The Danger and Beauty of a House on the Cliffs
Title: The Danger and Beauty of a House on the Cliffs
Fandom: Post FFX-2
Characters: Wakka, Rikku, Lulu
Rating: R
Format: Chaptered
Status: Complete, polished, spellchecked.
Words: 3215
Disclaimer: I don't claim ownership of characters or games, only themes within.
Author's Note: A present for bottle_of_shine, because she's encouraging and fabulous and forgiving and a lot of f-words. In the words of my Serbian highschool gym teacher: just do eet.
Dedication: To the vibration dampener I dropped on my finger last week. You make writing a real torment, and I am truly "suffering" as artists are supposed to. Thanks a fuckin' lot, bitch!
Edit: Apparently someone thinks it's funny to laugh at my very real, very deeply-felt emotional agony after having my finger squished by a twenty-pound vibration dampener. I have only one thing to say: I am now truly an artiste, and no one is going to take that away from me.
bottle_of_shine: Your author notes. XD
bottle_of_shine: I
bottle_of_shine: I have to stop laughing first. XD
rustehroll: are you mocking my pain!?
bottle_of_shine: NO
bottle_of_shine: Just laughing at it. XD
rustehroll: what's the difference!?
The Danger and Beauty of a House on the Cliffs
Wakka scratched the back of his head and frowned, shifting from one foot to the other as impatience rolled in his belly. Rikku was bent over, spine arched down and butt stuck out, making annoyed noises under her breath into the back of the hover. He was glad that all the traveling they'd done for Yuna's pilgrimage had caused him to be somewhat accustom to blistering changes in weather, as the cruel sun was causing even his Besaidian complexion to crisp.
“When you gonna get that thing working, huh?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder as she peered into the guts of their hover that they'd borrowed (commandeered) from one of Gippal's outposts in Sanubia. She swatted her hand back at him as if he were a fly and he wrinkled his nose, dodging the blow.
“When it's working,” she said, irritable sting in her voice as she glared over her shoulder. “Gee, stop hovering, you remind me of my pops. Blah blah, when are you gonna make something of your life, yak yak, wear longer shorts, Rikku.”
He buried his hurt under a layer of I-don't-cares and pulled away so as to avoid any more blows to his face or ego. Being compared to her father bothered him, and he searched but couldn't turn up a reason why. It just itched him the wrong way, even if he himself was a father, and loved every minute he spent with Vidina and the constant barrage of questions the little boy thought of each day.
Wakka sighed and walked to the front of the hover, where their packs were strapped. He reached into his bag and grabbed his water jug, pulling the plug out of the top and taking a sip, before sliding down and relaxing in the slight shade the hover provided.
Rikku had dropped by to visit Besaid a few months back, and had ended up staying on. She was great with Vidina, and Lulu seemed to like the company. Being a Legendary Guardian took its toll, even if, well, no one honours a Guardian on his hearthstone. The saying was true, to a certain extent. Their voices had more weight at village council, but there were sly looks and whispered words he was never deft enough to catch.
Rikku had brought a cheer bright enough to burn all that away from the small village. The side-long looks still came, and those intensified with Rikku staying with them, but she seemed to deflect them, mirror-bright and brilliant under the sleepy Besaid sun. The last vestiges of Yevon and the teachings that still clung like cobwebs in the corners of his mind were blasted away by her smile and her quick, clever hands when she made shadow puppets for Vidina on the hut walls at night.
She had made her home with them, sprawled out on a pallet across the hut from them, and if it meant less private time with Lulu at night, well... Rikku was apt at taking Vidina down to the beach for long afternoons. And if those afternoons had grown shorter and less frequent as the months had worn on, Lulu hadn't seemed to mind and neither had he. He felt it, and was almost just aware of something shifting inside him, like small trickles of sand and grit and dirt down the side of a cliff.
It had been the way she'd bound closer to his little family that made him unable to turn her down when she'd asked for a small favour. Lulu had encouraged them both, and Vidina had seen them off at the docks, waving his small chubby arm and calling out words that were lost to the churning sea surf.
The small favour had ballooned into a rather large favour that had them trekking all the way back to Bikanel, and hunting out some dig site Gippal had said would hold some things Rikku was interested in. What those things were, Gippal had never gone into on the snatches of sphere Wakka had managed to watch, and even his rudimentary grip on Al Bhed hadn't been able to help him understand the bits where Gippal had slipped into the clipped syllables of his birth tongue. Whatever she was going to find at the far off sand pit had certainly grabbed Rikku's attention, and when she'd pleaded her case to Lulu and Wakka, asking for Wakka to come help her just this once, I promise it won't take long at all, I swear, y'know! they hadn't been able to say no.
Wakka felt uncomfortable, not sure if, looking back over the last week, he should have said no. Wouldn't Gippal have gone with her if it was so important? What did she need Wakka along for anyway?
A wrench thunked into the sand by his foot and he looked back towards the large fan that half-obscured the mass of braids Rikku had pinned up for the day of travel. A string of Al Bhed curses, all of which Wakka could easily identify, followed the wrench and she stormed around the side of the hover and flopped down next to him, a scowl etched on her face.
“One of our fan belts snapped,” she said and then looked up at the blue sky, closing her eyes and breathing in deep. He could almost see the patience she was willing herself to feel elude her. The air wooshed out of her lungs and she turned to look at him before punching him hard in the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“It's not fair!” she said, “we're so close, and this just, happening now? It sucks.”
“And hitting me is fair how?” he asked, rubbing the sore spot. Her hands were bony and sharp, he thought with a wince.
“I dunno.” Petulance flashed across her face and she got up, picking up the crescent wrench, renewed determination on her face. “You're big and strong and stuff, Tubby, you undo this bolt.”
His gut rumbled a little at the hated nickname that he thought she'd long abandoned, but he got to his feet anyway, following her back and looking at the blackened and pitted bolt she was pointing at. He shrugged his good shoulder and took hold of the wrench, as her own hands touched his and guided them to fit the tool to the machina.
Machine, machine, he thought, and if the him of years ago could see the him of now, there would have been strong words, and perhaps a few punches thrown.
Her fingers were ghost-soft on his, but he brushed them off.
“You asked me to do this, yeah? So let me do it.” He couldn't help but let a bit of his own frustration fly, and she stepped back, clearing out of his peripheral vision. The bolt resisted, and then made a popping, cracking noise, before the wrench swung down easily. He sighed and rolled it in his hand, lines of grease smearing over his skin.
Rikku pushed between him and the machine and leaned down, pulling a thick metal disc away from where the bolt had held it tight.
“That's fine,” she said, turning to him and shoving the disc into his hand, and he staggered back for a second at the weight of it. She went to work, replacing the snapped rubber belt, snugging it tight and motioned for him to press the plate back into place. “Just do up the bolt,” she said with a shrug, “tight, 'kay? We don't want it flying off 'cause it's our last one, and we could lose our vibration dampener too. Gippal would flay us both; those things cost a lot!”
Minutes later they were speeding back over the desert, the sun creeping lower and lower in the sky. As it set in the far off horizon, Rikku pulled around a dune and a small oasis came into view, the waters shimmering red and orange. Wakka's skin felt cracked and dry, and he ached to sink into the cool liquid. The hover shut off with a clanking whir and Rikku hopped out, stretching and arching her back.
He was following her lead when she turned, odd look on her face.
“Sorry I'm so grumpy,” she said, kicking at a sand heap with one booted foot. She looked up at him through her bangs before she brushed them out of her vision with fast fingers. “I'm stuck in the desert, and I miss Lulu, and...”
She shifted the face the water and sank down, sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, chin on her knees. The last few days she'd been acting like this; her random flares of temper were off putting and reminded him a little of Lulu in the touchy times of pregnancy. Part of him selfishly wished they were back in Besaid, where she was all smiles all the time, and he could steal some of that sunshine for himself. Besaid had been his adventure, and his territory, and his pilgrimage. This was hers, except he was playing Tidus to her Yuna and had no idea what they were going to find at the end of it.
He set up a small fire for them, and it flickered against her skin, turning her hair into molten gold and skin into pounded bronze as the sun sank from view. He relaxed against his pack, watching the stars up above, trying to count the seconds between their pulses. When he'd been small he had thought them to be pyreflies caught in the spilt ink a great priest had tossed into the sky during a fit of temper.
The pyreflies above winked and swooped, and he woke with the sun threatening to crawl back into view, Rikku curled up beside him, a thick blanket draped over them both. His neck felt stiff and he shifted, turning on his side to look at her.
Her head was pillowed on her hand, and her slack, open mouth inches from the sand. Her breathing was slow, and thick. Still asleep, he thought, and ran a hand over her hair, fingers catching on beads and messy braids. It wasn't the first time he'd appreciated the way a woman did her hair; Lulu's own braids were a lot of work and upkeep, and he felt lucky himself that his hair had style without any effort.
“We can sleep late.” Her voice startled him, and he yanked his hand away. Her eyes were closed as she lay unmoving. “The site is a short walk from here.”
“I'm awake,” he said and shifted a little.
“I'm not,” she replied and then burrowed against him, hiding her face in the side of his chest, wire-thin arm wrapping around his front, so different, so dependent. He watched her back rise and sink as the sun crept into the sky, dragged itself slowly into the heights and frightened all the pyreflies away.
He eased her onto the cushion of the pack, and she mumbled a little, but her fingers dug tight into it and he was able to stand up and stretch his legs. He walked down to the waters and waded into them, dunking below and scrubbing his body all over with his fingers and nails, before shaking his head as he popped up after long minutes. His lungs cried for air and he floated on his back, hands sculling water in slow, languid movements as the palms began to cast shadows again.
Rikku was at the edge, sipping water from her cupped fingers, droplets spattering down her front and her legs, sinking into her skirt, her knees wedged into the sand. She sat back and then waved at him to make sure she had his attention.
“Let's go,” she said, “I wanna get the hover back before Gippal breaks out into a rash or something.” She slid her boots on as he got out, shook off, and slicked his hair back. She waited for him at the cusp of the dune while he searched for his sandals before climbing up next to her.
“What is it you're looking for anyway, huh?” he asked. She shrugged a shoulder and smiled at him, a sweet, shivery thing that crept down his spine and pooled in his gut. His cheeks grew warm, but she looked away.
“I'll know when I see it,” she said.
The place they were looking for was a crack in the desert, half-filled with sand but not quite. The scar extended deep into the ground and for furrows as far as Wakka could see. Blackened remains of buildings thrust out of the sand, a testament to the remains of a Al Bhed satellite encampment. It must have been one of the casualties of the Guado attack.
He denied the guilt of the things Yevon had done was his anymore, and he followed her down, his face set in a frozen mask. Persecution for a way of life that had really harmed no one was not acceptable anymore in Spira, and he was grateful, although the stigma of being Al Bhed wouldn't vanish until the last of those who felt that way did. The crevice in the desert shaded them from the sun, and the deeper they walked into it, the heavier his gut became, and the tighter it wound. Charred and pitted metal stuck out at odd angles, recording some sort of massacre.
Rikku looked back and paused, her hand going out and wrapping around his forearm.
“This wasn't Yevon,” she said, “so stop looking so grim.” She tugged at him and he followed her gentle pull. His eyebrows raised with his feelings and he couldn't stop himself-
“What was it then? This don't look normal, you know?” Had it been some sort of Al Bhed weapons experiment gone wrong? Something like that? He shuddered at the thought of more machina weapons. He'd already seen enough to know they were really quite dangerous, and now that there was no Sin and no Vegnagun, they were unneeded as well.
“It was my pops' temper,” she said as she turned a corner before she sank to her knees in front of a small shrine, half-hidden in the sand. Wakka stood a few paces back as her fingers lifted to brush away the desert's deposits, clearing a weathered plaque.
Her hands were shaking and she pressed them against the metal as he stepped forward, looking over her shoulder. Al Bhed letters scrawled out across the metal, and he wasn't that good a linguist to be able to read it. He resolved to learn more and apply himself to his studies... later.
“Um, Rikku?” he asked after she'd sat there for several long, uncomfortable minutes. She shook her head and took her water jug, emptying it out over the metal. At the touch of the liquid, the faded material turned a bold, ruddy copper-red, reminding Wakka oddly of-
“Blood,” Rikku said, “we cast it in our blood so that we would be with her, always. Brother, and Pops, and me, even though I was too little to give more than a few drops.” She lifted her hand to him, palm up, and he caught it without thinking in his own two, supporting her wrist. A small scar traced the curve of her thumb muscle, right down the heart of her palm.
His mind flicked furiously through the things Tidus had said since coming back; the boy had visited with Yuna a few times since Rikku had come to stay. Wakka had soaked up the stories the two of them told about Rikku like a sea sponge. Her mother had died. Ironic wasn't it, that she'd died in a machina accident- a rampage, Tidus had called it.
Wakka had blamed the machina for losing Chappu, and that had been mostly lies, when all along Rikku had been holding a loss much closer to the destructive powers behind motors and cogs and whirligigs, and had never hated them. It made him ashamed, and brought up old feelings that he thought he'd thrown away with his bigotry.
He knelt down beside her as she pulled one of her daggers loose. He trembled as she pressed the blade to her own hand, tracing the old scar and cutting it open again. Blood welled up and pooled there and he moved her hand for her, pressing it down against the words he could not read. The red liquid smeared and began to dry seconds after she pulled her hand away.
Tears were dripping down her face as he wrapped her hand back up, pinning the cloth carefully around her wrist. She hugged it close to her chest and then rocked back on her heels, crumbling down into nothing but noiseless cries. He hesitated, but her broken words forced his hand-
“Touch me, you clueless, completely idiotic, thick-headed, stubborn...” she faltered and his arms slid around her and he cradled her against him. Her face tipped up to him and he slipped down and they met, warm and comfortable. The blood soaked through the bandage and was wet against his bare lower back as she clung to him tighter, mouth hungry on his.
Wings beat hard in his torso, thrumming like the blood in his face as he tried to keep grips on who he was in Besaid, and who he was here, in the face of grief and loss and Rikku. She brought it to bear on him, pushing him down on the sand, her bony hips digging into his as her broken hand cradled the back of his head. Her elbows hit the sand by his shoulder and she just looked at him, red-eyed and flaring nostrils as she choked back pain.
He wanted to say he couldn't, or shouldn't, and tried to make excuses like Lulu had been drifting away when she hadn't, and it all came crashing down on him. The rock-slide had begun; his hands were down her bare stomach and up her back, tangling in the ties of her top and pulling it loose and free, tugging at her skirt so it slid up her hips. He buried himself in her, face to her skin, drinking in the salt and the tears and the trembles while she mouthed along his ear and finally broke, minutes before he did.
She lay on his chest, breathing hard as he shuddered, arms wrapping around her tight and clinging. He didn't want to think about change, or how this would twist things, because he couldn't. Her tears were gone now anyway, and she just lay, limp and tired, wrung out like laundry waiting to be put on the line.
He tried to touch her hair but she pushed his hand away, and he tried to speak, but her fingers pressed against his mouth. She drew herself up, skirt settling around her thighs as she looked down at him, unhappy secrets drawn across her face.
“Let's go home,” she said. He took her damaged hand in his, not letting her wince away, and he held it to his chest, pressing it hard against his heart as the truth spilt out of him, ugly and raw and beautiful;
“You are my home,” he said.
Fandom: Post FFX-2
Characters: Wakka, Rikku, Lulu
Rating: R
Format: Chaptered
Status: Complete, polished, spellchecked.
Words: 3215
Disclaimer: I don't claim ownership of characters or games, only themes within.
Author's Note: A present for bottle_of_shine, because she's encouraging and fabulous and forgiving and a lot of f-words. In the words of my Serbian highschool gym teacher: just do eet.
Dedication: To the vibration dampener I dropped on my finger last week. You make writing a real torment, and I am truly "suffering" as artists are supposed to. Thanks a fuckin' lot, bitch!
Edit: Apparently someone thinks it's funny to laugh at my very real, very deeply-felt emotional agony after having my finger squished by a twenty-pound vibration dampener. I have only one thing to say: I am now truly an artiste, and no one is going to take that away from me.
bottle_of_shine: Your author notes. XD
bottle_of_shine: I
bottle_of_shine: I have to stop laughing first. XD
rustehroll: are you mocking my pain!?
bottle_of_shine: NO
bottle_of_shine: Just laughing at it. XD
rustehroll: what's the difference!?
The Danger and Beauty of a House on the Cliffs
Wakka scratched the back of his head and frowned, shifting from one foot to the other as impatience rolled in his belly. Rikku was bent over, spine arched down and butt stuck out, making annoyed noises under her breath into the back of the hover. He was glad that all the traveling they'd done for Yuna's pilgrimage had caused him to be somewhat accustom to blistering changes in weather, as the cruel sun was causing even his Besaidian complexion to crisp.
“When you gonna get that thing working, huh?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder as she peered into the guts of their hover that they'd borrowed (commandeered) from one of Gippal's outposts in Sanubia. She swatted her hand back at him as if he were a fly and he wrinkled his nose, dodging the blow.
“When it's working,” she said, irritable sting in her voice as she glared over her shoulder. “Gee, stop hovering, you remind me of my pops. Blah blah, when are you gonna make something of your life, yak yak, wear longer shorts, Rikku.”
He buried his hurt under a layer of I-don't-cares and pulled away so as to avoid any more blows to his face or ego. Being compared to her father bothered him, and he searched but couldn't turn up a reason why. It just itched him the wrong way, even if he himself was a father, and loved every minute he spent with Vidina and the constant barrage of questions the little boy thought of each day.
Wakka sighed and walked to the front of the hover, where their packs were strapped. He reached into his bag and grabbed his water jug, pulling the plug out of the top and taking a sip, before sliding down and relaxing in the slight shade the hover provided.
Rikku had dropped by to visit Besaid a few months back, and had ended up staying on. She was great with Vidina, and Lulu seemed to like the company. Being a Legendary Guardian took its toll, even if, well, no one honours a Guardian on his hearthstone. The saying was true, to a certain extent. Their voices had more weight at village council, but there were sly looks and whispered words he was never deft enough to catch.
Rikku had brought a cheer bright enough to burn all that away from the small village. The side-long looks still came, and those intensified with Rikku staying with them, but she seemed to deflect them, mirror-bright and brilliant under the sleepy Besaid sun. The last vestiges of Yevon and the teachings that still clung like cobwebs in the corners of his mind were blasted away by her smile and her quick, clever hands when she made shadow puppets for Vidina on the hut walls at night.
She had made her home with them, sprawled out on a pallet across the hut from them, and if it meant less private time with Lulu at night, well... Rikku was apt at taking Vidina down to the beach for long afternoons. And if those afternoons had grown shorter and less frequent as the months had worn on, Lulu hadn't seemed to mind and neither had he. He felt it, and was almost just aware of something shifting inside him, like small trickles of sand and grit and dirt down the side of a cliff.
It had been the way she'd bound closer to his little family that made him unable to turn her down when she'd asked for a small favour. Lulu had encouraged them both, and Vidina had seen them off at the docks, waving his small chubby arm and calling out words that were lost to the churning sea surf.
The small favour had ballooned into a rather large favour that had them trekking all the way back to Bikanel, and hunting out some dig site Gippal had said would hold some things Rikku was interested in. What those things were, Gippal had never gone into on the snatches of sphere Wakka had managed to watch, and even his rudimentary grip on Al Bhed hadn't been able to help him understand the bits where Gippal had slipped into the clipped syllables of his birth tongue. Whatever she was going to find at the far off sand pit had certainly grabbed Rikku's attention, and when she'd pleaded her case to Lulu and Wakka, asking for Wakka to come help her just this once, I promise it won't take long at all, I swear, y'know! they hadn't been able to say no.
Wakka felt uncomfortable, not sure if, looking back over the last week, he should have said no. Wouldn't Gippal have gone with her if it was so important? What did she need Wakka along for anyway?
A wrench thunked into the sand by his foot and he looked back towards the large fan that half-obscured the mass of braids Rikku had pinned up for the day of travel. A string of Al Bhed curses, all of which Wakka could easily identify, followed the wrench and she stormed around the side of the hover and flopped down next to him, a scowl etched on her face.
“One of our fan belts snapped,” she said and then looked up at the blue sky, closing her eyes and breathing in deep. He could almost see the patience she was willing herself to feel elude her. The air wooshed out of her lungs and she turned to look at him before punching him hard in the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“It's not fair!” she said, “we're so close, and this just, happening now? It sucks.”
“And hitting me is fair how?” he asked, rubbing the sore spot. Her hands were bony and sharp, he thought with a wince.
“I dunno.” Petulance flashed across her face and she got up, picking up the crescent wrench, renewed determination on her face. “You're big and strong and stuff, Tubby, you undo this bolt.”
His gut rumbled a little at the hated nickname that he thought she'd long abandoned, but he got to his feet anyway, following her back and looking at the blackened and pitted bolt she was pointing at. He shrugged his good shoulder and took hold of the wrench, as her own hands touched his and guided them to fit the tool to the machina.
Machine, machine, he thought, and if the him of years ago could see the him of now, there would have been strong words, and perhaps a few punches thrown.
Her fingers were ghost-soft on his, but he brushed them off.
“You asked me to do this, yeah? So let me do it.” He couldn't help but let a bit of his own frustration fly, and she stepped back, clearing out of his peripheral vision. The bolt resisted, and then made a popping, cracking noise, before the wrench swung down easily. He sighed and rolled it in his hand, lines of grease smearing over his skin.
Rikku pushed between him and the machine and leaned down, pulling a thick metal disc away from where the bolt had held it tight.
“That's fine,” she said, turning to him and shoving the disc into his hand, and he staggered back for a second at the weight of it. She went to work, replacing the snapped rubber belt, snugging it tight and motioned for him to press the plate back into place. “Just do up the bolt,” she said with a shrug, “tight, 'kay? We don't want it flying off 'cause it's our last one, and we could lose our vibration dampener too. Gippal would flay us both; those things cost a lot!”
Minutes later they were speeding back over the desert, the sun creeping lower and lower in the sky. As it set in the far off horizon, Rikku pulled around a dune and a small oasis came into view, the waters shimmering red and orange. Wakka's skin felt cracked and dry, and he ached to sink into the cool liquid. The hover shut off with a clanking whir and Rikku hopped out, stretching and arching her back.
He was following her lead when she turned, odd look on her face.
“Sorry I'm so grumpy,” she said, kicking at a sand heap with one booted foot. She looked up at him through her bangs before she brushed them out of her vision with fast fingers. “I'm stuck in the desert, and I miss Lulu, and...”
She shifted the face the water and sank down, sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, chin on her knees. The last few days she'd been acting like this; her random flares of temper were off putting and reminded him a little of Lulu in the touchy times of pregnancy. Part of him selfishly wished they were back in Besaid, where she was all smiles all the time, and he could steal some of that sunshine for himself. Besaid had been his adventure, and his territory, and his pilgrimage. This was hers, except he was playing Tidus to her Yuna and had no idea what they were going to find at the end of it.
He set up a small fire for them, and it flickered against her skin, turning her hair into molten gold and skin into pounded bronze as the sun sank from view. He relaxed against his pack, watching the stars up above, trying to count the seconds between their pulses. When he'd been small he had thought them to be pyreflies caught in the spilt ink a great priest had tossed into the sky during a fit of temper.
The pyreflies above winked and swooped, and he woke with the sun threatening to crawl back into view, Rikku curled up beside him, a thick blanket draped over them both. His neck felt stiff and he shifted, turning on his side to look at her.
Her head was pillowed on her hand, and her slack, open mouth inches from the sand. Her breathing was slow, and thick. Still asleep, he thought, and ran a hand over her hair, fingers catching on beads and messy braids. It wasn't the first time he'd appreciated the way a woman did her hair; Lulu's own braids were a lot of work and upkeep, and he felt lucky himself that his hair had style without any effort.
“We can sleep late.” Her voice startled him, and he yanked his hand away. Her eyes were closed as she lay unmoving. “The site is a short walk from here.”
“I'm awake,” he said and shifted a little.
“I'm not,” she replied and then burrowed against him, hiding her face in the side of his chest, wire-thin arm wrapping around his front, so different, so dependent. He watched her back rise and sink as the sun crept into the sky, dragged itself slowly into the heights and frightened all the pyreflies away.
He eased her onto the cushion of the pack, and she mumbled a little, but her fingers dug tight into it and he was able to stand up and stretch his legs. He walked down to the waters and waded into them, dunking below and scrubbing his body all over with his fingers and nails, before shaking his head as he popped up after long minutes. His lungs cried for air and he floated on his back, hands sculling water in slow, languid movements as the palms began to cast shadows again.
Rikku was at the edge, sipping water from her cupped fingers, droplets spattering down her front and her legs, sinking into her skirt, her knees wedged into the sand. She sat back and then waved at him to make sure she had his attention.
“Let's go,” she said, “I wanna get the hover back before Gippal breaks out into a rash or something.” She slid her boots on as he got out, shook off, and slicked his hair back. She waited for him at the cusp of the dune while he searched for his sandals before climbing up next to her.
“What is it you're looking for anyway, huh?” he asked. She shrugged a shoulder and smiled at him, a sweet, shivery thing that crept down his spine and pooled in his gut. His cheeks grew warm, but she looked away.
“I'll know when I see it,” she said.
The place they were looking for was a crack in the desert, half-filled with sand but not quite. The scar extended deep into the ground and for furrows as far as Wakka could see. Blackened remains of buildings thrust out of the sand, a testament to the remains of a Al Bhed satellite encampment. It must have been one of the casualties of the Guado attack.
He denied the guilt of the things Yevon had done was his anymore, and he followed her down, his face set in a frozen mask. Persecution for a way of life that had really harmed no one was not acceptable anymore in Spira, and he was grateful, although the stigma of being Al Bhed wouldn't vanish until the last of those who felt that way did. The crevice in the desert shaded them from the sun, and the deeper they walked into it, the heavier his gut became, and the tighter it wound. Charred and pitted metal stuck out at odd angles, recording some sort of massacre.
Rikku looked back and paused, her hand going out and wrapping around his forearm.
“This wasn't Yevon,” she said, “so stop looking so grim.” She tugged at him and he followed her gentle pull. His eyebrows raised with his feelings and he couldn't stop himself-
“What was it then? This don't look normal, you know?” Had it been some sort of Al Bhed weapons experiment gone wrong? Something like that? He shuddered at the thought of more machina weapons. He'd already seen enough to know they were really quite dangerous, and now that there was no Sin and no Vegnagun, they were unneeded as well.
“It was my pops' temper,” she said as she turned a corner before she sank to her knees in front of a small shrine, half-hidden in the sand. Wakka stood a few paces back as her fingers lifted to brush away the desert's deposits, clearing a weathered plaque.
Her hands were shaking and she pressed them against the metal as he stepped forward, looking over her shoulder. Al Bhed letters scrawled out across the metal, and he wasn't that good a linguist to be able to read it. He resolved to learn more and apply himself to his studies... later.
“Um, Rikku?” he asked after she'd sat there for several long, uncomfortable minutes. She shook her head and took her water jug, emptying it out over the metal. At the touch of the liquid, the faded material turned a bold, ruddy copper-red, reminding Wakka oddly of-
“Blood,” Rikku said, “we cast it in our blood so that we would be with her, always. Brother, and Pops, and me, even though I was too little to give more than a few drops.” She lifted her hand to him, palm up, and he caught it without thinking in his own two, supporting her wrist. A small scar traced the curve of her thumb muscle, right down the heart of her palm.
His mind flicked furiously through the things Tidus had said since coming back; the boy had visited with Yuna a few times since Rikku had come to stay. Wakka had soaked up the stories the two of them told about Rikku like a sea sponge. Her mother had died. Ironic wasn't it, that she'd died in a machina accident- a rampage, Tidus had called it.
Wakka had blamed the machina for losing Chappu, and that had been mostly lies, when all along Rikku had been holding a loss much closer to the destructive powers behind motors and cogs and whirligigs, and had never hated them. It made him ashamed, and brought up old feelings that he thought he'd thrown away with his bigotry.
He knelt down beside her as she pulled one of her daggers loose. He trembled as she pressed the blade to her own hand, tracing the old scar and cutting it open again. Blood welled up and pooled there and he moved her hand for her, pressing it down against the words he could not read. The red liquid smeared and began to dry seconds after she pulled her hand away.
Tears were dripping down her face as he wrapped her hand back up, pinning the cloth carefully around her wrist. She hugged it close to her chest and then rocked back on her heels, crumbling down into nothing but noiseless cries. He hesitated, but her broken words forced his hand-
“Touch me, you clueless, completely idiotic, thick-headed, stubborn...” she faltered and his arms slid around her and he cradled her against him. Her face tipped up to him and he slipped down and they met, warm and comfortable. The blood soaked through the bandage and was wet against his bare lower back as she clung to him tighter, mouth hungry on his.
Wings beat hard in his torso, thrumming like the blood in his face as he tried to keep grips on who he was in Besaid, and who he was here, in the face of grief and loss and Rikku. She brought it to bear on him, pushing him down on the sand, her bony hips digging into his as her broken hand cradled the back of his head. Her elbows hit the sand by his shoulder and she just looked at him, red-eyed and flaring nostrils as she choked back pain.
He wanted to say he couldn't, or shouldn't, and tried to make excuses like Lulu had been drifting away when she hadn't, and it all came crashing down on him. The rock-slide had begun; his hands were down her bare stomach and up her back, tangling in the ties of her top and pulling it loose and free, tugging at her skirt so it slid up her hips. He buried himself in her, face to her skin, drinking in the salt and the tears and the trembles while she mouthed along his ear and finally broke, minutes before he did.
She lay on his chest, breathing hard as he shuddered, arms wrapping around her tight and clinging. He didn't want to think about change, or how this would twist things, because he couldn't. Her tears were gone now anyway, and she just lay, limp and tired, wrung out like laundry waiting to be put on the line.
He tried to touch her hair but she pushed his hand away, and he tried to speak, but her fingers pressed against his mouth. She drew herself up, skirt settling around her thighs as she looked down at him, unhappy secrets drawn across her face.
“Let's go home,” she said. He took her damaged hand in his, not letting her wince away, and he held it to his chest, pressing it hard against his heart as the truth spilt out of him, ugly and raw and beautiful;
“You are my home,” he said.