He drowns in his dreams
An exquisite extreme, I know
He's as damned as he seems
And more heaven than a heart could hold
If I tried to save him
My whole world would cave in
It just ain't right, Lord it just ain't right
Oh and I don't know
I don't know what he's after
But he's so beautiful
He's such a beautiful disaster
-"Beautiful Disaster" by Kelly Clarkson
The blanket was itchy.
Now, I know that it's might ridiculous for me to be complaining about this, considering I was lucky to even be sleeping in a bed, let alone a cozy bed inside a hotel where I was allowed to recooperate after being beat to a pulp by dear ol' Chimmy. Actually, I was lucky to even be alive, for that matter. But, I was really more happy about sleeping in a real, honest-to-goodness bed, with a fluffy, feather pillow and quite a few blankets to snuggle in.
If ONLY the blanket would stop being itchy.
Creaking open my eyes, I glanced at the window, which barely any light was coming through. "Ah, gotta love being the first one up in the morning," I yawned. I sat up, my bones mumbling little "ouchies" in pain, shook my extremely greasy and yucky, blonde hair out of my eyes, and looked at the mirror that was located across the room from me.
Whoa. Obviously, last night was not a good night for me.
My hair was sticking up on top of my head, little bits of dirt and leaves caught in it, making me realize that maybe a bath would be a good idea this morning. My arms and legs were wrapped up in some bright pink bandages, but from what little skin was poking through, I saw a mighty scratched up bit of Rikku poking out. My bright orange shirt and green shorts were missing, replaced with some ugly grey pajamas, which were so not my color.
And my eyes... Oh goodness, my eyes...
Not being a show off or anything here, my eyes are usually something to brag about. Guys all over Spira have gone ga-ga over what a perfect shade of emerald green they are, and the spirals (which are the sign of an Al Bhed, by the way) are usually just prominant enough to send someone dizzily into me. But, for some reason beyond me, my eyes somehow were transformed into a shade of green that can only be described as the color of the goobers that come out of your nose, and the spirals were so bold that you couldn't miss my Al Bhed heritage if you were blind and fifty billion miles away.
Which happened to be a problem, considering I happened to be hanging out with a group of people who hated Al Bheds. Well, not all of them. I mean, Yunie doesn't hate anyone. Tidus, well, he's never really got the whole "Al Bhed's are bad, bad people who should rot because they don't believe in Yevon," which is totally untrue by the way, because we aren't bad at all, we're just not brainwashed into bowing down to something that we can't even see. Lulu and Kimahri seem to have their minds on more important things than just randomly hating a whole group of cool people like my family. Actually, Wakka seems to be the only person who whole-heartedly hates Al Bhed's with a vengance, which isn't a good thing, considering he still doesn't... well...
He doesn't exactly know I'm an Al Bhed yet. Which as long as I keep my eyes hidden around him, he'll never need to know, right? RIGHT?
But, then there's Sir Auron the Almighty to consider. He's never completely came out in said, "I hate you Al Bhed people!", which is normal for him, because he doesn't ever really seem to say anything unless it's something like "Rikku, you're wasting our time," or "Rikku, you need to focus," or "Rikku, YOU SUCK!" Wait, he never said that. But he probably has always wanted, deep down, to say that to me in the few days that he's had to deal with me.
But that also doesn't explain why he was sitting up, watching me last night. Kind of creepy, in a way, but also kind of sweet.
Whoa, hey. Look, even though he was sitting up watching me, it wasn't like he was doing it for my sake or anything. He just was sitting there so that when I woke up, he could shoot down my hopes and dreams of skipping off into the sunset, hand-in-hand, with my sweet, good, beautiful man who smells wonderfully like it.
A sound shook me out of my super cool daydreams and scared the bajeezus out of me. It was a grunt, cough, and a hacky breath all at the same time. Peering over my shoulder, I nearly had a heart attack.
There, dreaming away in the uncomfortable looking wooden chair next to my bed, was Mr. Wonderful himself. His dark hair was all over my covers, his head was leaning on my other pillow, and oh goodness, the man was drooling.
Yeah, the creepy meter just went from a 2 to about an 8.
Looking back at the situation, I realize that I should have just grabbed my clothes and my toothbrush, jumped off of my bed, and tiptoed across the ugly carpet to go get ready in Yunie or Lulu's room. But, then again, that is what most people would consider the rational, more intellegent thing to do. And although I know that I just so happen to be one of the smartest people I know, I have never, ever been known to do anything remotely close to rational.
"Psst," I whispered.
Woo hoo, no response.
"PSST!" I tried again.
He didn't even twitch. Surprising really, considering he's supposedly the one that stays up most nights on watch and is a world famous insomniac. Must be something about that itchy blanket that really got his sleepy juices flowing.
"Sir Auron," I whispered, reaching my hand across the blanket to touch his shoulder.
That, of all the things that I've ever done in my life, was one of the most obvious wrong moves ever. I mean, I can understand that kicking a pebble at Mr. Serious was a wrong move. I can also understand that telling Chimmy the Chimera that he needed to see a doctor was also a wrong move. But let's face it, laying one finger on someone who carries a sword bigger than I am on a daily basis is so above and beyond the call of duty of a wrong move. I'm a smart girl, really. My common sense must have just slipped my mind.
"AHHHHHH!" I screamed as the sharp, metal, HUGE katana came swinging at me, before he even picked up his head to look. I laid flat against the bed, watching as it nearly clipped off my lovely, dainty nose, and screamed bloody murder. "Sir Auron, please, no!! It was just me, I swear! EEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The katana swung again, this time vertically, and I swear to everything good and holy, my whole entire fifteen years of life passed before my goober green eyes.
The Legendary Guardian was going to cut me in half. Great.
I closed my eyes and sucked in my breath, tears spilling down my cheeks, shaking and waiting for the feeling of that cold, horrible metal that was going to slice me up starting right in the middle of my blonde eyebrows.
But it never came.
"Rikku," he breathed out, gasping for air, slumped against that chair that was practically made out of toothpicks. "What the HELL is going on?"
"Holy canoli," I choked out. "I think you just gave me a heart attack."
My eyes were still squeezed tightly together, trying to hide those damn spirals that gave my heritage away, hoping against hope that he never noticed them before. Maybe, just maybe, today would be my lucky day, and I could just get away with wearing some goggles or stealing his sunglasses or something, that way no one would notice that my eyes were the color of goobers and had some technogroovy swirl going on in the middle of them. Taking a bit of an extra precaution, I slapped my hands over my eyes and peeked through my fingers at him.
Bad move. "Rikku, why are you hiding your eyes?"
"Uh... no reason. I'm just feeling kinda squinty today. Haven't you ever felt that way? I mean, I bet you have, considering that mighty huge..." my mouth clamped together before I mention that four letter word that started with an S, ended with an R, and had CA in the middle. I sat up a bit, my hands still covering my eyes, praying to anything but Yevon that I could just get out of that room and be on my merry way without him noticing. "Hey, wait a minute! What are you doing in my room?" I said, my fabulous diversion skills coming into play.
"I... That's not important. Show me your face."
"No. I have dirt, blood, and some sca... some scabs on my face from my fabulous run in with Chimmy."
"Show me your face, Rikku."
I closed my eyes as tight as I possibly could, and turned my face towards, my hands settling somewhere down near my lap. I could feel more than hear him chuckle, but there was no way in shanaynay that he was going to take one look at my eyes in their weirded out state.
"Open your eyes."
"No. No, no no no no. You can't make me."
"I can if you want to continue on this pilgrimage. Now open your eyes!"
Great. There was no way that I could have disobeyed him at that point. I had to protect Yunie, and even though I had this odd feeling that he was going to throw me out of the pilgrimage anyway when he figured out that I was Al Bhed, so what exactly did I have to lose. I creaked open one eye, and looked straight across into his dark, almost bottomless gaze.
His breath sucked into his lungs in one big GOOSH, and I nearly fell over all over again. "N..no good?" I mumbled, opening both of my eyes to plead with him to please, please oh please, just let me stay and protect my cousin. Please. Come on, please oh please.
But it was odd, when I looked at him, it was like waking up all over again. I mean, I heard bells and my very favorite songs on the radio that I spin to every morning when I get ready, I felt warm and prickly, I saw stars and rainbows and chocobos, and I smelled something that smelled suspiciously like it. But it couldn't have been it, considering he didn't even believe me when I told him about smelling it. And I couldn't have felt so many things, because that would mean that I was growing way too fond of someone who was by no means right for me, and was horribly mean to me constantly, and who couldn't possibly ever know of or love cinnamon cookies.
He nodded, almost without thinking, it seemed, and placed something in my hand. "Very well. Get ready quickly, I'll go wake the others," he grunted. Then, almost without a sound, which was AMAZING for someone built so much bigger than me, he slid out of the room again.
I sat, dazed and confused for a good five minutes, staring at the door before I even thought about looking at the thing that he placed in my hand. Which I wondered about before I even looked, because honestly, what would he be doing placing something in my hand in the first place? Maybe it was something bad... or maybe it was something fabulous... or maybe it was just something I should have stolen in the first place! When I finally mustered up enough courage, I looked down and opened my fingers.
"Why that ol' devil," I mumbled, smiling. Resting daintly in my fingers were his sunglasses.
AN: New computer YAAAAAAAY This chapter took me FOREVER to write, for some odd reason. And I didn't even expect it to be a variation of their meeting, but here it is. Hopefully you enjoyed it. I'll make sure to update some more soon.
