ffx-2 fic: "Homemade" (rikku/baralai)
More meme fics!
Rated PG.
rattyfleef requested 4, 9: making chocolate mousse for 12's birthday. This is my favorite request! Inordinate amounts of fun to write. <3 I love it when Baralai gets flustered!
4: Rikku
9: Baralai
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“I don’t mean to be rude, but what exactly are you doing here?” Baralai ran a hand through his hair, loose from its bandana because he didn’t sleep with that on. It was barely dawn, and while Baralai was usually an early riser, he’d wanted to sleep in today. It was his day off, the one day a week on which he wasn’t inundated with paperwork and conferences. He liked his job, but he liked his day off, too.
Rikku whirled around the kitchen like a hurricane. “D’you know what day it is?” she demanded, pulling things out from cupboards and off shelves. Her selections seemed completely random to Baralai, and she looked half-crazy as she cast around, so he stayed well out of the way.
“I know that it’s Paine’s birthday,” he said, “if that’s what you mean.”
Rikku paused in her destruction, clutching her head like it was going to burst open. Her face was the picture of despair, her voice a desperate wail - as tiring as they could be, her histrionics never failed to amuse him. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. I just remembered this morning, I’d totally forgotten, I was on a dig and I just - I don’t know, I was so busy being excited about this new machina I found that I completely and totally forgot, and I didn’t get her anything!”
“I’m sure she isn’t expecting anything,” Baralai pointed out, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. “Paine is hardly a materialistic person.”
“That doesn’t matter! You get presents for people’s birthdays, that’s just how it works, and she’s probably already awake and doing her morning exercises and I needed a present fast, so-”
“So you came here.” Baralai frowned. “You do realize Bevelle doesn’t have a gift shop, Rikku.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, ha ha. I’m not here to buy something, I’m here to make something! Usually I’d make a machina for her, like a new gun or something - the trigger lags on her Gun Mage dressphere, I was thinking that’d be perfect - but I don’t have enough time for that now!”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”
“Cooking! Gippal says you’re a good cook. And Paine. They said you did a lot of the cooking in the Squad ‘cause they’re terrible and that your food was good! And I’m not a very good cook but I was thinking with your help I could maybe make something at least edible…”
Baralai sighed, going back into the bedroom to change out of his sleepwear and into proper clothes. “You know,” he called through the closed door, “it would be more from me than from you, in that case.”
“I’ll tell her it was both of us! I just need something so I won’t look like such a moron!”
When Baralai reentered, Rikku was bent over with her head in the icebox. “D’you have cream or milk or something?” she asked.
“What exactly are you planning to make?”
“Dark choc-aha!” Rikku stood up so suddenly she banged her head on the door of an open cupboard. “Ouch!” She rubbed the spot and her eyes rolled up as if she could, by sheer force of will, see the top of her own head. “Is my hair okay?”
Baralai fought a smile and lost. “Your hair is fine, Rikku. Is your head all right?”
“Sure. Once you’ve been jumped on by an Iron Giant, a cupboard is nothing.” She grinned, holding up a bottle of cream triumphantly. “Found it! Anyway, yeah, dark chocolate mousse. Paine loves it. So that’s what we’re making.”
Baralai shrugged, past the point of arguing. It didn’t seem as though Rikku was going to be deterred - and anyway, he was already awake. There was no reason for him not to help. “Dark chocolate mousse it is,” he said. “Do you have a recipe?”
Rikku dug in the small pouch attached to her even smaller skirt. “Got it!” She held out a crumpled piece of paper; one edge was jagged, clearly torn out sloppily from a book. He raised an eyebrow and she smiled without an ounce of remorse. “I stole it from Yunie. I’ll give it back when we’re done.”
With that, they got to work.
Cooking wasn’t nearly as calming as usual with Rikku tearing around like a wild chocobo. She broke a measuring cup and dented his saucepan, and she kept getting distracted when she was supposed to be watching something. He could see that she was trying though, and so he bit his tongue against reprimanding her. He’d never seen her in such a state of agitation - she was always the bubbly type, but she was practically levitating today.
“It’s gonna come out awful, isn’t it?” she groaned. “It is, I just know it.”
“Calm down,” Baralai said, wiping a spill of cream off the counter. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Maybe we should just wrap you up,” Rikku suggested, sounding actually contemplative, and Baralai nearly choked on his own tongue.
“Excuse me?”
“Your skin, silly. You probably taste just like chocolate.” Rikku fluttered her eyelashes at him, and then scurried off to turn down the heat on the stove. Baralai blinked at the space where she’d been, flustered in a way he hadn’t been for a very long time. Because that had sounded remarkably… flirtatious.
His thoughts were interrupted by a shriek, and he turned to find that Rikku’s scarf had caught fire. She was frantically trying to unwind it from her neck. “I could use a little help here!” she cried, holding it as far from her body as possible.
Baralai managed to hold in his laughter until after he’d cast the water spell. Rikku mock-glared for all of two seconds before she joined him.
So despite the somewhat chaotic tone of the morning, Baralai did rather enjoy himself. He had to admit that it was somewhat distracting, the way Rikku would catch him off guard every now and then with quips that seemed to skirt the line between teasing and flirting. He’d never spent all that much time alone with her before, and he wondered if this was something she did with everyone. Rikku was certainly friendly, but she didn’t seem the type to play around with people’s emotions.
“Well, whaddaya know,” she said, surveying the finished product. “It didn’t turn out too bad, after all.” She stood with her hands on her hips, looking very pleased with herself.
“I’m sure it will be delicious,” he agreed.
She turned, smiling up at him with honest gratitude. “Thank you,” she said. “Seriously. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“Most likely you would have burned yourself to ash by now.”
She bit her lip, still smiling, and ducked her head. “Probably,” she admitted. And then, looking up again: “Hey, you’ve got something on your cheek-”
Rikku leaned up on tiptoe and, before Baralai had time to react, her tongue flicked over his cheek. He watched her lick her lips as she sank down, a look of deep contemplation on her face. His heart thudded in his chest as he tried to think of something (anything) to say to get the situation back under control.
“You were right,” she said, one side of her mouth curling up wickedly. “Delicious.”