This is morning.
It's when I spend the most time thinking 'bout what I've given up.
This is a warning: when you start the day just to close the curtains your thinking about what I've given up.
Where are you now?
As I'm swimming through the stereo I'm writing you a symphony of sound.
Where are you now?
As I rearrange the songs again, this mix could burn a hole in anyone.
But It was you I was thinking of. ("The Mixed Tape" by Jack's Mannequin).
He sat on the edge of their bed in the dark, his body tense as he waited for her to come. His shirtless body burned despite the cool breeze in the night, everything was hot. When she reached out in the darkness and touched him, his head shot up, his hands gripping the bed as he sucked air through his teeth. She rubbed her hand over him in long, graceful circles, evenly and slowly she worked it down to the worst part. Every muscle crunched together tightly in his body... He knew she was only trying to make him feel good but… he couldn't hold back anymore. "Okay, Yuna," He said suddenly, his voice tight. "Ow."
She giggled and pressed a chaste kiss into the back of his neck. It stung a little on the burn, but he bit his lip to keep himself contained. He didn't want to discourage her from doing that.
Spreading the burn lotion over him, however, was a different story.
"Can't we just use a potion?" He asked, looking over his reddening shoulder at her. She looked back at him while she squeezed more electric blue burn-lotion onto her palm and resumed spreading it over his back. (A/N: and you thought it might be something dirty. ). Sorry to disappoint.)
He grit his teeth together against the pain.
"Lulu and Wakka are sleep already." Yuna said. "Plus this is al your fault anyway for forgetting to put something on."
"Okay, so?" Tidus said, his fingers making a knot against the covers as the cold searing was spread over his already damaged skin. "Just crash in, shake Wakka around and-"
"Wake up the baby." Yuna said, smiling. "That's a good idea. I'm sure Lulu would-"
"Kill me." He finished for her dryly.
Yuna laughed, sitting up on her knees so that she was taller than him and placing her head gently on top of his, her white arms circling lightly over his raw chest.
He flinched and she started to back away. "Sorry." She said, her voice quiet. "I shouldn't have-"
She stopped when a pair of big, strong hands closed over hers, still lingering on his raw skin.
"Don't." He said, his tone serious. "You stay. I don't give a damn about the burn."
Technically that was a lie.
The burn hurt like hell…like hell. But if dealing with it meant that he couldn't touch Yuna… well then he'd just have to live with the pain.
She smiled slowly and rested her head back down in his soft hair, breathing in the scent of his shampoo – the idiot had insisted on showering despite the burn, making it even worse. She closed her eyes.
He remained still, feeling the smoothness of her skin, the small heat of her breath in his hair. And he smiled. She smelled like jasmine.
"Hey." She said suddenly, her voice soft.
"What?"
"You're just trying to distract me from putting the lotion on, aren't you?"
Tidus let out a breath that was more like a laugh and grinned. "Yup." He said teasingly, releasing her hands and turning around to look at her. "I've been found out." He joked.
A flash of hurt went through her mismatched eyes and he blinked at it. "Hey." He said, putting his hand on her arm. "I wasn't being serious." He frowned, looking at her. "Yuna, are you okay?" Since that afternoon she had been acting a little funny.
She smiled and nodded at him, but if he had been able to clearly see her face in day light he would never have fallen for the act.
She was standing on her knees in front of him, the faultless figure of her body outlined with candlelight. Her newly styled hair illuminated a soft, glowing brown, her skin the color of dark cream. The hollows of her perfectly shaped body dipped in shadows and the line of her collarbone and the side of her face contrasting in golden light-spun threads. She was still gorgeous in the dark.
"What?" She asked, while he found himself staring at her. "What is it?"
He smiled and shook his head. "Nothing." He pressed a kiss to her lips and she got up to change into a big T-shirt for sleep.
"I'll go get you a potion tomorrow." She said, running her fingers through her hair once while she sat back on top of the blue covers. They wrinkled to her form, around her feet and legs. "When Lulu and I are awake. That way you'll be better by the time we get on the airship."
Tidus's stomach suddenly jumped upwards and body slammed his heart into his ribcage, making him nauseous and short of breath. "The airship?" he asked, his voice strangled.
She blinked and looked at him, when the realization came. "It's different." She said, urging gently. "It's not the same one as the one we used before..." 'Not the same one you fell from...'
He smiled forcibly. "Awesome." He said. She could tell that he wasn't even close to meaning it.
"…we have to go, Tidus." She said, realizing that she was totally contradicting her own emotions. 'But I don't want him to want to go…'
"Yeah, I know." Tidus said. "I want to go." Her heart fell. "It'll probably just take me a while to get used to getting up in the air again." 'Without having nightmares of falling off the edge...'
"So… you want to go?" She asked, testing him.
He smiled at her half-heartedly. "Sure. Absolutely. It's been a while since we had any fun."
She smiled at him. He never changed. He reached up and ran his fingers through her hair once before getting off the edge of the bed and standing. "Okay." He said, pulling back the covers with a dramatic motion and smiling at her. "Now, this time you stay on your side of the bed." His azure eyes sparkled at her, as if he were actually inviting her to come over to his. "And no stealing my covers." He added as an afterthought, pointing accusingly at him when he slipped beneath the sheets and covered himself back up.
"Oh, you're one to talk." She said, smiling and also pulling her side back and yanking the covers a little closer to her jokingly.
"And no kicking." He added.
She smiled. "I don't kick you."
"No snoring."
She gasped and turned, smiling at him. "Hey!" She laughed. "I do not snore!"
He grinned, liking the feeling of making her smile. "And no moaning about how much you want me in the middle of the night."
She smiled at him again.
Bamf!
"…Ie halph a phumboorn, oo gnow." (I have a sunburn you know).
Yuna giggled and took her pillow back, the one she had just used to smash down on Tidus's face. "What?" She asked. "I couldn't understand that at all."
Tidus grinned at her, his hair fuzzy and disheveled in his eyes from being pillow-beaten. "Yeah, well, it's hard to talk through goose feather."
She gave him a lopsided, close-mouthed smile. "You deserved it." She said, getting her body under the covers. He watched the shirt ride up her legs, while she bent up her knees to climb under. Once they were both in bed they turned away from each other to blow out the twin candles on either side of their bed.
And then, quietly, in the moonlight they turned back and spent an hour soaking in silence, holding each other with tangled limbs and gentle arms until they drifted into sleep, together.
That was the way they always went to sleep. They held onto each other, because sometimes, neither of them were very sure that he'd still be there when they woke back up.
Nine… Hours… Later
"Tidus!"
"Mmph."
"Tidus!"
"Mmph!"
"Up!"
"…"
"Tidus…"
Long… silence.
Bang.
"Ow." His voice was muffled through the pillow. Whoa… déjà vu.
"Get up."
"Dun wanna." He mumbled, only half awake.
"Get up."
There was a long, slow sigh. She watched his back rise up and deflate back down like a balloon, until finally he pushed his face out of the pillow rolled his body over to looked at her through half-open, sleep encrusted eyes. "Wud iz'it?" He asked thickly.
"We're leaving." Yuna said, shoving a dark green bottle of liquid into his hands.
He stared down at it… "Uh?" He asked as Yuna moved around the room, taking this, putting back that, locking up that up, dusting things off.
"Your burn." She told him over her shoulder.
"Oh…" he said, still staring at it. "It's a bottle."
She stopped and looked at him, before she sighed heavily; Tidus had never been a morning person. Something she had discovered soon after his return.
"Breakfast." She said making her voice very clear.
And immediately he was a bit more alert. "What?" He asked.
"Drink that and I'll go get you your breakfast."
The potion was downed.
And a piece of charcoal was shoved into his hands.
It was supposed to be toast.
He frowned down at it, pondering. "I don't think this counts..." He said, adorably confused.
"It's all we had time for." Yuna said, still busy. "Let's go." She didn't move toward the door.
Tidus crunched on the blackened bread and winced, finishing it and hauling himself out of bed. "What are we doing?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.
"Hold this." She said, shoving a bag into his hands. He took it after dropping it to the ground twice.
"Take this." She said, swinging him a big blue duffel bag, which he caught before he realized it was coming at him, his body instinctively moving without his brain. The advantages of being a blitz star…
"Okay… you ready?" She turned around and looked at him. "Uhm, you can't leave the house in that." She said, fighting back a smile. "Sorry."
He blinked at her. She nodded her head downwards. He followed and was met with his bare body and only a pair of boxers. He looked back up at her. "They're blue." He stated blankly, and then frowned. "Hey, are we going somewhere?" He asked.
She stopped what she was doing and looked at him… then finally she laughed and dug through the drawers to find him something. "Put these on." She pressed his old outfit into his hands and then turned around to put her twin guns in place at her side, brush her hair out again, and zip the comb back up in the bag. She applied thin, shimmering shadow to her eyelids and a light, whipped pink gloss on her lips. Trace amounts of makeup that were hardly noticeable at all… but they gave her skin a certain glow.
She turned around, "Ready to… go?" She faltered.
Adorably, Tidus was standing behind her, and he was still trying to get himself dressed. "Tidus…" She said slowly. "Put the bags down first."
You're gonna wish you hadn't done that
When the Gullwing's airship came hovering down, whipping currents of sand and water up in its wake, and extended its ramp down onto the beach, Rikku descended on them like a starving vulture.
"Yunie!" She screamed, throwing her arms around Yuna's neck.
"Oh!"
Crash.
Yuna hadn't been very ready for that. They both had to spit the sand out of their mouths for a few minutes before Rikku grinned and launched herself at her cousin again. "I'm so glad you could come, Yunie!" She said.
Yuna hugged her cousin back, smiling, but inside her mind was racing. What? What had happened to the Rikku who had come to her yesterday? Why was she suddenly so happy? What was going on?
'Please don't make me show that side of me to anyone else, Yunie.' Rikku begged her cousin silently in her mind while she held tight to her. "Please." She didn't notice she had said the last word out loud.
Yuna blinked, her cousin's head still close to hers when she the small whisper silently invaded her ear and shattered her doubt. "Please."
It was so broken sounding… so not Rikku. When she pulled away from the hug she expected to see the tears and pain and helplessness that was there yesterday, she thought she'd find the face that fit that voice. But all she saw was her cousin's blinding smile.
And the realization hit her like a sack of concrete to the ribs. It wasn't real. And that all of it, Rikku's happiness, her giggles and that horribly, horrible smile, were all so disgustingly fake. It was an act.
"How are you, Rikku?" She asked, her voice quiet.
For a split second Rikku lurched to a stop, her face falling, her green swirled eyes shattering as she looked at Yuna. And she could hear the whisper in her ear all over again. Please. And she knew what it meant…
"I'm just hunky-dunky!" Rikku said cheerily, grinning at Yuna with that same blinding smile. Yuna wished she would stop it, it scared her to see how hard Rikku was trying to be … Rikku.
"What? No hug?" A cool voice interrupted the moment.
Yuna looked up to see a thick, muscular man striding down the walk, his skin a dark coffee color, his eyes shielded by big, thick goggles.
"Buddy!" Yuna grinned, launching herself into the air and throwing her arms around the Gullwings' pilot.
He smiled and hugged her briefly, his arms tight as ever. "Thought you'd get away from us, huh?" He asked, teasing her.
She linked her hands together behind her back and smiled, laughing. She tried to ignore the little pang of guilt that lanced through her body. Because yeah… actually she had, though she knew loved all the Gullwings dearly. Like family.
"Yuuunaaaa!"
Yuna winced at the screeching and then smiled a little. Yeah… even that one.
"I am also for the huggie huggie!" The wry blonde man exclaimed, his blue flame tattoos matching the ocean behind him as he ran down the walkway. "Hug! Hug! Hug!" He said, throwing his multicolored arms around her. "Hug! Hug! Hug!"
She laughed. "Hey, Brother." She said returning the hug and then…
Returning the hug…
Returning the hug…
"Umm… Brother?" Yuna said.
Nothing happened.
"Brother!" Rikku snapped in Al Bhed. "Get off her!"
"Yo, Bro, let her breathe." Buddy finally said.
Finally, with the help of Rikku and Buddy, Brother was pried off of Yuna's body. Flustered, she took a deep breath, ran a hand through her hair, and laughed. "It's good to be back, guys." She said, and she, if only for that moment, really meant it.
"You too." Buddy said. "How've you been?"
She smiled silently while Rikku jumped up and down "She's been fantasamistic!" The young Al-Bhed squealed. "Isn't that right, Yunie?" Rikku asked, elbowing Yuna in the ribs and winking.
Yuna smiled and laughed, but on the inside she felt the worry start to boil against her stomach. Rikku was trying too hard… and the worst part was that no one else seemed to be noticing.
"Yeah, I've been alright." Yuna said. "I've missed the Gullwings though." A lie. Did that make her a terrible person? That she was lying to them the first thing after she'd been reunited with them?
"We have missed you!" Buddy returned passionately, putting his hand over his chest and throwing his head back to the sky. "Every day I must be living without Yuna, my heart aches so fiercely!"
Yuna and Rikku laughed while Buddy shook his head. "The sad part is…I think he's trying to be absolutely serious." He said, staring at his friend with crossed arms.
"The moon has no luster, the sun no organgy flame unless you are by my sides!" Brother continued babbling on, making wild hand gustures while Yuna watched, a gentle close-lipped smile on her face.
Finally Buddy broke up the sonnet. "OK" he said, rubbing his hands together and blatantly ignoring the way the pitch in Brother's voice escalated an octave or two. "We all set? You got bags?" He asked. "I think its time we got up in the air."
Yuna laughed. "Yeah, but its okay. We've got them." She said, picking up her own bags and starting up the ramp.
"Um, Yunie." The anxious whisper in her ear made her turn to regard her cousin, worry instantly flushing up her body.
"Rikku?" She asked, trying to sound normal. That was what her cousin wanted… to pretend that nothing was wrong. She was probably the one who had been the source of influence for that.
Rikku's eyes darted nervously over Yuna's shoulder and then returned to her cousin's mismatched eyes. "Is he … okay?"
Yuna turned and retraced the direction of Rikku's gaze, and a brief smile flit over her face when she saw. "Yeah," She said "He's just not such a morning person… Tidus." She called to him.
No response.
The blonde blitzer stood still, his eyes half opened and his hair a mess, his shirt wrinkled and twisted a little the wrong way on his body, his shoes were undone… he looked like he'd pretty much just rolled out of bed… which he had.
There was a moment of silence when everyone stared.
"I'll, uh, get those bags from him." Buddy said finally, starting over to the half-awake blitzer.
Brother, who was now brooding, his dramatic love poem finished, regarded the blonde with darkening emerald eyes – he hadn't forgiven Tidus for returning and he wasn't planning on it anytime soon either. Quietly he muttered something dark sounding in Al Bhed.
Rikku slapped him over the head.
"Hey man," Buddy said casually, "you okay?"
Tidus practically hit the ceiling when Buddy clapped a big strong hand on his shoulder. "What!" Tidus shouted loudly "I didn't!" He swore into Buddy's face… who must have blinked behind his big black goggles.
"Okay…" Buddy said. "I believe you. You didn't… Here. Let me take those." He said, indicating to the baggage. Tidus only stared blankly as the other man reached – very slowly – for the bags and took them. "Okay." Buddy said again, as if trying to make sure that Tidus wouldn't do anything like smack him down and try to take them back.
Instead Tidus looked at the luggage and looked back at Buddy. "Uh… sure." He said slowly, his brain processing. "You're welcome."
Buddy stared at him before turning around and walking to the airship. "He'd just better be able to still handle himself in a fight." He said in a low voice, shaking his head as he made his way past a giggling Yuna and Rikku, and Brother – who was still brooding. "That's all I can say about it."
"I do not even see why we must be bringing him on this mission." Brother spat nastily, "The pretty boy will be of no usefulness to us." Another slap from Rikku.
Yuna smiled and headed up the walkway with her bags while Rikku bounced over to Tidus.
"Come on, sleeeeepy headdd." She sing-songed to him, grabbing his arm and hauling him towards the ship. "We gotta gotta go go!" She laughed as he stumbled after her. He was a little dazed… but he would be fine as soon as he started to wake up, hopefully. And plus, it would be fun to mess with him until he came to his senses.
PxB
She was waiting outside of the gates of New Yevon, with her arms folded impatiently over her ribcage, her garnet eyes gazing in bored distain at the ground. She had been waiting for the past three hours.
How much longer was it going to take anyway?
"Paine?"
He stepped out of the gates, finally. His silver hair light in the sun.
"How long does it take to tell Yevon you're leaving?" She asked, her voice low and quiet.
He gave her a smile and stopped directly in front of her. "An hour and a half." He said calmly, as if it weren't a big deal.
She instantly felt uncomfortable. "I thought you'd already told them." She said, pretending to be annoyed, when in reality she just didn't want to stand so close to him anymore.
"I did." He answered in that same collected voice. "All together they managed to come up with about a thousand more possible issues to ask me the protocol for during times of ASP."
ASP… absence of the praetor. He must have explained it to her a million times.
"Are you ready?" He asked her.
And then he did the most dreaded thing he ever could have done. The stupidest thing he ever could have done. He reached out for her hand.
Paine felt her heart dive-bomb into her lower gut and start drop kicking her stomach. She looked at his extended hand, and tried to swallow back the idea that her innards were either revolting or throwing a major rave inside her body. She didn't hold hands. Reaching out, and doing the most awkward thing she had ever done, the worst thing she could have ever done, she shook Baralai's hand. And then released it, glaring at him the entire time as if to say "I dare you to try and tell me there was anything odd about that."
Too say that Baralai was surprised, taken aback, slightly amused, and genuinely puzzled would all be gross understatements.
"Yeah." She said, starting out ahead of him, blatantly ignoring him, pretending that he was following along when she knew he was still standing there. Well, it was his fault anyway. "Let's go." She said.
Baralai stared silently after her before taking the first few hesitant steps forward.
'Well that went well…'
Paine opened her scarlet eyes and stared up at the white ceiling of her room, sighing heavily. If she had known that not taking Baralai's extended hand was going to keep bugging her a week after it had happened she would have just taken the damn thing and dragged him to go meet with the Gullwings…
She stopped half-way to sitting up and thought about that.
On the other hand… maybe she wouldn't have.
Stretching and pulling the covers away from herself, she showered, dressed, and walked out to the hallway that lead to the elevator, her body wrapped in her usual black leather and the heavy gothic sword hilted to her side.
When she opened the door she was met rather abruptly with a pair of eyes. She blinked and allowed the moment to sink in before barely moving her head a little to the side. "Who are you." She asked, a drop of something cold in her voice. She wanted to be sure it was who she thought it was before she let him go any deeper into the airship, her old training kicking in. And her own personal motto… don't trust anyone.
Plus, Paine she had never like strangers that much. She didn't trust easily. Or at all.
And while she had met Tidus for roughly three days during his original return to Besaid, but she hadn't stayed long, and that had been three months ago. Still, she was pretty damn sure she hadn't forgotten this face.
Obviously though, he had forgotten hers. "Uh,… I'll get back to you on that one." He said, his face cloudy and lost as he moved roughly by her, "Do you guys have any coffee?"
"Hey," Paine said, her voice cutting as she turned around and started after him. She wasn't as hell going to let him go wandering around the airship if it was a stranger. And even if it was Tidus, she didn't want him to damage anything, including possibly himself.
She paused when the elevator doors shut closed and she heard the cables lift it up to the bridge floor. It desended in a matter of seconds.
"Hah!"
A tall, leggy blonde immediately leapt from the box.
Paine let her shoulders sag. Just what she needed early in the morning.
"Yunie said this ought'ta cure you!" Rikku lunged forward after Tidus, leapt up onto her tippy-toes and abruptly dumped a bucket of water over his head, ice cubes scattering down his shirt and neck and pants and swirling away on the floor.
Paine stared, blinked, rolled her eyes and then started laughing.
Rikku grinned.
And Tidus got very, very still. Then, very slowly he turned around and regarded Rikku, his expression now perfectly alert, perfectly clear. "You're gonna wish you hadn't done that." He grinned and she screamed laughingly while he lunged at her.
Paine smiled. Things were starting to look up.
A/N: Sorry it took me so long to post this. There's something about it I distinctly don't like. Plus there's school. Requests, suggestions, and especially constructive criticism. Every one of these things I love and deeply appreciate. Also thank you so much my special reviewers from the first to the last, you all flattered and most importantly helped me. I'm trying to work with it.