A/N: I wrote this because I was feeling very Tidus/Rikku, though it's not really my main ship.
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They had conversations. Little, quick dialogues. Little moments, when the world wasn't locked in an endless cycle of death and life. She still holds them close to her heart, because in a time of darkness they were little flares of sunshine.
Rikku has never had a brother, not in the conventional sense of the term. Yes, she has Brother, but the Al Bhed do not have a policy of separate families. Though yes, they intermarry and it isn't incestuous, Brother isn't just her brother; he is also Keyakku's brother and everyone else's brother, except for a generation up and down, to whom he is everyone's nephew and everyone's uncle. She has always wanted an older brother, one who was only hers. Only hers.
"Tidus," she says, her lips curved in an impish smile and her eyes sparkling, "what do you actually want? Other than going back to Zanarkand, I mean. That's all you ever talk about. That and blitzball."
Tidus looked surprised at the question, and stammered over his words in confusion. "I want –- I just – Why do you want to know?" he asked, exasperated with himself and irritated that someone should see him so discomfited.
Because I want to know.
"It just seems to me that this pilgrimage is all about being selfless and letting everyone's wants outweigh your wants," she says, kicking a pebble in the road. It skittered to the side of the beaten-down dirt of the track and into the forest. "I don't think I've ever seen Yuna actually ask for something, or just say what she wants. She always just smiles, but it's a little sad, and sometimes I wish I could give her something."
"Then why are you asking me?" Tidus replies, still slightly peeved.
Because you're not happy, either.
She puts her hands on her hips and faces him, planting her feet in the dust. "Because what she wants is for everybody to be happy, and if everyone is happy, it will be just that much closer!"
It doesn't matter to her if he's a little older, or if she's a little younger. She wants an older brother, and if she has a "crush" on him it solves two problems in one. She doesn't like the term, though. It's such a shallow word to her. It isn't wrong to fall just a little in love with someone because they make you feel like that little corner where sadness lies is gone completely and because they don't have a small part of them that tells them exactly where she is in the world.
"Rikku, what are you doing?"
The question comes as a surprise, out of a pool of silence.
She yelps, and almost drops her work.
"Sorry!" says Tidus, surprised but penitent.
"S'all right," she says, looking up him cheekily. "But I would've killed you if it fell."
"Yeah, right," he says scornfully, and sits down beside her. "So what are you doing?"
