Author's Notes: Well, I love Gippalai, so... it needed to be written. I finally got the bit of inspiration I needed, so hey! Here it is. Pointless humor and fluff. Hurrah.
Reviews are greatly appreciated.
"Heart-breaker"
By: Rosalyn Angel
Gippal has always been a heart-breaker.
He has a lot of ideals, dreams, and hopes of finding The One. When he has found The One, he knows he'd be able to capture her no problem. With his boyish charm and grin, flamboyant dress, kind eyes (Well, eye), no girl can possibly resist his advances. And it's happened a dozen times, or more--he'd catch a glimpse of The One passing by, casually introduce himself, date, maybe have sex, and then sometime a little later, figure out that he really has no attachment to his current One, and is horribly unsatisfied.
This is where the heart-breaker part always comes in.
He doesn't mean to do it. He honestly believes he's full-fledged in love sometimes. Maybe it'd be her pretty face, lofty aspirations, or shy demeanor. He'd get all romantic, take her to places, and if comes to it, to his bed. It's always her choice, though--he refuses to be a sleaze who beds 'em and leaves 'em.
Sadly, that sometimes seems like the case.
Such as now.
Gippal sits in his bed, leaning against the headboard. The Not-One is sleeping next to him, a pretty blond Al Bhed he met while visiting the desert. She's a beautiful, intelligent woman with all sorts of ideas. He fell head-over-heels when he saw her, but now, a few weeks into their relationship, the infatuation has faded like it always does. And he really hates this part, but he doesn't want to keep leading her on with false hopes.
She stirs. He prepares himself.
"Good morning," she says, blinking up at him lazily.
"Uh, yeah," he replies, grinning nervously. He really, really hates this part. "Listen, uh... I don't think this is gonna work out."
A few heated shouts and a slap to the face later, she's storming out, and Gippal is left with a red mark on his cheek.
Gippal now wonders why The One is always wrong. His heart and mind always lead him down the wrong path. They lie, he thinks, but he figures he's young yet, only nineteen, and as his parents have said many times, he's not old enough to really fall in love.
Isn't that right?
Then he thinks, as he walks down a dirt path, that maybe he's been looking in all the wrong places. Maybe The One is somewhere else, where he hasn't been to yet, just waiting for her 'Gippapoo' to come sweep her off her feet.
He passes by a group of guys chatting between themselves. His eyes stray down their forms before he continues on.
Maybe he's looking at the wrong kind of people. Maybe his true love isn't an Al Bhed—heaven forbid she should be something like... like a Yevonite! Gippal shudders. Yevonites are always so uptight and stuffy...
A male brunet walks by. Gippal thinks that he has nice hair and envies the length of his legs.
Gippal stops abruptly, halfway through a step, foot poised above the ground. He blinks slowly and widely. He hasn't really thought much about it before, but he usually ponders on how some guys are really good-looking, just in passing. Suddenly, as that fact settles in, a whole new door begins to open. An even more startling thought: he's not really bothered with the idea. In fact, it seems quite appealing.
Well, you learn something new about yourself everyday.
Gippal is thinking about his earlier revelation. He's staring in his mirror, at the annoying hair on his chin that always grows faster and longer than all the rest. Moving to pluck it, he begins going through the list of guys in his head he's been remotely attracted to. Maybe the image of one will stand out in particular.
None really do, but he has determined he likes darker shades of skin and lighter shades of hair. That isn't much, though, since he's the same with girls. He usually compares most of the people he 'loves' to—
He starts so violently that the tweezers jab into his chin.
Baralai?
It's true, he thinks later that day while polishing a machine (that he doesn't know the function of). Every person he thought was The One reminded him of Baralai in some way. Pretty face, lofty aspirations, shy demeanor, intelligent, all sorts of ideas--it's all a shadow of the Praetor. He hasn't really thought much of it before. He really needs to start thinking more often.
He wipes at the sweat on his face, and ends up smearing oil on his cheek.
There's no denying the Praetor is attractive; Gippal saw that when they first met. He still sees it. And then there's the way Baralai's amber eyes burn when he's angry or determined, the way his silver hair falls down when the headband is removed, the way he's so intent and focused in everything he does, and there's that cute way he hides a smile underneath that gigantic collar …
Gippal decides he's an idiot for not realizing it sooner.
Gippal shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Baralai, across the paper-filled desk, raises an eyebrow at him.
"Is something bothering you, Gippal?" Baralai asks, leaning forward across the desk slightly. The pen he's holding droops. "I thought you made an appointment for business reasons, but..."
Gippal scratches the back of his blond head. The appointment is only an hour long. What can he say in an hour that would explain what took him three years to understand? "Well, uh... you see..."
Baralai tilts his head. Gippal watches the little strands of silver sway. "See what?" His brow furrows. "Gippal, you know you can talk to me about anything. If there's something troubling you, please, let me know."
Gippal studies Baralai's face, every little change in the bronze tone, every angle, the little nose--and it all makes perfect sense. It really does.
Gippal launches forward, takes Baralai's collar with one hand, yanks him the rest of the way, and their lips meet in the middle.
Afterward, Baralai falls back into his chair with a stunned look. He's blinking owlishly, and Gippal is sitting down unsurely.
And then Baralai blushes, smiling underneath his gigantic collar.
Gippal decides it's time to stop being a heart-breaker.
fin