Disclaimer: I own FFX-2 not. Square does.
A/N: I have a vague outline of where this is going, but don't trust me anymore when I say what will be in the next chapter. XD I have a tendency to be unsure about chapter length and what I can fit.
Thanks to: JokaJoker (He's still traumatized… XD), Jade Samurai, Icicle Goddess, Wai-Aki (Glad you experienced the first sentence in a positive fashion! XD), Mashimaro-Byul-012, SakuraBubbles the Muffin Child, Hidama (I speak no French, but…Spanish! Quiero queso.), MalaConaKierKiar, Cookie Cowgirl, Kirie Himuro (Nooj thanks you for your kind laughter. XD), and Yuuka Yagami.
Chapter Six – Reaction
He hadn't been able to stop himself. Once he had imagined himself in the shower with Baralai, the fact that this wasn't his or Baralai's ship had no longer mattered.
Baralai had declined politely (though it had been in a strained voice), telling him that it seemed to be…kind of bad manners to have wild, uninhibited sex in someone else's shower without them knowing.
Baralai, while almost always firm in his decisions, occasionally caved into Gippal's requests.
Which had led to this disaster. All right, so maybe Gippal was mainly to blame…
"It's official." Gippal heaved a loud, irritated sigh and told Baralai, "Some yccruma (asshole) stole our clothes."
The only part of Baralai that was visible was his head poking out of the shower stall, soaked. His teeth began to chatter. "Damnit…"
He rarely swore, except when things got really bad. Gippal had to admit, now definitely qualified as one of those times.
"My thoughts exactly, Baralai…" Gippal agreed. "Should I stick my head out the door and yell?" He shivered, chilly, and pictured how comical he must look strutting around completely naked. Yes, sticking his head out the door was all he was going to do.
"No, don't!" Baralai shook his head. "They'll see us, then…"
"But we can't just sit here…"
Baralai slid down the tile wall behind him and drew his knees up to his chest, his back slicking up with water again. "I know, but if there was only some way of getting out things back without drawing unwanted attention… It would make them angry, I think."
"Angry? Who?" Gippal sat next to him, close enough to receive some warmth from Baralai's skin.
"Everyone. Although Nooj is quite traumatized…to this day…" Baralai nestled his head in the crook of Gippal's neck. "Anyone else could have stolen our clothes as a joke."
"I don't see towels anywhere," Gippal suddenly noticed. "That's weird. You think there'd be –"
As if on cue, the bathroom door swung open, and Yuna walked in, face obscured by a pile of fluffy, white towels. Gippal and Baralai could only stare, stock-still.
"Ah –!" Gippal started. He didn't know what could cover this.
"Hm?" Yuna moved the towels aside. She immediately shrieked and whirled around, clapping a hand over her mouth and clenching her eyes shut. The towels flew in the air and landed in random areas.
"There are the towels," Gippal mumbled, turning red.
"I…apologize, Lady Yuna," Baralai managed, his face turning a shade similar to Gippal's. "Our clothes are missing…"
"I see that… What –? What –?" she stammered.
"Someone stole our clothes," Baralai explained. "Can you get them back?"
"But – But, oh, I have to pee!"
Baralai blinked.
"Can you hold it?" Gippal pleaded in a low voice. "Please, please, please, plea –"
"Okay," she cut him off. "But why are you two…?"
"We were taking a shower, and there were no towels, which is why we're sitting here." Gippal was getting a bit exasperated. He just wanted his clothes, and he had a feeling where this was going.
"There's only one shower."
"We were both really dirty." Gippal smirked at Baralai, who mouthed his name in what would have been a shout, had he given sound to it. He grinned. "Baralai, E vaam tendo ymm ujan ykyeh. Melg sa lmayh? (Baralai, I feel dirty all over again. Lick me clean?)"
This time, Baralai was more vocal. "Gippal!" Blushing deeply, he shot Gippal what was supposed to be a cautioning look but came out as more of an adorable pout.
"E tuipd cra ghufc Al Bhed. (I doubt she knows Al Bhed.)"
A short, uncomfortable silence.
"I'll find your clothes if you'll be in the shower when I come back," Yuna conceded.
"Deal." Gippal considering shaking on it, but he was naked, after all.
---
"Go see Rikku."
"What?" Gippal asked, puzzled, as he snatched the items thrown through the shower. One of his boots hit him in the head. "Ow, hey!"
"By the way, I know Al Bhed."
Gippal exchanged an alarmed look with Baralai and peeked out of the shower stall. Yuna was gone.
---
Rikku was on one of the three beds in the cabin, sobbing noisily. Gippal was confused, but then a thought struck him out of nowhere. What if…?
He sat down on the edge of the bed. Baralai was waiting outside the cabin, having told Gippal that he didn't know Rikku as well as Gippal did. At the creaking of the bed, Rikku sat up and coughed weakly. She realized it was him and appeared to be…stunned. Her skin was red, eyes bleary with tears, hair mussed…
"Rikku?" It was all he could think of saying. He had no idea what was going on, and it bewildered him. There was a chance she was upset about…
"Do you love him?" she ground out.
He hated being right. At least in this case.
"Yes," he answered, awkwardly fingering the blanket on the bed. "Very much."
It was the truth. What was he supposed to say? But judging from the expression on Rikku's face, that was not what she wanted to hear. Reaching forward, she yanked him by his shirt and…
…kissed him.
Startled, Gippal automatically tried to bite down but had to stop and remind himself that this was Rikku. It was an unwanted kiss, yes, but she was not a violent, disgusting attacker. Not a sick maniac trying to have fun with him. Not a bigot blaming sexual attraction to Gippal on the belief that all Al Bhed were naturally sluts.
Every mouth but Baralai's was strange to him, foreign, unwelcome. He could kiss Baralai blindfolded and still know it was him. In fact, it would be easy for him, going by not just how Baralai kissed but by his taste and scent as well.
Gippal shoved Rikku away, teeth almost snapping shut on his own tongue. She curled into a ball at the head of the bed, crying again.
"You don't know…what it was…like…hearing you and…" She sniffled and stopped weeping in what appeared to be an attempt to compose herself. "Oui mat sa uh! Oui hajan cyet oui fana kyo! (You led me on! You never said you were gay!)"
"I'm not. I'm bisexual. And it doesn't even matter… That gave you no right to steal our clothes!" It was unbelievable that he was having this conversation with Rikku. He never thought she felt this way. "Oui fana mega y meddma cecdan du sa! E fych'd maytehk oui uh yd ymm! (You were like a little sister to me! I wasn't leading you on at all!)"
"Oayr? Oui bnupypmo tuhd ajah muja res. Oui bnupypmo zicd fyhd – (Yeah? You probably don't even love him. You probably just want –)"
"Oui ryja hu vilgehk lmia ypuid fryd E fyhd! (You have no fucking clue about what I want!)" Gippal interrupted heatedly. For Rikku to imply that… "Cu crid ib! E vamd pyt vun oui, pid huf, hu fyo! (So shut up! I felt bad for you, but now, no way!)"
"E cruimt mekrd ouin ryen uh vena! E cruimt bimm ouin ihtanfayn ib! E cruimt payd oui fedr y nyf, raytmacc lrelgah! (I should light your hair on fire! I should pull your underwear up! I should beat you with a raw, headless chicken!)" Rikku yelled.
"E tuhd fayn ihtanfayn! Yht payd sa fedr ymm dra lrelgahc oui fyhd, ed fuhd syga sa lyna vun oui suna! (I don't wear underwear! And beat me with all the chickens you want, it won't make me care for you more!)" he shot back.
"Leave," Rikku ordered coldly.
"Fine. I'd be glad to!" Gippal flung himself off the bed and strode furiously out of the cabin.
Outside the door, in the elevator, stood Baralai.
"How much did you hear?" Gippal muttered, pounding a button in the elevator.
"Everything."
"She kissed me, you know," Gippal confessed. Better to get it out in the open. But he continued to avoid looking at Baralai.
"Oh," Baralai responded quietly.
Worried, Gippal studied his calm face. "Are you mad?"
"No, but I do think the situation needs rectified…"
"How?" He was puzzled.
"Like this…" Without warning, Baralai framed Gippal's face with his hands and leaned in, slowly kissing him in a thorough manner, tongue stroking everywhere it could.
A moan surfaced from somewhere deep within Gippal's throat, and he kissed back hungrily, crushing Baralai to the wall of the elevator.
"So I'm forgiven?" he guessed.
"You never did anything wrong in the first place," Baralai assured him breathlessly, laughter in his voice.
"It's a real shame about Yuna knowing Al Bhed, though."
--- Past:
On the ship, Gippal had been very jubilant, as had Baralai, Paine, and Nooj. Evidence of this was in posing willingly with Nooj in front of Paine's recorder.
Though it was only for a few nights, they got to sleep in beds again. There had been more people going to the desert than returning from it, so they had more space, even though they had to share a room. Apparently, the desert wasn't the easiest place to train. However, there were still enough people on the ship to give Gippal a bit of a hard time.
"It's no surprise they got out okay," the man spat out bitterly. "They've got an Al Bhed with them."
Right in earshot of Gippal. On purpose.
"Everything was fair," Baralai argued angrily. "We went through the same trials you did."
"Watch your back," Nooj warned under his breath. "This will happen again and again."
It took Gippal a moment to realize that Nooj was speaking to him
Now he saw why. Sprinting as fast as his legs would allow, Gippal tore into the tent that he shared with Baralai, Paine, and Nooj. He caught sight of their bewildered expressions, but he didn't want them to detect precisely what had happened to him.
"Gippal! What's wrong?" It was Baralai, of course.
Gippal halted his efforts at scrubbing his face with his arm. Burying his head under his sleeping bag, he said nothing. (He and Baralai had been given new sleeping bags.) Gippal felt the bag being lifted off as a hand snatched his arm.
"Gippal…? Is this lipstick?"
"Yeah," he confessed. "They thought it was pretty funny. Pycdyntc. (Bastards.)"
He met Baralai's gaze steadily, even though he was aware of the lantern light inside the tent reflecting off his lips.
"They're so cruel to you…" Baralai murmured. "Let me see it. This is nothing to be embarrassed about…" He tenderly dabbed at the lipstick with the end of his sleeve, trying to erase it from Gippal's lips. "It's only smudging… Hm."
"Hey, do you know where that Al Bhed is?!" someone demanded outside.
Baralai's hand stilled. Gippal's eye widened in alarm.
"Why does it matter?" Nooj asked coolly.
"Don't get fucking smart with me! I know he's here!"
"His whereabouts are none of your business. He's done nothing wrong." Paine sounded firm. Gippal could just envision her glaring. "So get out of our campsite."
"You b –"
"We'll report you. Go away," Nooj maintained.
More cursing, and then…nothing but the crackle of the campfire.
"Are they gone?" Baralai questioned, almost whispering.
Nooj motioned for him to come out. "Yes."
"Gippal, what did you do to make them so…?" Paine raised an eyebrow as Gippal's head rested next to Baralai's outside the tent, his lips exposed for all to see. "Is that –?"
"Lipstick? Yeah. And I can't believe you'd think I would do anything."
She smiled, warming her hands by the fire. "Bright red actually doesn't look bad on you."
"Paine!"
---
Gippal hated marching. It was repetitive, tiring, and it gave ample opportunity for people to humiliate him. When this happened, he couldn't recognize marching beside Baralai, Paine, and Nooj as a good thing. They heard the nasty things said to him, and he wished he could cover their ears.
The snickering had already started today. Any second now, someone would –
A tap on his shoulder. "Hey. Hey, Al Bhed."
He chose to ignore it. This was a common occurrence.
This time, it wasn't a tap. It was a shove. "Hey, Al Bhed." Too loud for him to pretend he didn't hear.
"What? Where?" Gippal asked in utter annoyance, glancing around. "I don't see any."
"Stupid whore," another man muttered directly behind him.
Gippal's feet ceased marching. "What…did you just say?"
The smart thing would have been to ignore this man, because discontinuing marching caused everyone else to stop and brought unwanted attention.
He glimpsed Baralai's concerned eyes, heard him whisper, "Gippal…" but something pushed him to turn around and face the accusation forced upon him, one that had been said far too often.
The man was tall and bulky (but looked like he didn't take matters of hygiene seriously), and Gippal knew it would be a difficult fight – if there was a fight.
"Go back to your shitty desert," he taunted. "Everyone knows the Al Bhed can't fight. They're only good for fuck –"
Red rivulets oozed out of his bottom lip, and it was then that Gippal realized he had popped it cleanly open. Stunned, his line of vision fell on his fist, clenched, clean of any splatters of blood from the quick hit it had administered.
"You – You –" the man stuttered. His fingers came up to his bleeding lip. "You little bitch!"
He lunged, and Gippal stumbled backward, only to discover that the marchers had formed a circle enclosing them.
"Gippal!" A familiar grip tightened around his wrist, and he was doubtlessly sure of it belonging to Baralai. He was pulled into a secure embrace as green coat sleeves wrapped around his chest from behind.
The man was furious. "I'll cut out your other –"
With a swoosh and a crack, the instigator collapsed. Gippal soon figured out why. Nooj had swiftly rebuked him with his cane.
"My…head…" the man groaned. "Ughh… Fucker hitting my –"
The cane sailed down again.
"Owowowow! Damnit!" he hissed.
"What seems to be the issue here?" a stern voice suddenly demanded.
The crowd instantly parted to make way for the commander.
He gestured to the man who had attacked Gippal. "What's the problem?"
The man glared at Gippal. "Nothing, sir."
---
"Great, they're all going to love me after this." Gippal scuffed at the ground with the toe of his boot. He was back at the tent with Baralai, Paine, and Nooj.
"That doesn't sound like a 'Thank you, Nooj' to me," Nooj grumbled.
Gippal rolled his eye and sighed loudly.
"Well?" Paine prompted.
"…Thank you, Nooj." He shot Paine and Nooj a pointed look that seemed to say, See, I did it. "Even though I could have taken care of myself."
Paine let out an exasperated sigh. "Gippal… That guy was twice the size of you."
"Yeah?" Gippal put his hands on his hips. "I came up against worse when I was nine."
"Really?" Baralai questioned.
"…I never said I won."
Baralai laughed. Paine and Nooj just shook their heads.
"Hey, Nooj? That cane-walloping was pretty badass," Gippal admitted.
He apparently wasn't the only one to think so. Baralai was in agreement. "May we see it again?"
---
"Those are good…" Baralai peered at Gippal's sketchbook of various weapons. "Can I see it?"
"Hm? Oh, sure." Gippal halted the work on his current sketch and passed it to Baralai.
"Wow…" he murmured, flipping through it.
"They're not that good," Gippal notified Baralai, watching his reaction.
"Yes, they are." He stopped on a page of a giant gun-like object. "This is very interesting."
"I want to build that someday. When I can get enough materials, I think I'll do it. It even has a saw built into it."
Baralai turned to another page. "Why does this one say my name on it?" He seemed taken by it.
It was a sort of sword with a ring and then a blade at each end.
"It's…kind of something that I drew with you in mind." Gippal had never expected Baralai to see it and had been unsure of what he would think of it, but…
"It's beautiful."
"I'm glad you think so," he expressed cheerfully, kissing Baralai on his lips.
The sketchbook clunked onto the ground, momentarily forgotten.
---
Hands outstretched as if to capture the droplets from the sky, Gippal almost didn't hear him say, "What are you doing?"
It wasn't said in an accusatory way. Merely a curious one, but there was a hint of something else. Something close to wonderment. Did Baralai find the rain as fascinating as he did?
Twirling in circles, he laughed and threw his head back to catch raindrops on his tongue. "I've never seen it rain before," he explained breathlessly. "Ever. It's so…" Suitable words were beyond his grasp at this point. There was no possible way to describe something this incredible.
"You're soaked." Baralai smiled and stepped closer.
"And you will be, too, when I'm done with you." He reached out and tugged on a now damp coat so that they were face to face and could brush noses.
"I can't believe you've never seen rain…" Eyelids fluttered shut as Gippal pressed his wet body against Baralai's and nibbled on his ear.
"Believe it. I can't swim, either. Growing up in a desert has that effect." Unexpectedly, he broke away from Baralai and held out his hand. "Care to dance?" He grinned.
"Ballroom dancing?" Baralai looked uncertain.
The odd thing was, Gippal didn't know how to dance that way at all. His eyebrows rose in surprise. "You know how to do that?"
"I can show you…" He clasped Gippal's hand in his. "All right, bring your hand up like this. Now when I move forward, you move back… And now you do it… Step here – Ouch! A little too close."
"Sorry." Gippal scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. He had practically crushed Baralai's foot. "Why can't we be closer, though?"
"Because it's harder to dance."
"Not where I come from." Gippal winked and looped his arms around Baralai's neck.
"What are you –?"
"Dancing," he replied simply, continuing to grind against Baralai.
"…How do you really dance?" Baralai gave the impression of believing that Gippal was only kidding.
"Like this! You can move, y'know," he told him, trailing a hand lower to caress a thigh. "I've seen you do it before in different situations."
The innuendo wasn't wasted on Baralai, who pulled Gippal closer with a smile. "We're drenched. Want to go back inside?" he offered.
"Sure." Gippal smirked and linked his arm with Baralai's, and they walked to the tent – at a somewhat quicker pace than they normally did.
Once Baralai had gone a step in, Gippal playfully tackled and pinned him to the nearest sleeping bag, which happened to be his.
"These wet clothes need to come off," he decided, going for Baralai's coat.
"What are we going to say if Paine and Nooj come back from wherever they are?" This thought didn't hinder Baralai's progress in unbuckling and unstrapping Gippal, however.
"We'll tell them we got caught in the rain, just like they did." He lifted Baralai's arms up to divest him of his top. "It's the truth."
Peeling off Gippal's dripping shirt plastered to his skin, Baralai mused, "I doubt either of them would let the rain – Mmpf!"
Gippal took advantage of Baralai speaking, sensually delving his tongue into his mouth. Sitting up without breaking the kiss, Baralai slid a hand into Gippal's pants…
…and froze at the sound of a feminine gasp.
Gippal's eye widened. He yanked his head away from Baralai's, twisting half his body around, unable to do the same with the lower half. This was on account of Baralai's hand still being in his pants.
Paine and Nooj were standing were standing there, mouths hanging open, apparently speechless.
"OH, CRED (SHIT)! Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Gippal tried to haul the sleeping bag out from underneath him and Baralai to use it as a covering, but to no avail.
It didn't matter, anyway, as Paine and Nooj had turned spun around in an effort to afford them some modesty. Or possibly to save their eyes. That was the more probable of the two.
Gippal frowned at putting his wet clothes back on and shivered. It was an unpleasant feeling but one he had to endure. He would have preferred to dash around stark naked just to spite Paine and Nooj for interrupting them.
Baralai's face was a perfect indicator of his mortification as he followed suit, slipping on his coat and staring at the ground.
"Hey…" Gippal said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Gippal?" Paine must have thought Gippal was speaking to her, because she continued to not face him.
Gippal noticed that Nooj had left the tent.
"This changes everything," Paine stated.
"No, it doesn't…" Baralai shook his head. "Paine, nothing is different…"
"This is why you've been sneaking off at night? I thought it was for extra training."
"Yeah," Gippal answered, wanting to reply that he had indeed received "extra training," as Paine called it, although it wasn't exactly her version of it.
"I don't feel like talking right now." With her back to them, Paine marched out.
---
"Nooj…" Gippal tried. This was his attempt at returning things to what they had been. Because it was directly after the disaster that had occurred, he and Baralai hadn't been very successful in this. "Are you mad or something?"
"Why would I be angry?"
"Um…because…you saw…" Gippal wasn't sure of how to word it, considering that Nooj was ladling soup and any mentions of the said activity he had witnessed might cause him to dump it into his lap.
"I saw nothing," Nooj denied. "I have no idea what you are talking about. Would you like some soup?"
Gippal and Baralai gaped incredulously at each other.
Baralai raised his hand. "I'll take some soup, please…"
"I will." Gippal took it from Nooj, slightly nervous that he might suddenly go into a crazy fit or something.
Nothing. Calmness.
He sat down next to Paine, who scooted away from him.
"Well, fuck you very much, too," Gippal muttered.
"We were supposed to be friends," Paine snapped. "Could you just give me some time to get used to this?"
"No." He was too angry to be polite.
"You're like my family, and then…"
Gippal was surprised. Paine usually didn't open up this much.
"Forget it. I can see that you obviously don't care." Grinding her teeth, she stiffly stood up and stomped toward the tent.
Gippal slapped his head. "Fantastic."
"Give her some time alone…" Baralai advised.
Nooj sipped his soup, outwardly unperturbed.
---
A/N: I really love Paine as a character. Don't worry. I won't make her seem evil. She has some hidden reasons for being upset. As for Nooj… Oh, boy.
Next chapter: Seeing as most of my predictions are wrong…I'm gonna stay vague. So…it will take place in the camp. XD