Title: Trip

Section: Part 1 of 2

Draft: First

Rating: T (language, sexual situations)

Warnings: Spoilers for Final Fantasy XIII. Same-sex romance.

Summary: Fang has to change her approach to win the soldier's heart. Fang/Lightning. (Slight AU: Pulse is populated with its native people. Serah is rescued before the return to Eden.)

Disclaimer: Square-Enix owns Final Fantasy XIII and its characters.

A/N#1: Trying to get my groove back so I can resume Call Me Lightning. These ten scenes are like excerpts from a full-length adventure that tell a smaller, faster story when taken on their own. There are jumps between scenes, but the central narrative "Fang and Lightning fall in love" still flows through them, I think... It's not perfect. (I don't plan to write the longer story—this was originally going to be one scene.)

A/N#2: This is a perspective style I've been wanting to try for a while—a first-person, second-person hybrid. The first time I read it, I loved the intimacy of it. First-person "I" = Fang. Second-person "you" = Lightning.


"—and then she punched me in the mouth," the cheerful lug says.

I chuckle under my breath. We creep down the deserted hall in Palumpolum. To the spot we'll blast into the arena where you're surrounded. "Is that how all these stories end?"

"No!" His face crumples in sudden thought. "...wait..." It's an expression I've learned not to expect genius to emerge from. Or fly within a hundred yards of. "Yes."

"Why so angry?" I crouch and peer around the last corner. "Doesn't get enough hugs at night?"

"Her parents died, and she had to raise her sister." I blink back my sudden guilt. How was I to know? I could still be right about that anger.

I stand and wave Snow forward. He joins my side instead of moving past. "She didn't have to, though. She chose to. She fought for guardianship when she was only fifteen," he adds.

I set the first charge myself, keepin' an eye out for guards. He keeps talkin', and I let him. I'm curious. "Lightning gave up everything to put my girl first. So I'll take any punch she throws and get up smiling. And when we get Serah back, maybe then she'll smile again, too."

"Another 'hero'?" I set the second charge and retreat, pulling him with me. "No wonder your whole family got branded l'Cie."

The target wall is solid. No windows. No knowing what lies beyond. Hopefully we get to run out fightin'. I lead us back around the corner.

"Don't say the h-word to her," he says. "Not if you like keeping your nose in one piece."

I press my back to the safe wall, pinning my spear against it. I've never met you and already I'm impressed. And amused. I lay my thumb on the remote. "Is she pretty?"

"My girlfriend's sister?" He looks at me like I'm the idiot. "She's beautiful."

I grin— "Maybe I can help with her other problem." —and press my thumb.


My head smacks the ground as I fly from our tent too fast to catch myself. When the stars clear you hover over me. The angel of fury. "What part of strategy meeting makes you think you can grope me?" Your eyes burn with rage. It's beautiful in a way that makes me think you've secretly taught yourself Death.

"It wasn't a grope; it was a caress," I don't get up. Not sure I can yet. "And it's part o' my 'strategy' to rescue that oratoise from your ass, Cheerful."

Your eyes narrow to thin blue swords. "Well, I guess your tactics need some improvement." Your face disappears, and I slowly sit up. My head spins.

"Hmph," I grunt. My mood has definitely soured. A couple steps away, you rub your adamantine knuckles. "You wouldn't bust your hand on my face all the time if you'd kiss me like you want to."

"I will never kiss you." You try to point with the wrong hand and wince. It makes you madder. "You're arrogant and impulsive and reckless and—and you."

"Right. I've got it all." I hold my hands out to my sides.

You pinch your lips in a higher level glare than I've ever seen and spin back towards the tent. You duck through the folds and instantly 'ziiiip.' Point taken, Sergeant Ice. That flap o' canvas will definitely keep me out tonight.

I still can't get up. I sit there rubbing my jaw, and the last look on your face burns in my eyes. The truth flashes in that storm of anger. Fear. Not what I'm aimin' for...


I sit back against the cold stone wall of Taejin's Tower. You've gone ahead while the kid patches me up. Again. We're almost to the top.

Hope glowers at me as the cool tingle of Cura puts out fires of pain in my leg and shoulder. I glance at his eyes, and his scowl deepens.

I wanna be nice to him. I know his mother died on Cocoon. I want to be nice. But after a long day of bites and Aeros and gashes and Poisons, I got no patience left for this sullen little drama prince. So I frown back.

"You know," he starts. I clench my jaw. I'm gonna be scolded by a brat? Great. "I wouldn't have to Cure you after every fight if you could tear your eyes off Lightning's ass l-long enough to notice the Vampire about to claw you."

The tingle of his magic fades leaving me painless and slightly numb. "I wasn't looking at her ass." I push to my feet and smirk at the little fellah. He wants to play with the big kids? "I was looking at her breasts."

I turn with my spear and walk towards the door you went through. Counting the seconds 'til his furious silver head explodes.

"You're not good enough for her!"

I tense. Damn smart kid. "Not gonna stop me from tryin'."

"If I was older—"

In a flash, I spin back to stand over him. "But you're not, are you?" We glare at each other. I'm impressed he doesn't back down. I also don't care. "You're not older. She's a woman, and you're just a boy."

I don't say it to hurt him. It's the truth. And I'm sick of his fawning.

His fist shakes and glows red with Fira. I open my eyes 'til there's white all around and smile like a predator. This language I understand. Raw, animal combat. I lean into a crouch, daring him to fight. "Careful, mage... Don't want to send me to her for healing, do you?"

His mouth twists in a sour frown. He steps back and blasts his spell at the floor with a yell. A bowl of charred stone smokes an inch from my feet. Acrid tendrils curl into my nose, but I don't move. Welcome to the real world, Hope. Not every hero gets the girl.

His shoulders sag, and he turns to pout at the wall. "...you're not good enough for her."

I step around his Fira pit and place a hand softly on his shoulder. He jerks away. "Let go!"

Don't want sympathy, then? Or not from me? Fine.

"Oh no." I grip his arm firmly and pull him along. "You've had your little fit. Suck it up, and let's find Light before Dahaka does."

Hope pulls his arm. I let him go, and he follows, scraping his heels.

Is every teen a brooding volcano? I think back to my years in his boots. Lost loved ones. Unattainable crushes. Suddenly, tough love seems like a shitty idea. He just lost his mother and his home...

I sigh. We leave the 'face-off' room and follow the central balcony around to the lift. You wait at the far side with a hand on your hip. "You'll meet other girls, Hope. Oerba is full of 'em."

Under his breath, he grumbles, "Why don't you go for one of them?"


Heat like a campfire toasts my back. A cold wind bites my face. I realize I'm sitting, leaning back into a soft, lean body. My dreams fade slowly in a hypnotic rise and fall. A chocobo. We only caught one. Had to ride it together.

I open my eyes to a starlit prairie. Your arms hold me on each side and the reigns in front. The yellow, feathered neck bobs in time with each step. I play asleep, wanting to enjoy this closeness just a little more. We should switch. Let you sleep a turn. Just a little longer...

"You're awake," you say quietly by my ear.

"How'd you know?" I let my body rest in our almost hug.

"You're breathing faster."

I grin sleepily. "An all-night ride in your arms does that to me."

You sigh. You must be tired, or I'd be bouncing off the ground by now. "Why do you ruin every moment with a come on?"

"My elder once told me, 'Fang-a, you can't win the pot if you leave the table.'"

"So I'm a game to you." You sound convinced, like you just proved it.

"Not a game, love. It means keep tryin'. His great gambler's advice for life after he lost his boat but before he lost his house."

You don't reply, and for a while, the only sound is endless prairie grasses brushing past our chocobo. Slowly, my brain finishes waking up. Constellations look like old friends, and I think of what I wish I'd said. I turn my head to yours. You look at me sideways. If you turned, you'd have to kiss me. I smile like a thief who got away, and you recognize it now. "Don't..." you warn.

"It's good."

"So's my aim."

I try not to say it, but... I drop my voice to my sultry, don't-you-wish-I-was-naked tone and say, "I'll show you what a good hand I have when I'm all-in, make you push the kitty to me..."

A flame bursts on your cheeks and you look away. I'm tempted to kiss that milky neck until survival instinct screams, 'Run! Live while you can!'

I brace myself, and after a few seconds of not being stabbed I say, "I know you're tired, Light, but this is where you dump me to the ground and—"

"Shut up!" You glare forward, gripping the reigns. Cheeks still flushed. It's hot and adorable. "I'll hit you when we get there."


The engine room is quiet. My boots clack on the deck grate as I walk past Sazh and kneel by his toolbox.

"Got it already?" he asks. The old man wipes some leaked oil off his new turbine limits.

I dig a tongue-and-groove pliers out. "Bloody cap is stuck," I growl.

I walk past his look of surprise. "Woa-ho! Easy, dragon rider." He follows me.

A drop of sweat rolls into my eye, and I wipe it away. I frown at him, letting my frustration show. "That wrench'll break the ceramic," he says. He reaches out. "Let me show you."

I hand the wrench to him. He slips it in his back pocket and looks at my nemesis. "Nothin' personal, boss, but if you can force open something I can't, I'll eat my lance."

He grins. "Always thinking with your unholy strength." He reaches a dirty brown hand to the air valve before the tank and twists it until it shushes like a librarian. "A baked cap is like our pretty soldier... Sealed tight from all the pressure inside." He opens the redundant line valve, and their hiss fades in stereo. "But if you let it out slowly..." He reaches for the tank cap and twists it free. Easy. He hands it to me with a smile that twinkles in his brown eyes. "Then she'll open up."

"Slowly, huh?" I snort and set the cap down, picking up the bottle of fluid. "Things ain't exactly goin' 'lightning' fast. Or anywhere at all."

He wipes his hands on a shop rag, and for a second it's like I'm looking at a shipwright from the dockyards back home. Nice, bein' a pilot and a mechanic. I wonder if he'll teach me that, too. It felt good when he picked me to help instead o' that lunk Snow. I love the blonde bear, but you can hear the rocks when he shakes his head.

"Be her friend first," Sazh says in his deep, gravel voice. "With all she's going through—sister in a magical curse, running with outlaws she used to arrest, banished from home—being jilted in love is the last risk she'd take now."

"I wouldn't jilt her, dammit." I scowl at the bright red fluid as I slowly top off the tank. "Why does everyone think I'm a one-night wonder?"

"I know you're not, girl; I know." He pats my shoulder. "She's got you by the...uh..."

I smirk as I close the bottle. "By the tits?"

"Heh. Well, you said it." He scratches his 'fro, still uncomfortable when I joke like that with him. "Just let that pressure out of inside her. Let her know the real you behind all that sass and bravado."

My hand freezes halfway to putting the tank cap back on. For a second, I hate how far in I've let you get without trying. Without a single soft touch or shy look. "...what if she doesn't like the real me?"

"What's not to like?" He leans against the turbine frame and grins. The old charmer could be my dad. 'Cept for lookin' different. "You're the best unofficial airship mechanic apprentice I've ever had."

"I'm your only ever apprentice, Sazh."

"Tcha!" He throws his hands up and turns back to his work. "Details."


We stand at the end of the dock watching Oerba's fishing boats sail in. Waves turn back on themselves beneath the boards like an old sailor shuffling his feet. The sun is setting in a blaze of orange and blue. Clouds above are pink like the hair falling on your collar.

When I breathe the salty spray in deep, for a minute I feel like the War never happened. I'm just another Oerban standin' here. Watching a sunset with a beautiful girl.

A silhouette waves at us from a boat with a fast, wide fan of his arm. My face splits in a grin. That's gotta be Geratt. I wave back at him, not caring if we both look like fools.

"You know people already?" You're surprised. Maybe a little jealous. Friendship and trust are harder for you than most. I feel special to have earned some o' both.

"Yeah. I came by this mornin'." I turn to look at you, and in a heartbeat I forget the sunset I lured you here for. Your pearl skin is glowing in the light, and my prayer not to lose my thoughts at the sight stays unanswered. "So?" I tilt my head towards the sun. The real sun.

"It's pretty," you say softly. "Like home." You take a deep breath, and a tiny smile pulls the corners of your mouth. Felt like I'd discovered a secret map when I learned to see that smile.

I swallow a corny reply and look back to the horizon. "Bodhum was nice. Kinda upscale. Not a fisher-fighter port like Oerba."

"I gathered that from the smell." You cock an eyebrow at me, daring me to hear the joke in your dry tone. "And the fishmongers."

"That's tradition, there." I smile, remembering the bustling market and your little frown for the din of outspoken shoppers and stall keepers. "Won't find better chusonagani anywhere!"

"That's your favorite?"

"Mmm." I close my eyes in a moment of bliss. "I'd smite Cocoon for a pepper-fried chuso."

"Or if the sun was shining."

Without looking, I know that secret smile is back and mine joins it.

"Yeah, but that don't give me something to eat after." Unless you— I shake the scorching image away. Not helping, 'friend.' "You like surfing? Geratt says there's big waves due tomorrow." I point my thumb towards the bloke I waved at.

"The random mariner has a name? Maker, Fang, how long 'til you run for mayor?"

I smirk. "I'm technically the village elder. My words o' wisdom are ignored by youth village-wide."

You grin, and I feel happier from causing that than from slaying Dahaka. In a minute it fades, and you look far away in your mind again. "I love surfing... But we have to leave for Devil's Grave tomorrow."

I groan. Sometimes I hate savin' the world.

"Your people named it, not me," you say.

"Yeah, you'd pro'ly call it 'West Valley.'"

"Now that would make sense-"

"-and be no fun-"

"-and keep rascal kids away."

I shake my head, amused at you for being so...you. I lay my hands on your shoulders and gaze into your ice-blue eyes, feelin' the little hitch in your breath. "Great. Big. Screaming wet waves." I squeeze.

A ghost of regret runs across your face. "If the elder thinks the l'Cie should hit the surf, we will."

After a second, I drop my hands and sigh. This is why you hate being the responsible one. Always weighing choices. "Best make the most of tonight, I guess." A night that's not over... "Come on."

You follow, and I lead us up the dock and down a narrow street. A weathered warehouse crowds the pavement left, and a fenced-off salvage yard crowds it right. Dirt washed or blown over the road grits under our boots. Not the scenic route, but it's home.

"Is it very different?" you ask, and I know you mean the village.

"Surprisingly, no. Same ol' docks. Same streets and market. Same smilin' people." I step close and elbow you with a smirk. "You'll have to train if you wanna fit in."

Your lip quirks, and you cock that eyebrow.

"Warmer..." I say.

You scowl.

My stomach does that annoying flip-flop. "Hot..."

You blush and look away.

"Cute..."

Finally, you smile. Dropping Dahaka was nothin'.

"Perfect! You'll be mayor by Sunday."

A quick exhale escapes you, amusement only halfway from a smile to a laugh.

We walk in an easy quiet. The evening breeze is cool. I refold my sari to cover more than usual, and your eyes skirt away.

I smirk as we reach a stone-front building with a green awning. A sweet piano and head-nodding bass float out the open door to welcome us. A deep voice sings words I can't quite make out, but they're fillin' my heart with a vibration it's been missing. "This is it!" I announce.

You give it a once over with an unreadable frown. "A dive bar?"

"If that's Cocoon for 'out-of-the-way song pub,' then yeah." I rub my arm, then order my body to stop. Nerves ain't part o' this plan. Or any plan for cool Yun Fang.

"Music and drinks?" you ask.

"Yes and yes. And food-I made sure."

"Dancing?"

I smile wider. The music is getting in me, and I spin you in a sudden hug. "Yeah!"

You're not in the mood and push away. I turn sideways, embarrassed and frustrated, hoping that impulse didn't make you suddenly close off.

You fold your arms and frown at the ground. Shit. "No thanks..."

"Oh, come on, Lightnin'. I promise not to get fresh."

"That's not it."

I look at the sky like the right words might be hidden in the clouds and cock my hands on my hips. "I promise to get fresh?"

Your scowl darkens, and you flip out your gun-blade like a samurai swan. "When I dance, this is my partner. Enemies die. The end." You twirl it back to it's holster with a flourish and stare at me like a deadly goddess, and the breath rushes from my chest. You honestly don't know how hot you are.

"...are you trying to get lucky tonight?"

Your eyes widen in surprise for a second. You blush and turn to leave. I dart around to block you with my hands up. "Just one song! Just one; we'll sit at the bar. Please? I love this music..."

Uncertainty flashes in your eyes. Then vanishes as they freeze over. You sound bitter and sad when you say, "Go without me."

"With- Then you won't be there." I frown and run an angry hand into my hair. "Gods! You make this so hard." I glare at the autowagon across the street and wait for the sound of your boots walkin' away.

If I find the people who hurt you...

I jump when you hand slips into mine, warm and smooth. My heart joins the drumbeat from inside. You look down at our joined hands for a long moment. I hold my breath as your eyes rise to mine. Wary. Hopeful. Searching.

I feel frozen for another century gazing into your crystal eyes. Afraid any move might break this moment, this chance.

Your face and shoulders relax, and a not-so-secret smile comes out. A laugh and a cry fight in my throat; so I just sigh. That's what you needed?

A soulful alto calls to us from the bar. "This one sounds pretty good," you say and pull me by the hand.

A mix of song and laughter welcomes us in. It's understated. Wood bar and tables, half full. The band plays on a stage in the corner. The coverman looks over, a young, red-headed fellow. He eyes my shoulder tattoo and recognition flashes.

"Welcome, dragoon." He nods, turns to Light. "Miss." He turns away. Guess legends get in free.

Your eyes sweep the bar before coming back to mine. Our hands are still together. "Get me a drink?" you ask.

"Sure." My heart is still fluttering as you fingers slip free. You take a step towards the lassie's.

"Table?"

"Okay."

Another smile as you walk away. I fetch two beers from the bar and settle down at an open table. The band plays two songs before the voice in the back o' my head starts asking, what if you snuck out? You wouldn't...I think. Wouldn't go without sayin'.

I take a long swig, and by the end o' the third song I'm gettin' a sick feeling in my stomach. No line is this long...

"You were right." My head spins to your voice as the bass drum seems to thump in my chest. You set a plate in front of me and lick your thumb. I try not to look like I was about to come looking for you. Like I would'a picked a fight with any man who glanced my way if I hadn't found you.

You pull a chair out. It squeaks on the wood floor. You sit and reach over to the plate with a shy smile. "Sorry it took so long."

I look down at what I've been held up unknowing for. The smell of oil and pepper and seafood makes me smile. I take a deep breath, pick up a breaded bite, and drop it through my lips-my first taste of fried chusonagani in five hundred years.