Author's Notes: Well, it seems that I've lied. There is going to be another chapter after this one-- I could end it here, but I think that it needs something a little more definite. And more GippalxBaralai. ^^
Warnings? Yaoi. Gippal x Baralai. Language. Enjoy!
===============
A Bit of Luck
===============
Chapter 4
===============
There was pain when he woke, and darkness.
All was quiet; every part of him had been beset by bitter cold. Everything ached, and a portion of his side felt as though someone were carving it apart.
For a moment, Baralai closed his eyes against the pain, feeling the pulse of his heartbeat in his throat.
And then a voice came to him from the darkness, gave him something to focus on besides the pain.
"Hey." It was Gippal. He had never heard the Al Bhed so worried, and it scared him. "Hey... you awake?"
Tentatively opening his eyes once more, Baralai discovered that he could now make out the outline of the boy against the faint traces of moonlight. He managed a nod, brief and scarce of movement.
"Good." There was silence for a moment. "That's good."
Baralai lay without responding, letting his mind drift uneasily over a dozen different thoughts. At length, he asked the most pressing question that came to him. "Where are the others?"
Or rather, that's what he might have said. In actuality, he only managed to rasp out the first syllable before his voice gave out, throat too dry to form the words. The sound turned into a wheeze and then a dry, wracking cough, every part of him screaming with pain as his body shook with the force of it.
It wasn't until the agony whiting out his vision had subsided and his breathing slowed to something resembling normal that he took note of the hand squeezed tight in his own.
Gippal's hand. He was holding Gippal's hand.
Two days earlier, the boy would have pulled away, would have been glad of the darkness to hide his blush. But it was cold, and he hurt all over, and the Al Bhed wasn't making any move to pull away.
After a time, Gippal spoke. His voice was low, and soothing. "We're out of water," he explained gently. "Cunno. (Sorry.)"
Baralai licked his lips once, twice, trying to moisten them enough for speech. "S'okay," he croaked, the sound almost lost even in the stillness of the desert night. "But--" and here he broke off, fighting back another fit of coughing "--but... where's everyone?"
The Al Bhed boy was slow to reply. "Not sure," he admitted at length. "I think... I think we found the camp, though."
Baralai closed his eyes against the sudden despair that settled over him, against the flood of thoughts that shifted in his mind at the revelation, whirling.
So close. They were so close, and still... he couldn't move. Could barely talk, much less lift a gun and help Gippal put an end to this nightmare of a training session.
Someday, the boy told himself bitterly, there would be a Crimson squad. But they would not be a part of it.
Aloud, he asked the question that he was sure he knew the answer to already: "What time is it?" His voice was closer to normal, now; almost, he could identify it as his own.
"It's been dark awhile now," the Al Bhed boy told him, leaning back against the wall. His hand, though, didn't let go of Baralai's. "If it's not time already, it will be soon."
The boy listened for a moment to the silence of the desert, traced with his eyes the soft, moonlit outline of the dunes. He was shivering slightly, but Baralai's thoughts were far from both the cold and the hurt-- were years ago, in fact, recalling warm blood in a street so shattered that he didn't recognize it any more. Remembering the first time that he'd known the sick despair of hopelessness, and remembering a promise that he'd made to someone who would never hear the words.
He'd wanted to make a difference. He'd wanted to be a part of something that could make the lives of everyone on Spira a little less cruel.
A sad smile tugged at the corners of the boy's lips. "I didn't think it'd be like this," he whispered quietly.
"Rao, rao, (Hey, hey,)" came Gippal's voice, suddenly loud against the night. "It's not like anything, yet. Once the sun's up, we'll get you to camp. After the session's over, they'll just let us in, nekrd? (right?)"
Searching out the dark outline of his companion's face, Baralai watched the Al Bhed boy. "...I'm sorry."
The snort of disapproval was somehow more expressive than Gippal's tone. "You say that too much."
Baralai ignored him, determined to make the Al Bhed understand. "I wanted to... to do something, but all I managed was to pull everyone else down with me. I'm sorry." Had his position allowed it, the boy would have bowed to make the apology complete. "I've ruined everything, and I'm sorry for that, most of--"
But he never finished the sentence. With a soft end to an inner debate that his companion hadn't been aware of-- "Ur, vilg ed. (Oh, fuck it.)-- the Al Bhed boy leaned in a pressed a kiss to his lips.
Gentle as it was, it hurt. His lips were cracked and bleeding from the time spent in the desert, and somehow, the boy managed to forget about his injury long enough to raise a hand to Gippal's face and trace the jawline with an exploring thumb.
When at last the contact had gone, Baralai wished dearly that he could see the other boy's expression, could read the reaction there. Instead, he was left with words-- awkward, startled words that didn't quite amount to what he wished them to ask. A stuttered "Why?" forced its way past his mouth, but nothing else would follow.
"Hu naknadc. (No regrets.)" Gippal replied, evidently not caring about the possibility of driving the boy insane by answering a serious question in a language he didn't speak. Baralai very nearly commented to that effect-- opened his mouth to, in fact-- but was spared the trouble when the Al Bhed boy clarified.
"I've been thinking about it for awhile. But I mean, if we don't get into the squad, I might not see you anymore." There was something sad in Gippal's tone, and something defiant. "It'd be stupid not to try it out and then just not get a chance."
Despite himself, Baralai felt his mouth creeping upward into a smile. "I guess so." The change in positions earlier had separated Gippal's hand from his own, but the injured boy found it again now. "And... I don't mind."
They were motionless for a time, together, as they waited for the sunrise.
But they weren't to greet the new day here. It was only a few minutes later, in fact, that Nooj's voice came drifting up behind them: "Can either of you walk?"
"Wha-- " came Gippal's voice, utterly dumbfounded. "How-- what did you--"
It was Paine that answered, voice low. "We only have fifteen minutes before midnight," she advised. "We have to get moving."
Hands were on him, then, careful but not gentle enough to avoid the necessary agony of sitting up. A half-choked cry escaped him before he could fight it down, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.
"Quiet," Nooj instructed. "We knocked out the guards, but if someone else hears we can't go through with this."
For a moment, the pain-residue was enough to burn away all his thoughts; after a moment, though, they began to reform themselves, and their leader's words registered. "You... you already made it to the camp?" he whispered softly, voice rough with pain.
"They did what?" the Al Bhed boy demanded; Baralai could picture him, eye wide with shock, gaze snapping from Nooj to Paine and back again. It was approximately the level of bewilderment that he was experiencing, himself. "You did what? You're... you're cheating!"
The utter disbelief in Gippal's voice and the sheer absurdity of the situation-- Nooj cheating on anything, for any reason-- forced a cracked laugh from deep in Baralai's throat. "Aw, Nooj. Didn't know you c-cared."
When pain exploded through his side as Nooj and Paine lifted him, leaving him too out-of-breath even to scream, Baralai suspected in a small part of his mind that the timing had more to do with shutting him up than any real decision-making.
"Let's move," their leader commanded. And they did.
Suspended between Nooj and Paine, arms draped over their shoulders, Baralai sucked air through his teeth in tiny gasps. He felt like his side was splitting open every time they took a step, but refused to scream. There would be plenty of time for screaming later, the boy's mind assured him feverishly. Plenty of time to scream when it wasn't dangerous for someone to hear.
And then, abruptly, the rhythmic agony of movement came to a shuddering stop, and he was lying on the sand once more. Hissing out a breath of relief, Baralai squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pain to recede to bearable levels.
"Alright!" It was Gippal's voice, a triumphant whisper. "Now, where're they hiding the healer?"
"Not yet," Nooj corrected, and the dark outline of the man shook his head once. "You need to tell the maester that you've arrived-- and do it quickly, before the time's up."
Paine's voice was an anxious hush when she spoke. "We're going back to our tents. Wait a second before you start out."
There were footsteps in sand, and Baralai opened his eyes just in time to see them walking away. Above him, only Gippal remained; and in the space of several heartbeats, the Al Bhed too was moving away from the edge of the camp and the injured boy that lay there on the ground.
Baralai waited in silence. Above him, he noticed for the first time, the stars were very bright in the black of the sky.
They drifted in slowly at first, snatches of speech and garbled words. The first voice that he could understand was Gippal's, though; louder than necessity dictated, he was recounting what they'd experienced in the vast desert before the camp. And making a few things up along the way, of course.
He was only half-aware as the noise grew louder around him, closed his eyes against the press of bodies in torch light and the faces bending to peer more closely. The sound of voices was strange after the quiet of the desert night, and his side still ached in time with the beat of his heart.
Still, there was a quiet joy that had settled against the boy's chest and in his throat, overwhelming everything else. And when the Al Bhed knelt beside him, leaning close enough to whisper in his ear, Baralai couldn't stop the smile that spread slowly across his face.
"We're in," Gippal told him, tone tight with excitement. "We're under the limit."
Because there was a lot to smile about.
~end part 4~
Warnings? Yaoi. Gippal x Baralai. Language. Enjoy!
===============
A Bit of Luck
===============
Chapter 4
===============
There was pain when he woke, and darkness.
All was quiet; every part of him had been beset by bitter cold. Everything ached, and a portion of his side felt as though someone were carving it apart.
For a moment, Baralai closed his eyes against the pain, feeling the pulse of his heartbeat in his throat.
And then a voice came to him from the darkness, gave him something to focus on besides the pain.
"Hey." It was Gippal. He had never heard the Al Bhed so worried, and it scared him. "Hey... you awake?"
Tentatively opening his eyes once more, Baralai discovered that he could now make out the outline of the boy against the faint traces of moonlight. He managed a nod, brief and scarce of movement.
"Good." There was silence for a moment. "That's good."
Baralai lay without responding, letting his mind drift uneasily over a dozen different thoughts. At length, he asked the most pressing question that came to him. "Where are the others?"
Or rather, that's what he might have said. In actuality, he only managed to rasp out the first syllable before his voice gave out, throat too dry to form the words. The sound turned into a wheeze and then a dry, wracking cough, every part of him screaming with pain as his body shook with the force of it.
It wasn't until the agony whiting out his vision had subsided and his breathing slowed to something resembling normal that he took note of the hand squeezed tight in his own.
Gippal's hand. He was holding Gippal's hand.
Two days earlier, the boy would have pulled away, would have been glad of the darkness to hide his blush. But it was cold, and he hurt all over, and the Al Bhed wasn't making any move to pull away.
After a time, Gippal spoke. His voice was low, and soothing. "We're out of water," he explained gently. "Cunno. (Sorry.)"
Baralai licked his lips once, twice, trying to moisten them enough for speech. "S'okay," he croaked, the sound almost lost even in the stillness of the desert night. "But--" and here he broke off, fighting back another fit of coughing "--but... where's everyone?"
The Al Bhed boy was slow to reply. "Not sure," he admitted at length. "I think... I think we found the camp, though."
Baralai closed his eyes against the sudden despair that settled over him, against the flood of thoughts that shifted in his mind at the revelation, whirling.
So close. They were so close, and still... he couldn't move. Could barely talk, much less lift a gun and help Gippal put an end to this nightmare of a training session.
Someday, the boy told himself bitterly, there would be a Crimson squad. But they would not be a part of it.
Aloud, he asked the question that he was sure he knew the answer to already: "What time is it?" His voice was closer to normal, now; almost, he could identify it as his own.
"It's been dark awhile now," the Al Bhed boy told him, leaning back against the wall. His hand, though, didn't let go of Baralai's. "If it's not time already, it will be soon."
The boy listened for a moment to the silence of the desert, traced with his eyes the soft, moonlit outline of the dunes. He was shivering slightly, but Baralai's thoughts were far from both the cold and the hurt-- were years ago, in fact, recalling warm blood in a street so shattered that he didn't recognize it any more. Remembering the first time that he'd known the sick despair of hopelessness, and remembering a promise that he'd made to someone who would never hear the words.
He'd wanted to make a difference. He'd wanted to be a part of something that could make the lives of everyone on Spira a little less cruel.
A sad smile tugged at the corners of the boy's lips. "I didn't think it'd be like this," he whispered quietly.
"Rao, rao, (Hey, hey,)" came Gippal's voice, suddenly loud against the night. "It's not like anything, yet. Once the sun's up, we'll get you to camp. After the session's over, they'll just let us in, nekrd? (right?)"
Searching out the dark outline of his companion's face, Baralai watched the Al Bhed boy. "...I'm sorry."
The snort of disapproval was somehow more expressive than Gippal's tone. "You say that too much."
Baralai ignored him, determined to make the Al Bhed understand. "I wanted to... to do something, but all I managed was to pull everyone else down with me. I'm sorry." Had his position allowed it, the boy would have bowed to make the apology complete. "I've ruined everything, and I'm sorry for that, most of--"
But he never finished the sentence. With a soft end to an inner debate that his companion hadn't been aware of-- "Ur, vilg ed. (Oh, fuck it.)-- the Al Bhed boy leaned in a pressed a kiss to his lips.
Gentle as it was, it hurt. His lips were cracked and bleeding from the time spent in the desert, and somehow, the boy managed to forget about his injury long enough to raise a hand to Gippal's face and trace the jawline with an exploring thumb.
When at last the contact had gone, Baralai wished dearly that he could see the other boy's expression, could read the reaction there. Instead, he was left with words-- awkward, startled words that didn't quite amount to what he wished them to ask. A stuttered "Why?" forced its way past his mouth, but nothing else would follow.
"Hu naknadc. (No regrets.)" Gippal replied, evidently not caring about the possibility of driving the boy insane by answering a serious question in a language he didn't speak. Baralai very nearly commented to that effect-- opened his mouth to, in fact-- but was spared the trouble when the Al Bhed boy clarified.
"I've been thinking about it for awhile. But I mean, if we don't get into the squad, I might not see you anymore." There was something sad in Gippal's tone, and something defiant. "It'd be stupid not to try it out and then just not get a chance."
Despite himself, Baralai felt his mouth creeping upward into a smile. "I guess so." The change in positions earlier had separated Gippal's hand from his own, but the injured boy found it again now. "And... I don't mind."
They were motionless for a time, together, as they waited for the sunrise.
But they weren't to greet the new day here. It was only a few minutes later, in fact, that Nooj's voice came drifting up behind them: "Can either of you walk?"
"Wha-- " came Gippal's voice, utterly dumbfounded. "How-- what did you--"
It was Paine that answered, voice low. "We only have fifteen minutes before midnight," she advised. "We have to get moving."
Hands were on him, then, careful but not gentle enough to avoid the necessary agony of sitting up. A half-choked cry escaped him before he could fight it down, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.
"Quiet," Nooj instructed. "We knocked out the guards, but if someone else hears we can't go through with this."
For a moment, the pain-residue was enough to burn away all his thoughts; after a moment, though, they began to reform themselves, and their leader's words registered. "You... you already made it to the camp?" he whispered softly, voice rough with pain.
"They did what?" the Al Bhed boy demanded; Baralai could picture him, eye wide with shock, gaze snapping from Nooj to Paine and back again. It was approximately the level of bewilderment that he was experiencing, himself. "You did what? You're... you're cheating!"
The utter disbelief in Gippal's voice and the sheer absurdity of the situation-- Nooj cheating on anything, for any reason-- forced a cracked laugh from deep in Baralai's throat. "Aw, Nooj. Didn't know you c-cared."
When pain exploded through his side as Nooj and Paine lifted him, leaving him too out-of-breath even to scream, Baralai suspected in a small part of his mind that the timing had more to do with shutting him up than any real decision-making.
"Let's move," their leader commanded. And they did.
Suspended between Nooj and Paine, arms draped over their shoulders, Baralai sucked air through his teeth in tiny gasps. He felt like his side was splitting open every time they took a step, but refused to scream. There would be plenty of time for screaming later, the boy's mind assured him feverishly. Plenty of time to scream when it wasn't dangerous for someone to hear.
And then, abruptly, the rhythmic agony of movement came to a shuddering stop, and he was lying on the sand once more. Hissing out a breath of relief, Baralai squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pain to recede to bearable levels.
"Alright!" It was Gippal's voice, a triumphant whisper. "Now, where're they hiding the healer?"
"Not yet," Nooj corrected, and the dark outline of the man shook his head once. "You need to tell the maester that you've arrived-- and do it quickly, before the time's up."
Paine's voice was an anxious hush when she spoke. "We're going back to our tents. Wait a second before you start out."
There were footsteps in sand, and Baralai opened his eyes just in time to see them walking away. Above him, only Gippal remained; and in the space of several heartbeats, the Al Bhed too was moving away from the edge of the camp and the injured boy that lay there on the ground.
Baralai waited in silence. Above him, he noticed for the first time, the stars were very bright in the black of the sky.
They drifted in slowly at first, snatches of speech and garbled words. The first voice that he could understand was Gippal's, though; louder than necessity dictated, he was recounting what they'd experienced in the vast desert before the camp. And making a few things up along the way, of course.
He was only half-aware as the noise grew louder around him, closed his eyes against the press of bodies in torch light and the faces bending to peer more closely. The sound of voices was strange after the quiet of the desert night, and his side still ached in time with the beat of his heart.
Still, there was a quiet joy that had settled against the boy's chest and in his throat, overwhelming everything else. And when the Al Bhed knelt beside him, leaning close enough to whisper in his ear, Baralai couldn't stop the smile that spread slowly across his face.
"We're in," Gippal told him, tone tight with excitement. "We're under the limit."
Because there was a lot to smile about.
~end part 4~