A/N: YAY NEW FANDOM FIC. Anyway, I wanted to get into internal conflicts. I'm guessing because I've been having internal conflicts galore much more often than I have been. And it all contributed to this little Gippal/Rikku thing, so if it seems like I stereotyped Gippal, I didn't mean to. It just kind of fit. :)
madly
He'd find that their clothes were, usually, scattered on the floor in heaps and masses. And the mattress, well, it was home to their pheromones and sweat that lingered for days on end. He never was one for laundry.
She was always so high up, and he'd wonder how he was able to touch her, like this—and that—without tripping on those perilous, tangled sheets.
What surprised him the most was that she let him, smiling, laughing, saying his name like—
"Gippal."
—that.
And with that hair and how it cascaded onto him, stabbing him in the chest. His eyes would always become dazed, and he'd lose himself to those extravagant swirls that reminded him of adventure and excitement and something that scared the shit out of him.
But she'd smile like nothing was wrong, because in the moment, nothing was. He just wished that nothing would ever be.
So he'd forget. As the sheets would wrap around them so extremely tightly, enclosing them together and making them belong right here and nowhere else, ever, he'd forget. Maybe it was supposed to be like that, with huffs and puffs that would blow him away into her and it and them.
Yet, it always ended with the sheets peeling away, disentangling them, and displaying his (not) so willing heart.
Every time, it was like this, and he was under the judgment of her swirling, mystifying eyes that made him feel uncharacteristically anxious, insecure, nervous.
She'd stay until the golden specks slithered through the grime on the window. He was never ready.
He'd always take her warmth for granted, but he kept his arms lax as she slipped away from his confines. Away from something they'd never admit to wanting.
He got entranced whenever she walked to the heap of cloth in the middle of the room. He got hung up on how she pulled her body through, twisting and turning. And no matter how hard he tried to speak, he couldn't. Somehow, lost in the pile of their once shed clothes, she yanked off his larynx too.
So it ended like this, with her walking to the door and not turning to look back at him. Not even once. And he really wished she would, so he could see those enchanting eyes that swirled and swirled, just like a professional hypnotist. He wanted to call out, wait, wait, wait, but well, he just couldn't because his damn vocal chords were bound around her torso and her face and her damn beautiful smile.
She gripped the door handle, but he could only swallow and watch, waiting for her to finally be gone. That's what he really wanted—for her to be gone and out of his gelled hair.
But, he smiled wryly, this was the part that lasted the longest; he guessed it was because it stabbed him harder than her hair.
The knob was turning and click-click-clicking, and he started to pray that she would just turn around and look at him—even if it was just to let him know that, yeah, she might come back again. He could never tell with her, and it made him want to pull all of his frustration from his head and his sheets that filled his nose with scents that said,
"RIKKU WAS HERE."
She was stepping out, and the oxygen was coming back to his lungs, but his voice was not. Yet, he could get up, right now, grab her wrists and say,
"Wait."
So there shouldn't have been anything holding him back when all he wanted to do was say,
"Don't go."
But why wouldn't the sheets let him go when all he wanted was to tell her—
She turned, she closed the door, she disappeared. And the click broke the binding ties.
"I love you."
Maybe it was because he didn't really mean it, and those footfalls—along with the bed sheets—knew him better than himself.