Thanks everyone for the reviews. I'm keeping things ambiguous on whether or not this is a Rikku and Gippal fic or maybe something else until a few chapters down the road. I did say in the last chapter that I'd reveal a section of the plot in this one, but I changed my mind and reworked the story some. So this one is just Rikku arriving at Djose and her first day there. Sorry for taking longer than I said to get this chapter up. I went out of town for Father's day and we ended up staying at my grandparent's house a week longer than expected. So here without anymore rambling is chapter three. Enjoy!
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Rikku didn't speak to Brother for the rest of the trip. She was so mad, she just stayed in a corner all by her lonesome until Buddy announced aloud that they were just a couple minutes outside Djose. When she heard that announcement, she made her way towards the hatch. She wanted to just get off of the Celsius, even if that meant she'd be alone with a bunch of strange men she didn't know very well, with the exception of Gippal. And it had been so long since she had seen him, it would probably seem like she didn't know him well at all either. She didn't bother gathering her stuff together. She knew that Brother would be more than happy to get it for her, his way of trying to patch things up before he left. She wasn't really all that mad at him, more of the situation he had gotten her into without asking, but knew that if she pretended she was mad at him, he'd do pretty much anything to win over her favor again.
She waited until she felt the familiar thud of landing on the ground before shouting out, "Get my bags, I'm going in!", and running down the hatch before it was even all the way down.
She was greeted by several Al Bhed males; all of them were standing with perfect posture and no emotion at all on their face. Rikku knew they were Al Bhed like her because of their green swirled eyes and blonde hair ; every Al Bhed had those two features. Even her cousin Yunie had one green swirled eye because her mother was an Al Bhed. She shot a confused look and shook her head.
"Yna oui kioc fedr dra vyldeuh?" [Are you guys with the faction?] She asked in a bit snippier of a tone than she had planned.
Their expressions didn't change as they saluted her, which caused a bit of laughter on her part. Why in the world were these men acting like they were soldiers and she was their general or something? It was a bit too weird for her liking.
"Gippal cahd ic du kad oui yht pnehk oui ehdu caa res. Ra naxiacdc dryd oui rinno, fa ryja y mud uv fung du tu dutyo." [Gippal sent us to get you and bring you into see him. He requests that you hurry, we have a lot of work to do today.] The man in the middle said, and turned around to point back at the large temple looming in the distance.
Rikku nodded eagerly, her little blonde braids bobbing all around her. She was more than excited to get into the temple and get to work. She'd be away from Brother, who she was pretending to be furious with, and she'd be away from Besaid where no one apparently wanted her. But most of all, she'd be in a place where she'd be needed. Not necessarily wanted, but at least she'd feel needed. She was one of the best when it came to machina, after all. Back home, she and her classmates would always get in competitions in school, and she would always dismantle and reassemble her machina first.
She took one last look back at the Celsius, where Brother and Buddy were coming down the hatch with her luggage in tow. She stuck her tongue out at them before spinning around and heading off towards the temple, leaving the three men who had greeted her behind. She didn't need to be led to find Gippal. She could find the temple perfectly on her own, and once she got there, it'd be even easier to find Gippal. She'd just have to listen for the loudest, most egotistical and jerky guy around. That guy would be Gippal. He may've been a good friend to her, but he had to have the most cocky personality she had ever seen.
She could hear Brother's voice talking to the three greeters, and she slowed down a bit to hear what they were saying. Just boring stuff about going around Spira and salvaging machine parts. And then some stuff about improving the quality of the Celsius. Booooring. With a loud and drawn out sigh, she picked back up her pace to where she was almost running, and made her way to the temple. She could hear Brother shouting out to wait up, but she didn't bother listening. It wasn't like she needed their supervision to stay safe and get to the temple in once piece. She wasn't five anymore, she could take care of herself.
When she got in front of the temple, she looked up at it in awe. She had been here before, just for a bit, but she was still a little awe-struck every time she saw a temple. So much dedicated work had gone into building them, and they were usually such amazing buildings. She found that her usual bounce had come back into her step and a smile formed on her face, she was actually very excited about staying here and helping out. She could make new friends and do something she liked to do.
"Well hello there Cid's lil girl. Told you I'd see you around." A very cocky sounding voice interrupted her happy thoughts.
Even though the voice sounded strange to her, she automatically knew who it was. It had to be Gippal. First off, no one but him called her that retched nickname. Second, no one else would use such a jerky greeting line after seeing someone again after so many years. She looked up and over in the direction she had heard the voice come from, and a faint smile formed on her face, but she quickly replaced it with a scowl.
"Yeah, but you never said it'd be so many years...meanie. And you couldn't even come and get me yourself, you sent machina soldiers or something." She replied curtly, making sure to keep that scowl on her face.
Gippal laughed at her reaction, and smiled at a combination of things. Number one, she truly had grown up, just like Brother and Old Man Cid had said she had. She wasn't the scrawny little brat anymore, she was a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman who would be staying with him for three months. Number two, she hadn't yelled at him or tried to slap him when he used his favorite nickname on her. That was a sign she had grown up some, or hopefully had grown up some. Third, he could see Brother and Buddy off in the close distance struggling with what was probably Rikku's belongings. The two idiots had managed to spill out her things and were rushing to put them all back in the trunk before Rikku turned around and noticed.
His eye quickly moved back to Rikku as he took in her rather revealing outfit. He motioned for her to come up to him, and the petite girl pranced up to him. He may be a jerk, but she hadn't seen him since their last time together, back when she was fourteen. And she was excited to see an old friend again.
"We've both been busy, Rikku. Neither of us have had time to search each other out...besides, if we had, what would we have said or done? Sorry for just ending things the way we did?" He smirked, sounding a bit bitter.
His and Rikku's relationship had ended on a rather sour note. His father needed him to go off and help with machina, and Rikku wanted to go off in search of her cousin Yuna, and stop her from making her pilgrimage. He hadn't wanted her to go alone, afraid it was too dangerous. He wanted her to wait until he got back from the Thunder Plains, but Rikku wouldn't wait. He remembered being so furious at her for being so stupid, he had shook her so hard it scared her, and made her cry. Even after he had scared her like that, she tried to kiss him goodbye, but he just ran off, leaving her alone. He had been too embarrassed to even try and find her after that. What kind of a man just runs off, especially when a girl wants to kiss you?
"It wasn't my fault the way things happened, and you know that Gippal. It's been almost four years...lets get over it and move on, okay?" She brightly smiled, trying not to let him ruin her happy mood.
He nodded his head in agreement, glad that she seemed okay with everything. That would make things a lot more easier when they would be working together and stuff. Hopefully no awkward silences or anything like that. He led her into the temple and began pointing out important places and people to her. She simply followed along beside him, nodding her head and occasionally saying yeah to let him know she understood.
Once he had led her through the working area of the temple, he took her down to the living area.
"This is where we all eat and sleep, relax. Its our home, and it'll be yours too while you live here. The only problem is that you're the only girl here...so we had to make a few extra arrangements for you. Everyone here bunks in one of the large rooms...except for me and you..." he trailed off, wanting to see her reaction.
She looked up at him with wide eyes and blinked several times. "Me..me and you? As in me and you sharing a room? T...together? Sleeping and stuff?" She babbled, turning bright red.
She tried to push embarrassing images of her and Gippal curled up in bed together, cuddling and sleeping like they did when they were little kids. That was okay to do when you were seven, but now that she was seventeen, that just wouldn't be right. People would think that they were doing things at night, naughty things that made her blush to think about. Sure Gippal was really good looking, even more so than he was the last time she saw him. But...there was no way she could ever do things like that with him. She wouldn't know what to do, especially since Buddy had told her all about Gippal's reputation with the women.
Gippal's booming laughter eventually let her know that he was either teasing, or glad to see that she was so embarrassed. Sadly, she wasn't exactly sure which one he was. Gippal was mean enough to tease her about having to sleep with him, and even meaner to be glad she was getting so embarrassed over something so seemingly innocent.
"Relax, Rikku. You have your own room. It's next door to mine though. If you go down to the end of this hall, there's a flight of stairs that will take you up to a small hallway with three doors. My room is the first door in, the bathroom is the second door in, and your room is the third door. We aren't going to be sleeping together, but we are sharing a bathroom, so you'd better not stink it up with all of your girly stuff. And if I start finding bras and panties lying around, they're being put up for everyone to see. Got it?"
Her mouth just dropped open in shock at how easily he talked about her bras and panties being shown to everyone. She bet he was hoping she'd do that, just so he'd get the opportunity to show them off to all the other guys. She fought against turning bright red and glared up at him.
"You just want to get your hands on my bras and panties and since I'm never going to show them to you willingly, that's the only way you'll be able to see them." She growled, and pushed him out of the way. "I'm going to my room. Have someone bring up my stuff. And not Brother. I'm mad at that jerk. And you too, so don't bring up my stuff either."
He shrugged and turned to leave, but not before shouting out after her, "Oh and Rikku, if you're going to blush every time someone mentions bras or panties I wouldn't go around the guys if I were you. We tend to like to talk about seeing girls in bras in panties. And since you're just one of the guys now, you'd probably just be best to get comforatable with that." And with a smirk, he sauntered off, glad that he had won that little spat.
Ooooh he made her so made sometimes. It was almost like they hadn't gone almost four years without seeing each other, like they had just gone back to the way things were.
"I'm not just one of the guys, meanie! I may be the only girl here, but I am so not one of the guys!" She fumed loud enough for his retreating form to hear.
"Whatever, princess. To everyone here, you're just one of the guys. Don't forget that. You're not some little girly priss we need to watch after. You're here to work, just like us. And you'll be treated just like us too."
He could hear her make some sort of angry and annoyed sound as she stormed off, and he could even hear the sound of her door slamming. Ah. It was just like old times. It felt so good to have her back near him, even if she seemed to be pretty pissed at him. Oh well, she'd get over it. Rikku always did. That was one of the things he liked best about her. No matter what he did to her, she'd always be the first to apologize and get over it, and be the first to smile again. He did have to admire that about her, as well as her newfound womanly figure. If she kept running around in those damned skimpy clothes, he and all the other guys would become pretty distracted. He hoped to make the point clear to her and especially all the guys that she was just one of the guys and was hands off material.
Rikku refused to come down for dinner. She wasn't that hungry, and didn't feel like seeing a whole bunch of people she didn't know. Especially when she was furious with the one person she did know here. She felt so lonely and almost wanted to cry. She had been hoping that staying here would make her happy, but she was even more miserable than she had been on her last night in Besaid.
She wasn't sure how long she had been lying curled up on her bed when she heard a knock on the door. She didn't say anything, hoping the person would just go away. She had already told at least ten different men that she wasn't hungry and didn't want to eat with everyone and to just leave her alone. She heard the sound of her door opening and she sat up to look at the person who had just broken into her room. She knew she had locked the door after she had come in, so the person who had entered must have broken the lock.
It wasn't of any surprise to see Gippal standing before her, smirking. But he was holding a plate of food, which made her smile.
"I know that you have to be hungry, despite what you're saying. Brother told me you didn't eat all day today...so here you go." His smirk softened into a smile as he handed her the plate, which she gratefully accepted and began digging into.
He laughed softly and moved to sit down next to her. He hoped she wouldn't snap at him, but she appeared to be too busy eating to care he was close to her.
"Look, I didn't mean to make you feel unwanted here, if I did. You're one of the best salvagers I know. You have been since we were kids. And...even though you are going to be working here, you aren't a member of the faction and you can work on things at your own pace...take a day or two off if you want. You're not a prisoner here or anything. I want you to be happy here." He explained, raking his fingers through his hair.
She quickly cleared her plate and set it down on his lap. She was really grateful for him bringing her food, she had been really hungry. She took all of his words into consideration before deciding how to handle them. She could tell that he was apprehensive about her feeling unwanted, which made her smile.
"Gippal, I know I'll be useful here. I'll help out. I just don't want to be treated like one of the guys. Because I'm not you know." She pouted, which made him chuckle.
So she could still pout and be adorable...great. Now he could never get mad at her, because he knew she would just do that damned pout and make his heart melt. He never did manage to find a way to block the power of her pout, which kind of pissed him off. She had him wrapped around her little finger and she didn't even know it.
"I know, I know. And I'll take that into consideration...but for now...just unpack some and then get to sleep. We have an early day tomorrow you know. Up at sunrise. So get enough rest, okay?" He gently ordered her, clutching the plate as he stood up to leave.
She nodded and waved goodbye to him as he left, and then fell back onto her bed. So maybe things wouldn't be that bad staying in Djose. Gippal was here, and Brother and Buddy would be in a couple of months. And she was positive she'd make new friends among some of the other workers...just as long as they didn't treat her like one of the guys. She was a little bit of a tomboy, yes...but not just one of the guys.