would fall on my sword before implicating you — it can never be dignity alone each of us risk — but the nobility can call me your dog or your whore, they do, it will continue, maybe — but it will make no difference if my skill is better. If I serve you. I trust my faith is not misplaced. It’s not new friction to consider either, but my success has born my house accusations before — indecency is favored, as of late.” He shrugs. “Men talk. We all wish to succeed. There are our vices.”
Dion straightens his shoulders to full width, solemn and thin-lipped, then grasps Terence’s strong wrists in his palms. Thick calluses span his fingertips; they had felt good against his skin when he’d gripped him. He’d put them there with sword play as boys, and orders as a man to cut, maim, and kill. Terence had disregarded his favor for the only respectability he could secure of his own control that was not a command, but desire and risk. “I know,” Dion says, clipped, low. “It’s why I was furious.”
“Ah,” Terence retorts. He leans more fully into Dion’s parted knees. Then: “Denis cried.”
“A wretch!”
“Kiss me again,” he says.
Dion gazes at him under heavy lids. “You forget yourself,” he murmurs. “It’s part of what I had hoped for. Demand, ask, share with me everything.”
Terence considers. “You’re a theatric when you think you are right.”
Outraged, Dion kisses him hotly, seizing his face by the ears, then holding him by the short clips of his hair, upsetting the part and rigid brow with hand and mouth. “I thought you had brought solicitations,” he murmurs.
“Yes. In a moment,” he amends. Then, losing steam, “Shortly.”
Terence lays his flushed cheek upon his thigh and embraces him loosely. The long slide of his back is warm beneath Dion’s palms where he drags them, back and forth, the stiff fabric chafing against his dry hands, the mass that houses the soul laid at his feet bent only for the pleasure of it. Mesmerized, Dion bows over him to kiss his shoulder, and marvels where the collar peels off his neck. Warmth dulls him. Dion seizes the reins of himself without fatigue. His anxieties prod at him like low branches. Dion roots a hand in the soft brown hair, astounded at how it parts between the webbing of his fingers and the man presses into his touch, crown fortified against his stomach and weary scar tissue. “I do not believe these rumors, but my arms are full. You stay your own course; I respect it.” Dion holds his breath and traces the shell of his ear. “Will you stay tonight? Here?”
“Yes,” Terence utters. “I would.”
Dion hesitates. The man across his legs holds him like a salute — or Greagor. “I will not abandon you to anything. I will not tolerate your defamation. I will tell you I care for you often.”
“Thank you.” Terence is serious. “I know. But now, nevermind it — I want to go to bed with you.”
His legs tremble beneath great weight. Dion bears them upward. His socked feet are silent on the carpet. “Good Greagor,” Dion swears at last.
Terence laughs. “Wine first.”
Fandom: Final Fantasy XVI
Characters/pairing: Dion/Terence
Rating: gen
Word Count: 1958
Notes: LOGOS revealed a hilarious tidbit (spoilers) that it's not until Dion defends Terence's honor at a martial competition by punching a guy out does Terence realize Dion's desire for him is serious and agree to his pursuit. This fic is the follow up romcom, lmao.
-
The quiet of his rooms is a misery. Oriflamme itself holds a hostility in his heart now, that it might forever reproach him regardless of promise.
Frustration makes him clumsy; Dion claws at the vestments for his office and piles them crudely over the back of the sofa. Jewelry slips from his ears and fingers and clatter like coins in a ceramic bowl atop his dresser. The rage burning hot and shaky in his chest moves to his eyes. Dion slows and lowers himself into a chair. He had renounced his inheritance in ink and word but not his integrity — he flexes his dull, throbbing hand and considers; it’s a satisfactory purple. To change the habit of a people their beliefs must be challenged; this was a bludgeoning, shameful reckoning — but no one had dared to say a word, afraid a criticism might level more than a man. Those piercing eyes, Dion hoped, would see what he did: a silver spoon in Sir Denis’s mouth and none of the civility of Greagor.
One thing is certain. There had been blood, but he had rid his hands of it. Shame, then indignation, floods him. He had done right — and the rest could be forgiven as princely temperament.
It’s not long before Dion hears an adjacent door open and close, and then — hushed — steps treading across plush rugs, sure, confident, and easy. Indefatigable, his retainer meant to attend him. Dion closes his sore eyes.
If there was bravery in the noblemen any soldier of Greagor who knew the conduct of combat should have had the courage to step forward, but none did. He knows it was arrogance, pride, and a growing disdain for dishonor, for Terence’s keeping was not a welcome displacement to the young men that had assumed they would share and were entitled to their fathers’ successes with Dion’s own. The stars did not change their positions so fatefully without Saint Gilbard’s blessing, and any other explanation should only be insensibility—
The oiled hinge gives way to sure steps, a gentle rattling of iron or silverware — celebratory vestments, Dion pictures. A pin for his collar; a jewel at his throat.
“The court gave itself to ugly sport today,” Dion says in measured greeting, busying himself with his boots. The waxed laces slips between his fingers neatly. “I feel intolerable; I’m afraid I am not good company now.”
Dion struggles for self control for a grave few seconds, tense and promising as a brewing storm, and looks up into silence.
Terence holds his winnings in a tight fist like caught game; a silver tray decorated with food rests atop his folded arm with down turned goblets and a polished pitcher. He’s returned to the cordial clothing of his office, white and gray starched vestments with teal trimmings, unremarkable and safe for Dion’s eyes to rest on; it marks him still as a retainer of the Lesages, honored staff and friend. Dion’s vision swims with relief. Terence had not absconded with his treasures, but returned to share his savagery and joy with him. He’s smiling because he’s happy. “What is all that,” Dion croaks, laughing some. His hands hang useless and still, shoulders bowed over his anxious heart. “You should share it with your family.”
His retainer’s face falls to surprise, then amazement. “I will honor my lord first, and there I see no difference.” Terence crosses to the dresser in quick, strong strides, pivoting on flared thighs and high boots, the modesty of his tunic leaving only the suggested gait of the dragoons who paraded their bodies with confidence. It was always a pleasure to watch him walk, run, or fight — as long as he was near, out of danger, or coming toward him.
Terence sets his entreaties aside and turns to crouch swiftly at Dion’s feet, batting his hands away — like the rumors foretold. “What are you making a mockery of our happiness for, hiding like a bandit?” Dion feels no better with Terence at his feet than he had when Sir Denis had sneered and pushed him to do so, then toppled him on to his back to make a mockery of his good nature— he doesn’t hear his own demand, voice thick with fresh rage, that Terence rise and remain on his feet in the Prince’s whoring rooms.
Silence reigns, heavy and tense as the court. Then:
“I shall not,” Terence retorts, civil and cool even in his disobedience. “Perhaps it will begin a revolution for men to consider the matter of their liveries going forward.”
“Forgive me,” Dion murmurs, “that I find you lack judgment.”
Terence looks amazed, then laughs, short and angry. His hands make fierce, quick tugs until he gathers Dion’s calf, braces the heel on his thigh, and pulls the boot loose with restrained violence. He leaves it where it falls and seizes the next. “I have lived with shame plainly because I cannot refuse how it hangs on my name. You claim the misdeeds of another as your own. Lift your head! You refused them. I shall not forget your courage even if you grieve it because you’ve discovered and now loathe your ignorance.”
Dion tips his head back, face hot, and crushes the upholstery in his fists.
It is not only the murmurs of the court and the augers that tip Dion’s mind to worry, but the way his body grows feverish and swollen, his mouth dry with the grain of truth that parches him. Terence remains touched by the armiger’s oils and old perfume of the court; the smell of field sweat and sun has followed him here in salute. He’s marked every bit as the impoverished party approaching ruin his father superciliously left trails of as he mounted Whitewyrm’s steps with a babe in his arms, and Dion the unprincipled mongrel son in search of an easy fuck in unremarkable and disadvantaged house Bellamie.
He cannot say it doesn’t entirely displease him how Terence folds so easily at his feet, that if he were a braggart, and they knew wherein value and worth lied, it would be the honor of Terence’s company at his leisure.
“It’s true that it has not been easy; imagine my happiness today that you understood,” Terence muses. “It’s made me greedy, I’m afraid. Would my prince at least do me the dignity of a kiss for my whoring trials? I thought I had your favor. Have the tables turned so swiftly?”
Dion raises his head to glare, but Terence catches his chin with new boldness, then cradles his face and pulls him low and close. Dion feels the pulse in his jaw leap, Terence’s fingers tracing it and combing back his hair from his flushed cheeks. Dion’s breath is harsh, his chest shudders. He holds fast to the chair and allows the manipulation. “You do,” he says. Then, helplessly, “Have my favor. Too much of it.”
“On the contrary, this afternoon, I have never felt so wanting,” Terence murmurs. Then he presses his dry mouth to his own. Dion’s heels dig into the carpet and he detaches his fingers from the chair to grip Terence’s shirt, twisting his fist in the material until his bruised hand is flush with the heat of his body. It had been like this before, too — Dion, starving and mad with want, and Terence deliberate and measured with exactness. Dion feels the memory of fractured ribs and the puncture of steel anew as Waloed ran him through — but Terence is breathless and panting when he pulls away, lips obscene with the terrible suggestion of themselves in a stolen rendezvous.
“That’s enough,” Dion murmurs, kind and dulcet, trembling with pleasure, and relinquishes his iron grip. “You have made yourself clear.”
“No, I have not if you’re cowering. Let me speak,” Terence retorts. It sounds like babbling to Dion’s ears, like a brook, and he the ice bounding down in the first spring thaw. “I disregarded your sincerity,” he mocks, low and deprecating. “I thought my lord’s confession unsustainable. You could not know what you were promising me — men, soldiers, we appeal to vanity for hope! I’ve felt your gaze, but I did not allow you to know mine. It amazed me that it gave you no trouble.” Terence’s mouth trembles, then he laughs. “Greagor, it was absurd — I was terrified, and I thought you still might die, and you wanted then companionship—anyone’s. I could have been ruined, later. You would not do me that disservice intentionally, I know this, and I would fall on my sword before implicating you — it can never be dignity alone each of us risk — but the nobility can call me your dog or your whore, they do, it will continue, maybe — but it will make no difference if my skill is better. If I serve you. I trust my faith is not misplaced. It’s not new friction to consider either, but my success has born my house accusations before — indecency is favored, as of late.” He shrugs. “Men talk. We all wish to succeed. There are our vices.”
Dion straightens his shoulders to full width, solemn and thin-lipped, then grasps Terence’s strong wrists in his palms. Thick calluses span his fingertips; they had felt good against his skin when he’d gripped him. He’d put them there with sword play as boys, and orders as a man to cut, maim, and kill. Terence had disregarded his favor for the only respectability he could secure of his own control that was not a command, but desire and risk. “I know,” Dion says, clipped, low. “It’s why I was furious.”
“Ah,” Terence retorts. He leans more fully into Dion’s parted knees. Then: “Denis cried.”
“A wretch!”
“Kiss me again,” he says.
Dion gazes at him under heavy lids. “You forget yourself,” he murmurs. “It’s part of what I had hoped for. Demand, ask, share with me everything.”
Terence considers. “You’re a theatric when you think you are right.”
Outraged, Dion kisses him hotly, seizing his face by the ears, then holding him by the short clips of his hair, upsetting the part and rigid brow with hand and mouth. “I thought you had brought solicitations,” he murmurs.
“Yes. In a moment,” he amends. Then, losing steam, “Shortly.”
Terence lays his flushed cheek upon his thigh and embraces him loosely. The long slide of his back is warm beneath Dion’s palms where he drags them, back and forth, the stiff fabric chafing against his dry hands, the mass that houses the soul laid at his feet bent only for the pleasure of it. Mesmerized, Dion bows over him to kiss his shoulder, and marvels where the collar peels off his neck. Warmth dulls him. Dion seizes the reins of himself without fatigue. His anxieties prod at him like low branches. Dion roots a hand in the soft brown hair, astounded at how it parts between the webbing of his fingers and the man presses into his touch, crown fortified against his stomach and weary scar tissue. “I do not believe these rumors, but my arms are full. You stay your own course; I respect it.” Dion holds his breath and traces the shell of his ear. “Will you stay tonight? Here?”
“Yes,” Terence utters. “I would.”
Dion hesitates. The man across his legs holds him like a salute — or Greagor. “I will not abandon you to anything. I will not tolerate your defamation. I will tell you I care for you often.”
“Thank you.” Terence is serious. “I know. But now, nevermind it — I want to go to bed with you.”
His legs tremble beneath great weight. Dion bears them upward. His socked feet are silent on the carpet. “Good Greagor,” Dion swears at last.
Terence laughs. “Wine first.”
