Title: First Places and Shoelaces
Series: Crossover: Final Fantasy XII/Kingdom Hearts
Characters/Pairings: Skypirate!Vaan, Yuffie; Vaan/Yuffie
Author's Notes: Written for the drabble form thing on my personal LJ. Pairing requested by Logistika Nyx, prompt being: "Out-do me? Please!"
He thinks, with bitterness and jealousy and damn how can she run so fast, that maybe he should spend more time on the ground than in the sky. Because right now she's just a blur of black leather and rubber-soled shoes ahead of him, laces and laughs and little dares that make him sweat more than the exhaustive pumping of his legs does.
"You have to be cheating somehow!" he wheezes. How nice it would be to stop, but how not nice to lose. Especially when the stakes are so high, his pride sitting pretty in a golden chalice only they can see. So he ambles on, feels his muscles spark and burst into painful flame and tell him, Warn us before you do this next time.
"If you can't catch me, it's not my fault!" Her voice is half laugh, half hitching rush of air that makes him think maybe she's tired too. But she just keeps going, and going, and going, and he just keeps slowing, and slowing, and slowing.
This is why pirates need partners, he thinks. Partners who will help you out when there are obnoxious little girls going around stealing stuff. His mind conjures the image of Penelo, reclining in a comfortable chair in the Sandsea, drinking something sinfully cold and just a tiny bit alcoholic. He licks his lips between breaths, and stumbles on.
Even Balthier couldn't run this much with half of Archadia on his tail…
He's watching the subtle rise and fall of the ground so intently he almost smacks right into her. (That's the way he tells it to Penelo days later, when in truth and at present he is in a messy knot of arms and legs and just how long are her shoelaces?)
Yuffie is laughing, head thrown back in joyful abandon, sunlight on her face. He's not at all amused, and he's redder than a tomato, and he can't feel his body from the knees down, but for some reason his lips split into a grin and he laughs out the few breaths he's taken in.
"One of these days," he says when he needs air again, but she's still laughing, still tinkling like a bell, "I'll outdo you."
She doesn't reply, but trembles even harder with the force of her amusement – but he doesn't frown, instead smiles and nudges her playfully and thinks how losing pride is stupid, as he never really had any around girls in the first place.