To be quite honest with you, Shuyin always kinda freaked me out. First of all, he was way too possessive for his own good. If I had some guy threatening world domination for the sake of my bosom, I think I'd file for divorce. Heroics are cute and all, but you can leave the world alone, ya know? I don't think I'm worth all of Spira. It's okay for them to pretend like they'd give up the world for me, but to actually go out and do it? I dunno, that turns me off. Now where was I? Oh, and secondly, the man acted kinda...nutty. Like he was trippin' on something not quite legal. One too many Elixirs. A chronic Beserker dress sphere. Something wasn't right. He reminded me of those drunken, abusive husbands that come home at obscene hours of the night intoxicated beyond all reason and proceed to beat their wife and yell at their children. Can't you just see Shuyin doing that? I can. Lenne was the only one I have ever seen talk any sense into him...and she's dead. When you need a dead girl to explain things to you, you know you're off your rocker. (Then again, Shuyin was technically dead too, though I think he was in denial of his...dead-ie-ness. Or something.)
Anyway, this was what was running through my mind as I lay awake at night staring at the ceiling. Shuyin. And the highly anticipated statue. Compliments of Baralai. I was trying to figure out just when he thought he was actually helpful in the endeavor to stop Shuyin from taking over the world. Considering he got possessed and all, perhaps we would have been better off without him. But then again, Shuyin may have resorted to using Gippal's body as a host then, since technically our favorite blond haired Cyclops is the only one Shuyin hasn't mind raped yet out of the testosterone ridden trio, and I don't think I could ever look at the man the same way again. I always knew the guy was insane, but for him to be all like 'mwa ha ha ha' insane would be a little hard to handle.
Oh, by the way, I've decided I'm going. I don't exactly know how, but rest assured, I am going. Since Pops was preoccupied taking care of his personal hygiene, I called up Yunie on a Comm. Sphere and foretold the entire chain of events to her, leaving out my less than memorable moments (the dehydration medication, for example. I didn't need them when I was with her; the Celsius had air conditioning. What a concept.) Yunie and I squealed like middle schoolers over the fact we were getting immortalized in granite and we weren't even dead yet. She apparently had received word from Baralai too, again by chocobo, only Yunie was taking the initiative to write a reply reprimanding our former comrade for, as she put it, 'abusing a fine feathered friend of Spira' when there were much more productive ways of getting the word across to her. "Gippal just bitched about it," I commented absent mindedly. Yunie giggled and then launched off on a three hour dissertation about Tidus and the wonders of his...abs. I nodded and smiled and pretended to be interested, because Tidus is like the intelligent brother I never had and I couldn't even think about his abs without momentarily wondering if he had been on steroids (for no family member is ever allowed to be hot, right? So it must be steroids. Illegal steroids, at that.) For those wondering, yes the two love birds got married. I'm surprised they didn't go at it right there on the beach in Besaid. Though I think Wakka may have had a conniption fit or something, what with all of his high fulutent religious talk and ha ha it never existed anyway so a big na na na to him.
But then she said something interesting. "On your way to Bevelle, stop by, okay? There's something I want to show you. It's a surprise."
"Oooh, a surprise!" I cooed, flopping across my mattress just like I used to when Yunie and I had mock sleepovers on the Celsius. We may have all had our own rooms, but more often than not, the three of us Gullwings always ended up in the same room by morning. I'd be sprawled out on my mattress, Paine would be characteristically curled up on the floor, and Yunie would be wrapped up in a vast array of sleeping bags in the rocking chair adjacent from my make shift bed. I don't remember what we talked about, except that we laughed until I thought I'd need a staple gun to hold my sides together. It comes back in bits and pieces, though. The memories and all. I'll be digging out in the desert looking for treasure and all of the sudden I'll have a flashback to when Paine and I accidentally stumbled across a forsaken dress sphere in the middle of Mushroom Rock Road and brought it back to the air ship for further investigation. Upon trying it on, Yunie promptly discovered, in all of her stark naked glory, there was a reason the dress sphere was discarded, for it had no actual...dress. It was more of a Nudist Sphere than anything else. While Brother and Buddy got their jollies for the day, Paine simply turned to me and stated in a measured, even tone, "So that's the dress sphere you're constantly wearing."
My left eye twitched in response. "Like you're any better...you...you...dirty little dominatrix!"
Yunie, scrambling to find a towel of some kind, looked up with a face donning genuine innocence. "Dominatrix?" she repeated. "What's that?"
Yes. That was what life was like before drunken psycho Shuyin came and crapped all over my fantasy life of perpetual sleepovers and constant treasure hunting.
And then it hit me. That sinking, writhing feeling deep in my gut. The kind that feels as though your strapped down in a torture chamber and they're extracting your innards with a pair of over heated forceps, slowly pulling each organ out with the most excruciating torpor until you can't stand it any more and you are forced to scream, "Oh gods just stop it already!"
I missed them.
I missed our lifestyle and I missed our familiarlarity and I missed the companionship and I missed the sleepovers and I missed the Celsius and I missed the psychotic family dinners we attempted at eight o' clock each and every night while Yunie set the table and Brother tried to cook something without burning it.
I miss it because now I know I will probably never get it back.
We had twenty four lovely, ethereal months of blissful happiness, and then Shuyin had to show up and be all like, 'I'm the bad guy!' and ruin that delicate safe haven that I had longed so desperately for all these years.
One thing led to another, and after saving the world Tidus came back (ha, I say that like it's a bad thing) and he up and stole Yunie, which I can't really blame them, but still, and without Yunie, where do Paine and I find a common wavelength? Then again, Paine was never the same after the memories of her Crimson Squad days became public knowledge. It wasn't long until she jumped ship too, claiming the need to take a hiatus but in reality I think she went off to sulk. That left Brother, Buddy, and Shinra, who even he didn't stick around long because that precious little precocious ten year old booger went off and got himself a job—frickin employed!—and is now creating wonderful, merry weapons of mass destruction to help further homeland security against malevolent forces of evil and ex lovers hell bent on seeking revenge.
So that leaves me with the Al Bhed, right back where I started.
So what happened? Did we grow up? Did finding treasure not become fun anymore, or was it just not a priority? For some reason, I lived two years under the false misconception that we could continue living like vagabonds forever. I was young and naïve and still reeling from the loss of Auron and the taking of Tidus and all those other things I wasn't expecting to experience at sixteen.
No. No no no no! I didn't want it to end! Why did it end? Why?
"So what is it?" I finished lamely, trying to mask my sudden melancholy. "The surprise, I mean. What is it?"
"Well, I can't tell you silly! Then it wouldn't be a surprise!"
I emitted a forced giggle, and I think Yunie could tell, for she could always see through the façade, the defense, and her eyes sparkled with that secret, hidden knowledge that all mothers seem to possess when dealing with their difficult off spring. She would make a good mother, wouldn't she? All softness and innocence and saccharine and tenderness. She might need another make-over, but I could see it happening. Just not now. Because there is still a very small part of me that secretly thinks the Gullwings can still get back together. Even though I know we can't.
"Have you heard from Paine?" I questioned abruptly, not wanting to ponder pregnancy issues any more than I had to. Because as long as Yunie was barren, there was still hope, right?
Yunie's face immediately became crest fallen, and I realized I had trod where I shouldn't have. Not like I don't have a right to, but Yunie seemed so happy before.
"I haven't talked to her since the hiatus," she responded sullenly.
That's what Yunie calls this: a hiatus. We haven't officially broken up yet. Even though it's been about four months since we last went treasure hunting. Paine's off being emo, I'm stuck rebuilding Home, Yunie is living out two years of pent up passion with Tidus off in Besaid, Brother and Buddy are out probably destroying the airship, and Shinra was abducted by some giant corporation to help build weapons that kill people. (Yes, but what if they're already dead? Cough. Shuyin. Cough.)
There's a question lingering in the air but neither of us wants to ask it.
How long, Yunie? How long is this hiatus going to last?
I don't inquire, and she doesn't answer. Maybe because we don't know. Or she does know, and that's why she's refraining.
I can play mind games all day. Could you tell?
"She's probably fine," I dismissed. "It's not like the girl can't take care of herself. I'm sure we'll see her at the ribbons ceremony."
"It's herself I'm afraid of," Yunie muttered, barely audible. I pretended not to hear. This isn't a conversation you have over a Comm. Sphere.
"We can talk about it when I stop by," I offered sheepishly, not knowing how to avoid the topic yet confront it all at the same time. "You can surprise me with your...present, and I can surprise you by saying something intelligent!"
Yunie laughed and I knew everything would be alright. We were related, after all. So we'd never lose touch with each other, right?
"It's getting late, Rikku. You should get some sleep."
There's that motherly thing again. Hmmph.
"Yeah, yeah, okay..." I pretended to blow her off but in reality we both knew she was right and I was well aware of it. So we said our goodbyes and I clicked off the sphere.
Now it's falling asleep that's the problem.
I'm sitting here festering on memories of Brother and Buddy's belching wars. Of Paine and I arguing over the bathroom sink. Of Shinra getting food poisoning and moving his base of operations to the toilet for three days straight (we communicated through slips of paper under the door...he refused to talk while on the pot.) Of listening to the whimsical tales Bar Keep spun to amuse us when we had to dock for gas. Of juvenile truth or dare games shared between the three of us at the crack of dawn only plausible after pulling an all nighter ('So, Rikku, did you ever have a thing for Wakka?' 'Ewwwwie! No way!' 'Not even a little thing?' 'Gross! Yunie, are you high?') Of gallivanting to wherever the wind blew us, the adrenaline that comes with the unpredictable going hand in hand and giving us a reason to wake up in the morning.
We laughed. We cried. We farted and we belched and we got on each other's nerves. But I was happy. Oh so terribly, terribly happy, that after years and years of being an outcast, both politically and socially, I finally belonged somewhere. I finally had another Home.
And all of this festering was beginning to take its toll on me.
Misty eyed and graced with a lump in my throat the size of a bowling ball, I threw myself out of bed. I winced as my bare feet came in contact with the slick tiling of the floor in my bedroom and shakily made my way to the door. My palms were exuding torrents of sweat, and I had to momentarily pause before turning my night light off for fear I'd get electrocuted.
What? You don't still sleep with a night light? I use it so I don't stub my toe going to the bathroom! Don't you?
Anyway, I left the night light on, for I did not want to fry and die a virgin, and scampered out into the kitchen and to the front door in a flash of white nightgown and blonde cascading hair. Pops sleeps like the dead, so the likelihood of waking him up is about second to none—unless, of course, he was still situated on the toilet, which I highly doubt—and I scampered out of the front entrance of our temporary trailer.
Night in the desert is frigid in most places, save this one, because the gods hate me. I don't know why, it's not like I ever did anything remotely diabolical to them, assuming they hypothetically exist and all, which was always a grey area for us Al Bhed. It's just as simmering at night as it is in the day, almost as if the moon were radiating off stifling rays of toxic heat, even though it's primary purpose, as we all know, is to sit there like a good little rock in the sky and do nothing but look pretty and be the subject of angsty love songs women like to whine about accompanied by a lone guitar.
I think Gippal plays guitar. I'm not sure. Maybe not.
I pattered my way down the now vacant dirt trodden streets of home, weaving my countenance through numerous temp. trailers and tents aligning the streets. All people sleep like the dead here, not just my Pops, probably because that sadistic bastard has them working their asses off at all hours of the day laboring over sheet metal and long forgotten machina. I get vacationing privileges because I'm his daughter—and his only one at that—but probably also because I have a tendency to break things before I fix them. That was Gippal's excuse for not hiring me at the Machine Faction a long time ago. As if he needed one. He could have just said, "Well, I'll be there," and that would have been enough to scare me off. I had no concept he actually ran the place. Which seemed ironic because here he was, meandering around the gravesite of Home instead of actually holding down a job at Djose Temple. Either he invested well or he was stealing, because he sure as hell wasn't making any money.
Though, for the life of me, if I hated this man so much, why oh why was I venturing out at obscene hours in the morning to go and see him?
Because I'm lonely and vulnerable and I know that guy wouldn't sleep with me even if I did throw myself at his feet with tears streaming down my cheeks and lip all aquiver. So it was totally safe to resort to the companionship of the local bum when you're desperate and forlorned and in need of a good laugh. Besides, he probably had alcohol. Pops always said nothing beats the blues like getting drunk. And after a two year probation set by the ever idyllic Yunie on her (borrowed) ship the Celsius, I hadn't had myself a good drink in ages. And as for the legal drinking age: "Hell, age is just a number anyways," Pop always said. And such were the morals I was brought up with.
Gippal lived down the beaten path a little ways, savoring his privacy, not because he was some melodramatic loner with self destructive tendencies (aka: Auron) but rather because, he claims, he really went at it when he offered himself up to the gods of sex and didn't want to wake any of the little children up with his exclamations of pleasure.
"Besides, Nhadala is frickin loud, man."
"Gippal, you have absolutely no respect for the female race. Just so ya know, it disgusts me, alright? Disgust with a capital D."
"None of you get any respect," he muttered, referring to me and my Gullwing companions at the time. "You don't wear any clothes."
"Yunie used to," I had objected indignantly.
"Yeah, well she doesn't anymore. Hell, I probably know her body better than Tidus did. I'm so well acquainted with her thighs I feel like we used to go out."
"Go out or make out?" I inquired. "Because the last time I checked, you were never involved for more than a couple of days."
"Weeks," Gippal corrected. "My longest relationship lasted a couple of weeks, thank you very much."
Yeah. That conversation took place a couple months ago, somewhere in between the Machine Faction and Shuyin, I don't remember.
I eventually reached Gippal's sad excuse for a house, sadder than mine, even, which was really...well...sad. He can work wonders with a monkey wrench and a handful of bolts, but assign him to interior decorating and the entire thing gets blown to hell. He's lucky the monks did all the Martha Stewart work on his precious Djose Temple before he got there, otherwise that too would look like projectile vomit.
I found it odd Gippal's lights were still on (oh, he'd have a perverted field day with that last remark, twisting it and contorting it until it fit his disgusting sexual needs) and momentarily thought about reprimanding him about wasting electricity when we still required so much of it to rebuild Home. He couldn't possible be reading, for that requires brain function, so he probably just fell asleep with his lamp on or something.
I know I advocate the use of nightlights, but geesh, even I only rely on a tiny little chocobo shaped socket bulb as opposed to a giant chandelier, which is what it looked like from the outside. Dumb Butt. He works with machina for a living. He should know better.
I rapped twice on the thin metal door and received no answer. It annoyed me. I knew he was semi-awake. He had to be. He was wasting enough power to light up a small third world nation.
After knocking yet again, I gave up on formalities and just let myself in (remember, no locks in Home, never was and never will be.) I was slightly disconcerted to see a trail of rose petals commencing in the front hallway and leading through the kitchen off into the alcoves that housed the bedrooms. Gippal never struck me as one for flower arranging, and there weren't even any flowers in the desert last time I checked, which I think was yesterday, so I have no idea where he got the rose petals from.
Nobody died so I didn't see why anyone would send them.
I helped myself to a beer from the fridge and sipped it leisurely, savoring the taste of alcohol after a two year absence. It wasn't nearly as good as I remembered it, maybe because whenever I thought of beer while on the Celsius that inadvertently brought up memories of Gippal with it (for the two go hand in hand) and maybe, just maybe, I was missing a little more than the alcohol intake.
Aw, heck, why not? The guy let me kick him. I was allowed to miss the ritual beatings once a month, was I not?
After determining the beer was not as savory as I had remembered it, I placed it back in the fridge, open and all, for Gippal wouldn't care let alone notice, and startled when I heard a large bang originate from the bedroom.
"Gippal?" I called out. "Did you fall out of bed?"
I closed the fridge door and followed the trail of rose petals to the closed entry at the end of the trailer. I was terribly confused. On top of there being no roses in our immediate proximity, Gippal was allergic to bees as far as I could remember. Like, deadly allergic to bees. Last time he got stung his face swelled up and his throat closed and we had to bring over a White Mage from Bevelle, of all places, and we had to pay her under the table because at the time she wasn't supposed to be associating with us. I often wonder why we went through all that trouble of saving him and didn't just let him asphyxiate and die due to his own utter stupidity. If he didn't want to take the time to learn a simple Cure spell, I don't see why we had to go illegally importing White Mages from icky poopie face Bevelle to save his imprudent little rear. Then again, a Cure spell wouldn't have worked anyway, he needed about eighteen bazillion Elixirs and a whole handful of restorative spells I had never heard of, even on my healing sphere, and when he tells the story he even claims they summoned some sort of hidden aeon to ease his suffering.
Which is complete and utter shoopuff turd, by the way. There is no hidden aeon for bee stings. I looked it up when Yunie was starting out on her pilgrimage. If there were such a thing, rest assured, we would have found it and convinced it to help us destroy Sin. Besides, who in their right mind would sacrifice their humanity to become a summon and help in the epic quest to end terminal bee stings?
Like I said: Attention Whore.
"Gippal?" I tried again, after hearing another symphonic procession of various bangs and clatters resonating from the other side of the trailer. "...are you alright? What are you doing in there?"
I then ventured down the beckoning hallway and wrapped my sweaty fingers around the appropriate door knob leading to what I presumed to be his bedroom. Upon opening the corresponding threshold I discovered I had presumed correctly. Of course, I had negated to presume that he would currently be in the process of sharing his bedroom with someone else, which anyone who has known Gippal for more than five point six milliseconds would be able to figure out he does on a daily basis.
I guess my first tip off was the large candle assortment Gippal had actually gone through the trouble creating to line the windowsills and the shelves, bookcases, armoire, and floor. I had never seen so many candles in my life, and I momentarily wondered if he was aware of the potential fire hazard he had thus created in trying to swoon his latest conquest into bed. It was hot enough without the extra heat, and there he was, going at it until he was sweaty enough to dehydrate, and lighting frickin candles, of all things, to add to the ambiance, as opposed to something more appropriate, say various nightlights of different shapes and sizes. That would have the same effect, right?
But no. He goes out and gets rose petals from bees he's deathly allergic to and candles that could boil him alive. Brilliant, Gippal, brilliant. And what victim were you able to actually woo with this stuff? Is she a coma patient?
Candles. In the desert. Well I never.
There was a muted sigh coming from the bed situated in the far corner of the room. I averted my line of vision from the pyrotechnics so I could allow my eyes to focus on a bed that was rocking hard enough to emulate the Kilika seas during tsunami season. After about thirty proceeding seconds of witnessing Gippal's very dynamic sexcapades, I cleared my throat but the latter was to no avail. I was drowned out by the invisible recipient of Gippal's lust, covered by a plethora of blankets and my childhood acquaintance's rippling, sweating back. The headboard was rapping against the adjacent wall in a steady, solid rhythm and I all too quickly figured out where the loud noises had been originating from.
So. Lemme help you, the reader, a little bit by providing some exposition as to my actions next. I was distraught, lonely, and desolate, and I was looking for Gippal to seek some childhood comfort and a couple of beers, only to find that our favorite one eyed sexaholic was too busy screwing his flavor of the week to provide me with some much needed emotional support. I was already devastated given the inevitable conclusion of the Gullwings, and saw nothing wrong with my impulsive action of silently wandering over to the foot of the bed, gathering up the half discarded and long forgotten blanket in my perpetually sweaty palms, and giving a giant tug great enough in strength to probably even move the most stubborn of Shoopuffs. (Yes, that's what I can do. The heck with treasure hunting, I'll go to Moonflow and become a Shoopuff herder. I wonder how the hours are?)
The woman underneath a characteristically moaning Gippal gasped at the sudden drop in temperature, for while Gippal may have been warming her upper half, her legs were splayed out at obscure angles underneath him, naked and at the mercy of the room temperature.
"Ewwwie! Gippal, don't touch that!" I squealed from behind his buck naked ass. "You don't know where it's been!"
Gippal, who, if judging by the volume of his resonating moans was any indicator, was almost about to finish up in his little misadventure and I had just so impeccably interrupted him on his quest to reach his undeserved Nirvana.
"...what the hell?" he grumbled, looking over his shoulder and making eye contact with his intruder. I circled over to the bed side so he could get a better look at me. This was not the first time I had bore witness to the leader of the Machine Faction naked. I have been running in on him since he was fifteen and exercising his manhood on a weekly basis. Actually, no, that's not true, he wasn't making love at fifteen. But he was making out. Quite aggressively, I might add.
But really, when did he progress to making love?
I'm sure he'll be more than happy to tell me.
But that was another conversation for another time.
"Cid's Kid?" he questioned, quixotic expression adorning his features. He was so totally not embarrassed by the fact I had just walked in on him about to come. Or that he was completely naked and still joined to his partner's nether regions without so much as a blanket to aid in his modesty. Or that his female acquaintance was squirming something fierce underneath him trying to escape from his weight so I would not be able to interrogate her, too, concerning the evening's activities.
It was then that my vision wandered down to meet the female of the moment who was unsurprisingly pinned scandalously to the bed with arms over head and visage turned towards the heavens. I noticed something quite alarming and disconcerting and bewildering and disquieting and baffling and and and and any other synonyms you can think of to describe my distress at the current moment, please insert here.
"Gippal!" I squealed, voice habitually cracking on me due to the sudden onslaught of events. "She's a generic NPC! Her eyebrows don't even move!"
I received a feminine scowl in response.
"Her mouth moves," Gippal commented, unabashed. "That's all I care about."
He got slapped across the face for that one.
He looked like he enjoyed it.
I sighed in response. "Oh Gippal, what are you doing screwing the nondescript townspeople? I thought you were with Nhadala!"
"Were, being the operative word, sweetie."
By now the aforementioned NPC was trying very extensively to release herself from Gippal's sweaty grasp and find her clothes so she could make a quick escape. It was to no avail, for even though Gippal looks like a willow ready to fall over in the wind, he is actually quite strong. I would know, for I've tried to tackle him numerous times after he has stuffed wet sand down my pants and I was never successful in my ventures. I always required the aid of Brother and Buddy to take him down. Those two were always at my immediate disposal, no matter what the circumstances. ('Hey, Brother, I need your help in taking over the world.' 'Okay Rikku! How can Buddy and I be of assistance?')
Loyalty. That was one thing I always admired about Brother. His extensive loyalty and compassion. It made overlooking the insane and psychotic a little more bearable.
"...and candles? Honestly Gippal, what's with the hot wax fetish?"
Gippal, once again, rolled his one remaining eye around in its socket.
"Well, yeah, kid, of course I'm gonna use candles. I didn't want to waste electricity. You know the FM188 robots can only charge 45.7 percent of their battery on an entire service charge. And even then they still can't operate properly unless you attach the booster packs, which eat up more energy than Brother's ADD meds."
He foretold all this with complete and utter nonchalance, like there totally wasn't a skinny little white skank under him at the moment.
There's not much I can say about the man in his favor, but I will say this. He knows his stuff. About machines, anyway. Not so much about people or logic or common sense in general. But give him a booster pack and a lone FM188 robot and he'll have the entire city up and running in a matter of hours.
So maybe there is a brain in there, we just can't find it.
The nondescript NPC eventually managed to retract herself from Gippal's lusty confines with astounding speed an accuracy and was no sooner scuttling around the room in a desperate attempt to find her shirt and thong panties.
Not that I saw the thong panties. But she was wearing them, I'm sure.
"Do you even have a name?" I asked incredulously, referring to the placid faced female trying to squirm into her clothes, which revealed more skin than they covered. I saw Gippal slam his face into the appropriate pillow out of the corner of my eye.
"Gippal," the boy man replied ingeniously, voice muffled by a pillowcase full of down.
"Not you, idiot. Her."
The NPC opened her mouth to foretell the answer to my inquisition when I stopped her short.
"Ahh, but wait! The real question should be, does Gippal remember your name?"
At this the man's head shot up abruptly. "Aw shit."
There was another indignant sound exuded from his partner's lips as she huffed and puffed and stormed out of the room half dressed. I waited until I heard her slam the front door and leave the dirt path before following in her footsteps and doing the exact same thing.
"Rikku, what the hell? Where are you going? And, more importantly, why did you come here?"
I sulked down the inner hallway, stomping on the rose petals as I went. Well, I stomped on what was left of them anyway. The NPC seemed to take care of most of them.
"I can't believe you," I muttered. "Do you ever do anything but...but...but sex?"
Gippal, close behind me, falling and tripping all over himself as he tried to catch purchase to my wrist or my arm or the hem of my shirt, supplied a very serious, "Well, sometimes I go to the bathroom."
I snorted and continued past the kitchen and out the front door, taking the front steps two at a time (even though there were only three) and marching hard enough to leave footprints in the dust where I had trod.
"Rikku, honestly, what is going on?"
"I needed you tonight Gippal!" I quipped, whirling around on my heel and staring him straight in the eye. Literally.
Gippal seemed unaware of how to take the last remark, and only too late did I realize what I had just said—and the innuendo it implied—so I covered it up by hastily adding, "And holy hell, you're still naked."
"What?" he asked, donning the façade of innocence. "It's nothing this town hasn't seen before."
I opened my mouth to spit on vilifications, or at the very least something profound and poignant that would keep him up all night, but my throat clamped up and I had to resort to simply turning back around and continued walking.
"You would think you'd have a little more respect for yourself...for the people you...you hurt when you do that stuff!"
There was a pause. "Rikku, you're making no sense. You do know that, right?"
"I mean, it was hard enough losing the both of them. All at once, too. And you know what that leaves, Gippal? Do you? That leaves you. You and my family. And I didn't know if that would be enough. But then you go and...and do stuff like this and...gods, Gippal! I didn't know you were serious when you said you had slept with everyone on this island!"
"Can you please slow down? I don't have any shoes on."
I clenched my teeth in preparation for the exclamation to come.
"I really needed a friend tonight, Gippal!" I finally exploded, because I'm good at doing stuff like that. All passionate and impulsive and hot headed. I explode and I sizzle and simmer and I crack, snap, and pop. I run my mouth like constant audio commentary and my emotions would be worn on my sleeve if I wore any sleeves. This was how it had always been and this is how it always will be. This is mature as I get.
Gippal stopped in his tracks and looked at me.
"Dude, how the hell was I supposed to know that?!"
I balled my hands into two little pent up fists of rage and let out a very profound, "Ieeehhh!" before turning around and running back to my trailer, leaving Gippal standing there in the nude utterly perplexed and exceedingly confused.
"Don't you have any other friends?"
I felt it best not to answer that remark.
o-o-o-o-o-o
I wasn't upset as much as I was angry. Upset it when you find your lover sleeping with an NPC. Angry is when you find your friend doing it. And not to say that we actually ever referred to each other as friends, and we were more like rivals at that, but with every one of my relationships getting shot to hell in a hand basket, well, all I needed was to see Gippal pumping another girl—especially when I needed the assurance that I at least had one constant factor in my life, no matter how much I initially hated him.
We weren't supposed to hold deep conversations and we weren't supposed to confess our love—oh gods no—I just wanted to get drunk and maybe projectile vomit on him in the morning. And regardless of how bad the man treated me, or just women in general, objectifying them until they were no longer human, one learns to lower her standards considerably for friends lest one doesn't want to have any.
Other friends. He asked me if I had other friends.
Gippal, do we really need to go over this?
I was always the girl with the crazy brother. I spent most of my childhood looking after him to make sure he didn't turn up dead. When I wasn't doing that, I was busy getting my geek on with machina and actually stimulating my mind as opposed to various other parts of my body. I was over passionate and over reactive, and what middle schooler wants to be friends with that? My mother was dead, so gods know I never had any help in the female category, and we all know how Pops goes about parenting. But can you blame him? He was more traumatized than Brother and I combined at the loss of our mother. I don't know how anyone expected him to pick up the pieces, govern an island, and raise two kids, one being a girl at that.
And you actually have the gall to ask me if I have other friends.
Gippal, you were there for most of this. You watched it happen.
And while you were the distinguished man of the millennium among the adolescent Al Bhed, and you characteristically treated me like crap at that (and all other females, for that matter) at least you took the time to make fun of me. At least you took the time to study me enough so you'd have relevant material to throw in my face. At least you put up with my random, inexplicable outbursts and didn't point out my odd quirks that still linger today, like voice spontaneously cracking.
And what do I find so attractive about this?
Because I figure I deserve most of it, and besides, it was better than anyone else treated me. Well, at least until Buddy turned up sometime around my seventeenth birthday. He held doors open and stuff. I couldn't pay you to do that.
So, the way I see it, if I can't hold on to the likes of you, then I guess I'm pretty much destined to lose everyone.
And that is why I am pissed.
(Though, in retrospect, of course Gippal had no idea I would come breaking in on that particular night, but like I said: I'm an eternal spaz. Logic was never my thing. Neither was physics, for that matter.)
Irrelevant.
Anyway, I dragged my weight up the steps into Pop's trailer and slumped down at the kitchen table, a mess of dirt, dust, sand, dead rose petals, and the stench of melting wax.
Attractive. I know.
Of course I wasn't going to cry. This wasn't something you cry over. This was more like something you took a two by four to. That's what I felt like doing.
Right as I was contemplating the best way to heave the ice box out the window, I heard Pops clear his throat. The remnants of the action echoed throughout the tin trailer and I peeked down the hallway to see if his pudgy form was waddling into the kitchen for a midnight snack. Or some tomato juice.
I heard the aforementioned again, and this time I peered over my shoulder to see the bathroom door shut tight, with a sliver of yoke colored light leaking out through the bottom. I narrowed my eyes at the sight, unwilling to believe my father was on the pot again, twice in the same night.
"Pops?" I petitioned cautiously, not wanting to believe that I possibly ate the same thing that has made him so sick in the first place. The man did feed me, after all. Anything I digested originally came from him. And I did not feel like pulling a Shinra and communicating through strips of paper under the bathroom door.
"Ya shouldn't have snuck out like that, girl," Pops scolded with a sigh.
Oh, gods. He was in the bathroom. I'm doomed. Doomed.
"Pops," I dead panned. "I'm nineteen."
"And I'm fifty five," he quipped. "Wuz your point?"
"I'm old enough to figure out my own curfew."
"Yeah, and you're still livin' under my roof! I'm still your Pops!"
"...who won't lemme borrow an airship."
"Cuz you'll just crash it," he finished. "Now hold on, I gotta concentrate."
I heard a couple of grunts and a very distinguished plop afterwards. I put two and two together and figured the equation out on my own.
"So are you, like, gonna ground me?" I asked, breath bated, for even if I was nineteen, the man still fed and sheltered me.
"No," he concluded, sighing at the release of his bowels. "No, I ain't gonna do that. I just wanted to make you feel guilty, is all."
"Thanks."
"Welcome. Where was you anyways?"
I figured it was best not to answer that.
"Girl, I'm askin' you a question."
"...I was taking a walk, Pops. Just a walk. I'm allowed to do that, right?"
Pops snorted, resounding and irreverent. "It's four in the morning. Where the hell you gonna walk?"
"Around."
"That's no answer, that's a word."
I slumped on top of the kitchen table. "I hate you."
"Mutual," he responded without missing a beat. "Now, you gonna stop beatin' around the sand dune or wut? I want my answer, and I'll come out half nude if you won't give it to me."
That threat would open the mouth of any belligerent daughter.
(Then again, it would be the second penis of the night for me, but some things are best left unsaid, no matter what the consequences.)
"I was at Gippal's," I finally admitted. So I caved in. I always cave in. Sometimes it takes minutes. Sometimes hours. Sometimes days. Once it took a week. But Pops is almost as persistent as I am stubborn. So he eventually wears me thin, and I confess to whatever he suspects (which is usually the truth) just to shut him up so he'll let me be.
But this time maybe I just wanted someone to talk to.
"The one eyed Cyclops?" Pops bellowed, the door shaking in the wake of his voluminous voice. "What the hell did ya go there fur?"
"I wanted to get drunk, actually," I stated bluntly. Figured I might as well tell the truth. What else was I going to say?
"Aw, Rikku," Pops groaned, and this time not in constipation. "Ya coulda got drunk here instead! Why'd ya go to him?"
"Because I was lonely." Silence. Silence. Silence. "And I missed my friends," I added abruptly, realizing once again my unintentional innuendo. "Pops, are you still breathing?"
"...I knew what you meant, dummy," he chided. I knew better than to believe him.
We both sat in our respective seating arrangements, contemplating the turn of events and dancing around the subject at hand. We got good at it after nineteen years, don't ya think?
"Well, you'll see 'em at dat stupid ribbons ceremony, won't ya?"
"I hope so."
More silence. Filling the room. Permeating it.
"Eh, you don't need those stupid Gullwings anyways. You stopped wearin' clothes when you joined them."
"Pops...that wasn't because of them!"
"Evil Gullwing Concubine..."
"Pops!"
"No wonder Buddy never came back."
"Pops!"
"Wut? Yuna stopped wearing clothes, too! Braska had to have been turning over in his grave! She better not be dressin' like dat when she pops out female Tidus babies. Ya know what they'll grow up to be? Do ya? Street walkers, dat's wut."
"Pops, who said she was preggers?"
"I ain't havin' none of my second cousins traipsing around in them there hooker clothes."
"I thought you just said we don't wear any clothes."
"Ya don't." Pause. "Oh, wait a sec..."
Ha ha. I win.
I began to pick at my nails contemplatively. I was never regimented enough to grow them out. Yunie always had perfect nails. Always. Mine were all nibbled and gnawed and broken. It always made me feel inferior, and even though I always subconsciously knew I was prancing around in her shadow, the nails only confirmed it.
"What am I going to do with my life?" I wondered out loud, asking both myself and Pops at the same time.
"Damned if I know," Pops grumbled. "That's fur you to figure out, not me."
There was another small interlude that bestowed itself upon us.
"And just wut made ya think Gippal would have the answer to dat anyways?"
"I don't know," I confessed. "Who else was I going to go to?"
Let's think about this for a moment, shall we? Paine is gone, laying dead in a ditch for all we know. Yunie is so high she's out of orbit and not to be held accountable for anything that comes out of her mouth. Tidus is an idiot. A nice, benevolent, lovable idiot, but an idiot none the less. Brother is insane and incapable of forming a coherent sentence. Buddy is currently unreachable, for I have tried and tried again to get in contact with them through my Comm. Sphere but all that comes up is static. If that weren't the case, I wouldn't have to worry about a ship. Auron's dead. Lulu's sadistic. Wakka thinks I'm a blasphemous sinner undeserving of the air I breathe, even though I proved him wrong he can't admit it and still treats me like a heathen. I will probably never get to hold Vidina. Kimahri won't give me more than two words. I think his longest sentence was five. Nooj thinks trying to die is a good lifetime goal and LeBlanc is more concerned with the keeping of her wardrobe than searching for a fulfilling purpose. Baralai doesn't understand anything unless you attach it to politics and tea parties and Shinra would give me an answer so laden with multi syllable vocabulary words that I would scarcely understand what he was saying to me.
Let's ask ourselves what Shuyin would say.
'Why, world domination is a very fulfilling purpose, Rikku. If you're depressed, perhaps you should try to eliminate Spira. Gods know it did wonders for my mood.'
I'm holding interpersonal debates with dead guys. I need help.
"Who says you hafta get the answer from someone else?" Pops questioned, snapping me back to attention. "Wut's wrong with the brain your mom and I gave ya?"
"...it's not too good at physics."
"Dammit child, I coulda told ya that before ya popped out! Nobody in this here family is good at physics."
"So I've gathered."
"Ermph," was Pops intelligent answer. "I think I'm done here."
I couldn't tell if he meant with the bathroom or with me.
With a symphony of grunts that seemed to go up an octave ever time he commenced with a procession, he eventually flushed the toilet and opened the door, releasing a stench worse than Bar Keep through out the house.
"Gee whiz Pops, that must have been something real foul you ate, what to make you go to the bathroom twice like that all in the same night."
"Twice?" Pops repeated, waddling past me. "Who said I went twice? Rikku, girl, I never left the pot."
I stared slack jawed with eyes bulging respectively in their sockets.
"Yeah, I heard you sneak out. And I let ya. So no more snitchin' at me 'bout being a lousy Pops, ya hear? Now go to bed, or ya won't be fit ta work tomorrow."
With that, he waddled off to his room and slammed the door.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Author's Note:
Again, dedicated to Touch Of Grey. Why? Because she updated four times on her Gippal story (which I have yet to review, I am going to literary hell) and I had yet to update once. So I present thee with a twenty page chapter to appease your every Gippal need. Mwa ha ha ha. I hope your addiction is sated.
So, feel free to leave pretty little comments for me, even if they only are one word. They will make me smile and see that these twenty pages were not written in vayne (Final Fantasy XII pun...and nobody is laughing...alas...)
Oh, and NPC stands for Non Playable Character. I was referring to the nondescript Al Bhed extras whose faces don't move and have no speaking lines (notice she never actually said anything.) I broke the fourth wall, or something of the like, but whatever. All for the sake of humor, right? (Don't answer that.)
The Cid scene was so much fun to write. I originally wasn't going to have him make another appearance, but I like him too much. So I stuck him in there again.
And I need a good name for the aeon of bee stings.
Gippal needs to be confronted about that, don't ya think?
