Part III: Square One
Chapter 16: Without Warning
"I need to see Fang!" Vanille shouted the second we'd boarded the Lindblum.
Personally I needed a shower, but Vanille snatched at my and Lightning's arms before we could get away.
"She's not going anywhere, I need to formally check in with Rygdea first," she said, trying to escape her hold.
"No. No. No. I need to be with her. If it were Hope, I'd bet you'd kill this Rygdea guy before letting anyone keep you from him." Vanille had let go of me to plead with Lightning.
Why was she bringing me up like this? The only one Lightning had ever openly loved that much was Serah. Fang was Vanille's lover; I wasn't Lightning's by any means. Why was no one correcting her? Both Snow and Sazh were equally silent. Then Lightning did something rare, she enveloped the younger woman in a hug.
"You're absolutely right. Of course I would." She turned to Snow. "Take us to her. Screw protocol."
Snow wove us in and out of tiny corridors. Crew members would look, but no one spoke to us. I guessed someone must have reported our location, because by the time we reached the cargo bay Rygdea was waiting for us.
"Should have expected this. Never had this many uncooperative civilians on board. And Fang counted for more than one," Rygdea said, playfully shaking his head. "I suspect you plan on waking her?"
Vanille ran to the crystal and placed her hand in Fang's, where it had belonged for the past three years.
"If we can," Lightning said, taking me by the hand to join Vanille.
"Let me try this first. If it doesn't work, then by all means. You two can have a go," Vanille said with tears dripping down the corner of her eyes.
She stroked at Fang's face and then kissed her crystalline lips. Then she held up her palm. A series of green vines of light sprouted. They wove in a tornado like fashion inches above her hand. She touched them to Fang. They slipped in and instantly disappeared. Nothing else happened. We waited a minute, even though the effect had been instantaneous when we woke Vanille.
"I guess you need a pair after all." Vanille sighed. "Lightning, Hope?"
Wait, pair? Was this what they had been talking about? Lightning and my meteor shower was pair, and that vine thing was what hers and Fang's looked like. This might simply be because we were partners, but I hoped there was a deeper meaning.
"Shall we?" Lightning said, smiling and holding her sparks up to me.
Before she could turn them towards Fang, I dropped my cheek into them. She chuckled quietly, having assumed I would. I looked into her eyes, my back turned to everyone. They weren't able to see me kiss her palm. Her sparks multiplied and splattered all over my face and into my hair. Well, they'd definitely been able to see her miniature explosion. I didn't care. This might have been the last time she'd offer, I hadn't felt it since she'd blindfolded me. I ran my lips up her hand and left a second kiss on her exposed fingertips.
I heard someone mumbling about what was taking us so long. This would take as long as I'd let it, she'd never let me act this way again. Now that we were back in polite society, she'd go back to treating me like the friend that I was regardless of our feelings. Finally, I pulled away from her hand.
I looked down, and was surprised to see sparks erupt from my palm immediately. No particular image was in mind. Lightning nodded her head to me and we simultaneously placed our sparks to Fang's chest. Then we ran for our lives.
Unlike Vanille, Fang was encased in excess crystal. The explosion of dust covered every onlooker but us, as we had ducked behind a large crate. I laughed into Lightning's shoulder blade when I heard the collective coughs.
"We should have warned them," I said, moving to kneel in front of her.
As ridiculous as it might sound, her eyes were sparkling. Maybe it was the crystal in the air. She brought her free hand to my face. Her thumb rested on my cheek and her fingers on my neck. Just as they had the time I'd erroneously waited for her to kiss me.
"Are you ok with this? Here?" I whispered to her as I stiffened in place.
She nodded once and closed her eyes, giving me permission. I slipped my arm around her waist, lifting her towards me. I suspected that if I messed this up, I wouldn't be given another chance.
Before she could change her mind, I kissed her. She didn't run like before. Our noses brushed against one another as we adjusted. Every millisecond that our lips stopped touching, I feared they wouldn't reconnect. But they did. She used her hand on my neck to direct me. Even if I had initiated things, she wanted the last word. I tested this, by slowly pulling away. Immediately, she yanked me back in. I could feel my lips pull into a smile. Her chest pressed against mine. Her kisses became more urgent, her tongue tried to slip into my mouth.
"A-hem," Snow said dramatically.
Or not. We looked up to see Snow, Sazh, and Rygdea standing directly in front of us. Fang and Vanille were behind them, occupied in the manner that I'd been in a second ago. A variety of scientists were flitting around, waving devices at the couple and around the dusty room.
"Farron, would you care explaining what happened back there?" Rygdea said gesturing a thumb behind him.
"Ah yes. I should probably give a report on everything that happened below," she said, taking his hand to stand. "Shall we talk in your office?"
The two of them briskly left the room.
"I'm gonna go show the ladies around," Sazh said. "And you should probably hit the showers, kid. I can smell you from here."
Snow threw me over his shoulder. I started kicking and punching him half-heartedly.
"Uh-uh. You aren't getting away until you tell me every last detail. Sis said nothing was going on between you two. None of that just now was 'nothing,'" he said as he carried me down the hallways.
I pathetically waved at crew members. They just whispered and waved back. I was something like a class pet. I was a source of amusement, but no one would rescue me.
While bathing I relayed as much as I could of my trip to the Steppe. Embarrassing specifics were left out. He did not need to know that I'd rubbed my face all over her body. He just needed to show me how to properly maintain my current facial hair for 'reasons.'
"So when did it start?" he said.
"When did what start?" I asked, confused.
I'd literally just told him all the information I could. What else did he want to know?
"The most important part, when did you fall for her, kid?"
"You know what, I haven't actually thought about it."
Surely it hadn't been an 'always' sort of feeling. I could bring up memories from last year where I definitely hadn't thought of her that way. Like our magic, it had appeared out of nowhere and then slowly grew in strength. Then on the night she'd tumbled into my room, everything that I had buried surfaced. I'd felt her sparks again… and after that everything in my life descended into chaos. Yet that line of thinking seemed disingenuous. I had always compartmentalized: friends, family, enemies, crushes, acquaintances etc. However, I'd put Lightning into her own separate category. One that overflowed; one I had stockpiled with every detail of her. I'd labeled it 'partner' because that was the word she'd given me. A borrowed word that hadn't meant what I thought it had. With that first shock of electricity between us, I'd been given a lexicon. And all the letters that applied to her began to spell something else entirely. Our history translated itself into a language I could finally comprehend.
"I definitely have my own theory on it, but is anything clicking?" Snow said.
I held up a handful of sparks, not wanting Snow to know about her birthday. Lightning had definitely spent time convincing him nothing had happened that day. Which was only half true.
"Yup. Makes sense to me. Let me ask you one more question. What do you think of when you make that happen?"
"Well," I said embarrassedly, "I think about Light. The first time, I thought of a memory that made me laugh. But the more I admitted to liking her, the easier it became."
I once again, withheld information. I did not tell him that the sparks could happen of their own accord. That ever since that first jolt in the kitchen, my body had been primed for the electricity and magnetism to come.
"You told me you thought hers felt something like laughter. Was that right? I'll tell you this. When I felt it, that was no tickles, giggles, or whatever naïve crap you thought it was," he said raising one eyebrow. "And you ask for it all the time." At this point he let out a harsh laugh. "No wonder she drove you crazy."
Snow's implication made me blush, especially since I'd recently figured it out myself.
"I should apologize for that now. No one wants a porno of their sister-in-law," I said, flinching.
Then a thought popped into my head. He and Serah had known about the date. He could question me all he wanted, but how much info did he have before hand?
"Snow," I said, frowning, "how long have you actually known?"
"When a woman only ever visits one person, and she comes back from his house with," Snow began to laugh, but cleared his throat, "it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. My wife is her sister. We had belated birthday plans."
He came and picked over my wet hair. Then he got a dangerous gleam in his eye.
"She's going to hate this." I reached around and scratched at my bare neck. "You don't understand. She kind of," I said, averting my gaze, "I think she liked it. She was always ruffling it. One time she legitimately played with it." I blushed, thinking of her chasing the bits of static with her palms.
"Hope, if you want to rock the mini-beard you need to change up your look. Even I can see you're growing out of your baby face."
I turned and faced my reflection in a window. Snow had convinced one of the guys on board to cut my hair. He'd thinned it so that the layers flattened to my head. Now my bangs looked intentional and not just part of the fluffy animal surrounding my face. When he'd reshaped it, I'd finally looked my age. The concept intrigued and terrified me. It didn't help that I'd had to borrow a shirt; my bandana was in the wash with the outfit I'd worn. Snow had just shaken his head and sighed when he'd seen my neck. I rolled the sleeves of the turtleneck up, boiling in the climate controlled airship.
"Plus, even if she doesn't like it. I guarantee I've seen a ton of the ladies on board eyeing you," he said, winking at me. "Right on time." He gripped my shoulder and stood behind me.
"What is it, Snow? I still haven't had a chance to wash up but Sazh was insistent you needed me," Lightning said, strolling into the atrium.
"Oh, just this," he said, spinning me around front to face her.
She emitted a tiny gasp. "Hope."
That was all she said. Did I look good? Did I look terrible and make a horrendous mistake? I knew I shouldn't have let him talk me into this. He gently pushed me forward.
"I gotta go. See you both at dinner." Snow literally ran, escaping as fast as possible.
Once Snow was gone, she peeled off her gloves and gingerly reached out to touch me. I knew she was going for my hair, but I slipped my cheek into her hand. Bringing mine up, I slid my fingers between hers.
"Do you like it?" I asked.
"Do you?"
"Actually, yeah. I didn't think I would. I was so used it, I was worrying that nothing else would ever suit me," I said.
"Then I like it too." She coaxed our hands to run through it. "Definitely shocked me though. After being with you continuously recently, I didn't expect you to change more than you already had. I doubt your father will recognize you after all of this."
"People never change all that much, Light. No matter what I look like, I'll always be there for you."
"Damn it." She let go of me. "There's something we need to talk about. Once he found out we could wake Vanille, Rygdea got this ludicrous idea into his head. The further we expand across Pulse, the more ruins are being excavated. They've found more crystallized l'Cie."
I looked up at her. My nerves were on edge, she was going to tell me terrible news. Wasn't she?
"You know what I'm getting at don't you? He wants to try and wake them. It'll fill in holes. So far, the only Pulsian survivors from the War of Transgression are Fang and Vanille. This could be our chance to learn about things that predate even them."
"So we are going to wake them?" I rested my head on her shoulder, knowing her answer.
"No, we aren't. You need to go home. Your magic is under control, so you don't pose your father any risks. You also need to finish school. I can't allow you to be in danger any longer."
I wrapped my arms around her back, and she wrapped hers around my head. Tucking me into herself, she kept me as close as possible.
"How long?" My voice muffled into her filthy uniform.
"Anywhere from a few months to a year. I'm getting transferred to a base on the other side of Pulse for now."
After all of this? After she had made me fall for her, she was just going to abandon me? Maybe it was better that nothing more happened between us. I didn't need to feel worse than I already did in this moment.
"That's where you got off to. I thought we planned to meet in the showers?" Fang called from somewhere in the distance. "Whoops, didn't mean to interrupt."
"You're not," Lightning said, still embracing me.
I shifted so I could peek past her elbow but made no effort to let go either.
"So you finally got yourself a boyfriend. I thought you were like me and Vanille?" Fang directed her next verbal assault on me. "So who are you? What magic did pull to win over this piece of work? You must be packin'."
Lightning made a subtle growl and lifted her arms to reveal me.
"Well roast me on a spit. I didn't expect it to be you, kid." She raised an eyebrow and then began laughing.
She didn't stop. The woman had no shame whatsoever. It wasn't that funny. No one had laughed in the cargo bay when they'd found us. The only time had been when I'd so adamantly denied my feelings. Which in retrospect made sense. I had been an idiot, I'd give them that.
"You ever wonder why I rescued Vanille but left you to rot with Snow and Rygdea?" I tried my best impression of Lightning's glare.
This only further amused Fang. She came and patted me on the back. Then she pulled me from Lightning into a hug of her own. Mannequin, pet, I was anything but a man to the women in my life.
"I didn't get a chance to say this earlier. Thank you. If you weren't such a crazy little bastard, my lady and I wouldn't be here," she said, giving me a noogie. "For future reference, don't jump to your death for anyone but Lightning. You should have heard her; I thought she was going to strangle Rygdea for allowing you to be in that situation."
"Not even for me," Lightning said with a serious tone.
"How could I? Both times, it was you who came after me. I'd say you are far more reckless."
"It's decided. I'll take point from now on."
"I'd say I'll watch the rear, but you already know where I'm headed with that joke." I snorted, and Lightning smacked me over the head.
"Gods, Vanille was right. Your endless flirting is nauseating," Fang said.
I glared up at her. "You knew it was me the whole time."
"What? You're the only one allowed to have any fun? I'm making up for lost time here." She winked at me. "Anyway, I really do need a shower. Meet you there, Lightning."
"For the record. I am." I shouted at Fang, and then made a show of grunting and thrusting into Lightning.
She kicked me away, and I could hear Fang's laughter slowly disappear as she made her way through the corridors.
Author's Note: We're in the homestretch now. Only a couple more chapters and this thing will be complete.
I feel so ridiculously happy that you guys have been reading and following this story. ^-^
Also, thanks c.l for always leaving kind reviews.