[Final Fantasy XIII] Crystal Dreams of Eternity
Chapter 6: (II.2) The Hot Springs Episode
A Final Fantasy XIII Fanfic
By jen-chan
February 3 - March 2, 2011
CHAPTER SYNOPSIS: During game. FLight fluff!
While it was abundantly obvious to all members of the pseudo L'Cie family that teaming Lightning and Fang together culminated in the pinnacle of all monster ass-kickery, the fact of the matter was that it was not often that the two found opportunity to work together.
It just didn't make sense to put the two best fighters in the group together when clearly the other four members needed one of them present to stay out of trouble with Gran Pulse's bloodthirsty wild-life.
It also didn't make sense for the two Pulsian natives to be together either, as their knowledge, out of date after 500 years of crystal sleep, was still better than total ignorance.
Thus, in their daily missions, Lightning often found herself teamed with Vanille and Sazh, while Fang went with Snow and Hope. Lightning understood the logic behind it all, but sometimes, understanding was not enough to keep the exasperation out of her voice when Vanille fell behind, or the anger out of her words when Sazh missed his target.
Despite her frustrations at her teammates' lack of battle prowess however, Lightning soon found herself warming up to Vanille and Sazh. They were both, by nature, generally positive people and earnest in their attempts to pull their own weight (and largely succeeding too, on and off the battlefield, Lightning had to admit, if she had to be fair).
At first, Vanille's friendliness and curiosity annoyed the hell out of the soldier, and Lightning wasn't shy about letting the redhead know about it. The younger woman was down after that, and seeing the redhead's sadness only served to bother Lightning further.
It had taken an offhand comment from Sazh for Lightning to realize why she was so annoyed with the redhead.
"Ahh, it's like when Dajh discovered chocobos. Kids want to know all about the stuff they like."
And Lightning instinctively thought back to when she had first entered the Guardian Corp's training academy, after her mother passed away. At first, when Lightning returned home from class, Serah would attach herself to Lightning's hip and become her shadow until they went to sleep. Their daily lives were so different, it would often take most of the evening for them to share their day's experiences.
One day, tired, cold and wet after a long day training in the rain, Lightning had roughly rebuffed Serah's usual questions about how her day had been in favor of simply passing out for the night. Serah had been wounded, but hadn't said anything. They slowly began to grow apart after that, and it hadn't been until just before the Purge that Lightning had realized that she hadn't conversed with Serah like she'd used to in years, and just how much she missed it.
And Vanille, Lightning realized, was acting exactly like how Serah had been back then - right down to the kicked puppy imitation.
From that point onwards, Lightning couldn't help but see shades of a younger Serah whenever she looked at Vanille, and that helped convinced the soldier to make the extra effort to be kinder to the redhead.
"So... how old are you and Fang?" Lightning asked, one day, not entirely comfortable with the mechanics of striking up and sustaining a casual conversation.
Vanille gave Lightning a surprised look before a megawatt smile lit up her face. "Fang's twenty-one and I'm nineteen!"
Lightning forced a smile to her lips (well, maybe *forced* was too strong a word). "Really? That's quite the coincidence. Serah and I are the same age." She paused. "I... would have thought you younger, and Fang older."
The redhead laughed. "Yeah, we get that a lot. Fang always was in a hurry to grow up."
"Why's that?"
And so, Lightning and Vanille got to know one another, with a certain Pulsian Hunter becoming a reoccurring topic of conversation.
It was several weeks after landing on Gran Pulse did Lightning and Fang finally find themselves on the same team again, while the rest of their family rested back at their camp. Everyone else was too tired from several days of hard adventuring to continue on that day; that left the two warriors on their own. Hope had attempted to join them, citing their need for a medic, but Lightning held him back.
"We won't take on anything that might require a medic," Lightning promised, just before they set off.
And so, off they went, searching high and low for anything that might be a clue to remove their L'Cie brands, but taking care not to be too reckless. Despite the urgency of their situation, Lightning found the experience quite... enjoyable. It felt... good... to be in the Oerban warrior's sole company, despite the lack of proper perimeters in their mission to give it any true goal or meaning.
Lightning wondered if it was because she just missed fighting with someone possessing as much battle competence as herself. Unbidden, memories of Fang's overheard conversation with Vanille the night they were in the ark came to Lightning's mind, and she realized she was lying to herself if she believed that.
'What do you think of Lightning?' Fang had asked Vanille.
There was no mistakening the thrust of that question. Especially given Vanille's follow up question of 'are you going to court her or just bed her'?
Not for the first time, Lightning wondered what Fang would have said, had she actually answered Vanille's question seriously. And, again, not for the first time, Lightning wondered what *she* would have preferred Fang to answer.
Contrary to popular belief, Lightning wasn't completely adverse to the thought of romantic entanglements after all. She'd just never really given it much thought, consumed as she had been with the idea of looking after Serah for the last half decade (but had her little sister really needed *that* much looking after?).
But now (assuming that they actually pulled off this miracle), her baby sister was going to be married (funny; at the beginning of this whole L'Cie business, she'd been sure that Serah was effectively dead. Now, she was actually contemplating what her baby sister's future with Snow would look like)... where would that leave her?
Did she really want to be alone for the rest of her life (again, assuming that that didn't involve turning into a crystal or a monster in the short term)? Distant though she'd grown from Serah over the last couple of years, Lightning realized that, at least, she'd always had someone to come home to at the end of the day.
Lightning snuck a glance in Fang's direction. Completely out of the blue, the image of the Pulsian hunter wearing an apron and saying 'dinner's ready!' came to Lightning's mind's eye, and she blinked.
Where the hell had *that* come from?
Her imagination adjusted itself - now the Pulsian hunter was in her normal clothes with a dead animal skewered on her spear.
'Dinner's ready' indeed; the second scenario was definitely more likely (and actually, Lightning remembered, had already happened earlier in the week).
But in any case, Lightning shook her head to clear it of silly thoughts - she was totally getting ahead of herself.
There was, of course, the possibility that the Pulsian hunter was only interested in sex, after all.
From what she'd been able to learn from Vanille, the Pulsian hunter was the object of quite a few folks' desires back home- both men and women, and Fang had not been above accepting a good number of those propositions she received (at least, from the ladies, anyway. Apparently there were far more greater politics at play when dallying with members of the opposite sex before marriage). While Fang had tried her damndest to keep her private life private, she was the source of several scandals in their village.
This, of course, lead Lightning's brain to wonder what it would be like to sleep with the Pulsian hunter; Lightning was, after all, a healthy, red blooded young woman herself. And the prevailing attitude towards sex in Bodhum was, well, considerably more liberal than in Oerba, being a beach-side resort town and all.
The fact that Fang had been flirting heavily enough over the last two weeks to send signals even a rock could pick up, hadn't helped at all...
"What are you thinking about?" Came Fang's voice, unexpectedly tinged with mirth.
"Hmm? What makes you think I was thinking about anything?" Lightning responded, idly glancing at the other woman out of the corner of her eyes, even as they jogged briskly.
"The tips of your ears went red." Fang replied, the grin still in her words.
~Damn.~ Lightning frowned, touching an ear reflexively and feeling the heat. Briefly, Lightning wondered if she should let the other woman know that she'd overheard Fang's private conversation with Vanille. It would be nice to knock that smirk off the taller woman's lips. But that might make things... awkward too.
So instead, Lightning sighed. "Nothing in particular," she lied.
Fang smirked. "Right."
Lightning picked up her pace, hoping to come across something that might distract them.
Lady Luck was with her then, for just ahead, she spied a large patch of tough weed-grass, rustling as though something was hidden inside it. Wordlessly, she pointed it out to Fang, and the other woman fell silent, going into battle mode.
Lightning removed her gunblade from its sheath, taking up a defensive position.
The grasses continued to rustle; they were tall and thick enough to hide something at least gorgonspid sized - big enough to be dangerous. The way they rustled suggested that the thing hiding inside it could see them, even though they could not see it.
Lightning looked over at Fang. 'Circle it?' She thought.
Fang nodded at Lightning's unspoken words, and slowly started to edge to her left, even as Lightning edged right.
They were not able to complete their plan, as the beast within suddenly leapt from the grasses, teeth gnashing and claws swiping.
Lightning leapt back, flipping once, even as she cursed under her breath. When she landed again, she noticed that the thing was now swiping its claws at Fang's direction.
The beast was black, and had a solid white stripe running down its back to the tip of its tail. It was four legged and furry, standing to about waist high on Lightning. It was about as long as a human was tall, with most of that length attributed to its thick, bushy tail.
If not for its size, its hissing and its claw swiping, it would not have seemed to be that dangerous an animal.
Lightning watched as Fang deflected the claw swipe easily and jumped backwards a few feet to get some distance for attacking.
"What is that thing?" Lightning called over to her.
Suddenly, a look of pure horror came onto Fang's face as she managed to get a good look at the beast. "Oh, shi-!" She cried, even as she suddenly turned tail to bolt. "Light, run!"
Lightning's eyes widened. She'd never seen or heard of Fang backing down from a fight before. And the target didn't even look all that menacing. "Why?" Lightning asked, even as she advanced on spooked beast.
"Light, no!" Fang cried, just as the beast turned and pointed its tail in Lightning's direction.
Lightning wasn't quite sure what happened next. A spray of some sort of greenish liquid shot out from under the creature's tail, coating the front of the soldier. The most vile, wretched, disgusting smell of rotten eggs and burning rubber assaulted Lightning's nose. It was ten thousand times worst than the olfactory attack from the decaying garbage of the Vile Peaks.
She couldn't help it; she screamed at the top of her lungs even as her eyes teared up, her head spun and her stomach threatened to empty its contents. Absolutely blinded by the horrific, horrific smell, Lightning started swinging her gunbade wildly in an effort to do something! anything! to make the smell go away.
Her wild attacks found purchase and the creature that had sprayed her gave an agonizing howl as her gunblade plunged into its side. The massive animal careened and stumbled as it surrendered to its death spasms and started to spray its chemical all over the place.
Fang gave a less-than-enthused cry of dismay as the offensive vileness splattered on her sari too.
Lightning was still screaming as she tried desperately to get rid of whatever was smelling so god awful, flinging all sorts of spells at the body of the dead animal. The sky lit up under the litany of scores of fire, thundara, and aero, quickly reducing the body of the animal to a barely recognizable crispy smear on the ground, but doing absolutely jack-all against the smell. Still, Lightning didn't stop hurling the spells until Fang more or less threw herself at the other woman, tackling her down. "Lightning, stop!" She bellowed. "You're only making it worse!"
Finally, Lightning stopped, though she could barely see from all the tears in her eyes. She didn't know how much longer she could stop herself from throwing up. Fang managed to grab Lightning's wrist and pulled her away before the dry heaving began. They bolted as far away from the scene of carnage as they could (Lightning only stopping to pull her gunblade out of the side of the carcass).
"Where are we going?" Lightning coughed as she ran after Fang, her head still spinning. They quickly put distance between themselves and the body of the animal, but the smell was not going away. "What was that thing?"
"That was a skunkenzila!" Fang coughed back at Lightning. "No one ever takes on a skunkenzila because... well, you know why! Why'd'ja think I told you to run? Ghad, you really did it this time, Sunshine! Aaagh, we have to get back to Sulyya Springs, *stat!* We might be able to treat the stench there, but that's only if you get at it within a couple hours of getting sprayed!"
"What happens if we don't treat it in time?"
"Well, unless you had the foresight to pack a wardrobe before we left Cocoon, let's just say we're going to be looking for our L'Cie cure with our bare bums and shaved heads glittering in the sun about two miles downwind from everyone else for the next month!"
Lightning groaned.
They booked it.
It had taken the group the better part of a day to get from Sulyya Springs to their current location, but Lightning and Fang were much more highly motivated to move this time around, making their way back to the locale at a dead sprint in under two hours. They encountered absolutely no problems from the wildlife; on more than one occasion, Lightning could see families of ceratoraptor and ceratosaurs fleeing amongst disgusted croaks and ribbits from them as they approached, desperate to get away from their stench.
"What are we looking for?" Lightning cried as they weaved their way around various pools of inviting water.
"Look for a thick, soupy, orangy-red one!" Fang replied, even as they splashed their way noisily around and through various springs.
"Like that one?" Lightning pointed ahead.
"YES!" Fang cried triumphantly even as she took a flying leap at the pond. "JUMP!"
The two fully grown women noisily cannonballed into the spring.
"Ugh!" Lighting couldn't help but moan, as she suddenly found herself waist deep in the thick, smelly, orangy-red muck. An involuntary shudder crept up her back as she felt the slop creeping into her boots and up her shorts. It didn't smell nearly as bad as they did, but it certainly wasn't perfume by any stretch of the imagination. "What the hell is this?"
"Do you really want to know?" Fang retorted, answering anyway. "Decomposing fladragora and hybrid flora. It's the only thing known to man that'll take out skunkenzila."
Lightning cringed, wishing she hadn't asked. Then she did a double take. "Wait, what are you doing now?"
Fang had pulled the top of her sari away from her person and was quickly unbuckling her belt to strip the rest of it off. She submerged the article in the muck.
Then, with absolutely no ceremony or warning, she grabbed the bottom of her black crop top and flung that off in one smooth motion, leaving her totally topless. The top quickly joined the sari in the orange goop too.
Lightning's eyes threatened to bulge out of her eye sockets as a massive blush streaked across her cheeks. She stared at Fang, absolutely flabbergasted, until the Pulsian woman made a muck-ball and lobbed it at Lightning's face. "Well, don't just stand there and gawk!" Fang griped, even as Lightning sputtered and tried to clear the crap from her eyes - it stung a little. "Start scrubbing and pray that we made it in time! And don't forget to wash your hair too, less you really want to shave your head?"
If looks could kill, Lightning would have murdered Fang. Instead, the death daggers shooting out of her eyes bounced harmlessly off of Fang's back as the Pulsian woman pulled her own shorts off and started to scrub her clothes, cursing up a blue streak the entire time.
Lightning continued to stare at Fang for a couple more moments. "You're... serious, aren't you?" She said, unable to keep the incredulousness out of her voice.
"What, did you think I was joking?" Fang shot back. "You think I enjoy bathing in rotting tomato?"
Lightning stared at the muck she was wading in, scooping up a handful to examine. It dripped out between her fingers and splotched back into the pool with a 'splut!' sound.
Soon, Lightning's cursing joined Fang's colorful own as the soldier undid the buckles in her own clothing.
One problem solved, they were soon presented with another. After scrubbing themselves almost raw in the decomposing fladragora ooze, neither they, nor their clothing, stunk of skunkenzila anymore, but that didn't make their clothing any more wearable. So, they hunted around for another spring to wash the flandragora out of their clothes and hair with, eventually finding one.
Fang sighed as she hung her sopping sari up on a pole beside the rest of hers and Lightning's garments. It would take hours for the clothing to dry, maybe even into the next day, considering how late it was already, and Fang was not going to risk staining her favorite (and only) sari irrevocably by trying to rush the process. She looked over at Lightning, who had one arm crossed self consciously in front of her bare breasts, even as her other hand idly played with some of her hair that fell over one shoulder. She kept trying to (and largely failing to) inconspicuously do the 'three-year-old-needs-to-pee' crossing and uncrossing of legs, and there was a keen expression of embarrassment on her face. Her skin was a shade of red that suggested she was either doing a full body blush, or that she'd somehow managed to stain her skin in the flandragora soup.
Not minding her own nakedness one lick, Fang burst out laughing. "Maker above, Lightning, you look absolutely ridiculous! Calm down! It's not like you have anything I don't!"
For the nth time that day, Lightning looked like she wanted to kill Fang, though she did stop the crossing and uncrossing of her legs, and settled for simply crossing both arms in front of her chest.
In truth, Fang couldn't help but appreciate the gorgeous figure Lightning cut in the nude, though she tried her damndest not to make the other woman uncomfortable.
"Well?" Lightning finally managed to say.
"Well what?"
Lightning rolled her eyes. "Did we make it? Are our clothes going to be okay?" She paused. "Do we need to shave our heads?"
Fang fought down the urge to laugh again. "Well, let me see..." With no preamble, she walked up to the other woman, totally invading her personal space.
Lightning's eyes widened. "What are you-"
Fang sniffed the top of Lightning's head, examining a lock of hair. "Hmm. Nope. We should be okay." She grinned, stepping away from the other woman even as she relished the adorably flustered expression on Lightning's face. "You're actually pretty vain, aren't you?"
Lightning's left eye twitched. "And just what is THAT supposed to mean?"
Now Fang couldn't hold the chuckles in. "Well, look at you, all worried about your hair! And if that belly piercing isn't about vanity, I don't know what is!"
"Says the woman with a massive tattoo on her arm!" Lightning shot back.
Fang chuckled. "Hey, ain't nothing wrong with wanting to look good! I was just surprised was all." She winked at the other woman. "And here I thought I had you figured out."
Lightning cracked a mean smirk back at Fang. "You know nothing about me." She retorted.
"Oh yeah?" Fang laughed. "I know you're a natural pink."
Fang (probably) would have been able to avoid Lightning's backhand to the jaw, but she was too busy thinking about how cute the soldier looked blushing to her toes.
There was not much to do while they waited for their clothes to dry, so they wandered about Sulyya Springs for a little bit. Though they were careful, they didn't end up encountering any more wildlife; evidently their smelly entrance earlier had prompted everything with legs to flee from the springs while it could.
For Lightning, wandering around outdoors totally buck naked was a completely alien concept, which soon became an oddly liberating one. While she had, at first, been very *very* embarrassed, she soon got over it, and had even begun to feel a strange sort of giddiness in her chest, which she quickly quashed down. It had helped that Fang had, apparently, not a single shred of modesty in her (quite lovely, Lightning had to admit) body; the hunter's lack of concern over their nudity helped the soldier to adjust.
Since it was getting quite late in the evening, they ended up catching fish for dinner from one of the many pools. It was the first time Lightning ate while naked. The experience was... very surreal.
After dinner, they ended up wandering about the springs some more.
"Aww, you have *got* to be kidding me!" Lightning heard Fang exclaim excitedly. "Do you know what this is, Light?"
Lightning looked at what Fang was pointing at. It was a spring, just like any other in Sulyya, save that it seemed to be bubbling. Lightning could feel heat emanating from the water from where she stood. The liquid in this spring was clean and clear. She could see straight through to its smooth pebble lined bottom. "... A spring?"
"Not just any spring!" Fang replied, quickly making her way to the edge of it and crouching down. "This is Lady Luck flashing her magnificent bosom in our faces!"
Lightning raised an eyebrow, declining to comment on Fang's euphemism. "You call getting sprayed by skunkenzila, having to bath in flandragora ooze and walking around totally exposed, a lucky day?"
Fang slid her legs into the water and sighed noisily. "It is if it ends with good company in a hot spring!" She quickly slipped the rest of the way in and positively purred. "Come on! The heat's perfect!"
Cautiously approaching the edge of the pond, Lightning couldn't help but feel amused at the expression of total euphoria on Fang's face. And soon, she understood the cause for the other woman's contentment as she slipped into the hot spring herself.
It was... exquisite. A bubble bath or hot tub had absolutely *nothing* on this! There was just something about the heat and the minerals in the water that somehow seemed to needle directly into her muscles and totally empty her body of toxins and stress. Pretty soon, Lightning found herself purring much like how Fang was. They sat in the waters, letting their limbs turn to jelly and their worries leave their minds.
Eventually, Lightning heard Fang sigh. She looked over at the other woman, who was sitting with her back against the edge of the spring, her arms up over the edge of it, half lifting her upper chest out of the water.
"You know," Fang said, a languid, amused tone in her voice. "Believe me when I say these were not the circumstances I had thought I'd be getting you naked under."
~Aaah, here it comes.~ Lightning'd been wondering when the flirting would begin. She smiled thinly. "And just what sort of circumstances might those be?"
Fang winked, clearly enjoying the back and forth. "Oh, the usual. Candle light. Stars. Maybe even some romantic music."
Lightning smirked. "... while two kids, a dirty young man and a dirty old man watched?"
Fang laughed, flopping her head back onto the grass. "Hey, whatever floats your boat."
There was silence in the air for a moment, a companion-able silence, and Lightning wasn't sure if it was the heat or the fatigue or the silly thoughts that had been going through her mind earlier, but she said, softly, "... well... they're not here to watch now."
Fang was silent for a moment, and then she flopped her head back upright to look back over at Lightning. The shock in her eyes seemed to say, '... did you just say what I thought you said?'
The voice of modesty in the back of Lightning's head cursed and wanted to smack her silly for having let such words slip from her mouth. Lightning's pride however, told her modesty to shut the hell up, and to just play it cool.
In the end, unable to listen to both of the warring voices in her head at the same time, Lightning was left with a surprisingly earnest 'yeah-I-guess-I-did-just-say-that' expression on her face.
Their eyes accidently locked on each others, and the silence, so companionable before, suddenly bloated with enough sexual tension to explode the minds of a school full of horny teenagers.
They both tried to dispel that tension at once.
"Fang, I-"
"Light, listen-"
And then they both shut up again, waiting for the other to speak, causing the awkwardness in the air to multiply exponentially.
Eventually, Fang chuckled, rubbing her face with a hand, even as she shook her head ruefully. That laughter finally dispelled the tension. "Wow. That was smooth, wasn't it? Let's try that again, and if you don't let anyone know how dorky that was, neither will I."
Lightning rolled her eyes, grinning. "Worried about your rep, Fang? From what Vanille tells me, you're usually more debonair than that."
Fang raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you two've been talkin' about me, have you?"
"Well, there's only so much you can talk about weather and beasties."
"Well that's hardly fair," now Fang was grinning. "Level the playing field, will ya? Snow 'n Hope know next to nothing about you." She leaned forward, a playful sparkle in her eye. "Tell me about yourself, Sergeant Farron."
The sparkle in Fang's eyes was not lost on Lightning. She gave Fang a coy look (an expression she wasn't aware she was actually capable of). "Well... what do you want to know?"
"Hmmm..." Fang tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Boyfriend?"
Lightning couldn't help but feel a sardonic smile twitch its way to her lips, not at all surprised at where the conversation was going towards. It was ground that Vanille had tried to cover before too, though Lightning had been evasive. But, not feeling the need for evasion now, she simply shook her head in the negative.
"Girlfriend?"
That glint in Fang's eyes *definitely* came from hopefulness.
Lightning considered her answer for a moment, enjoying the expression of rapt curiosity on Fang's face. She could feel the tips of her ears growing warm from the attention. Finally, she sighed and decided to just be truthful. "... it's been a long time."
"O-ho!" Fang laughed. "Seriously? I wouldn't have thought that of you!"
"What? Did you think I was a blushing virgin or something?" Lightning raised an eyebrow, non-pussed.
"Well, maybe not a *blushing* one," Fang grinned. "But I'd have thought you'd give me some sort of a 'I don't have time for relationships' line, or something."
"Well, I don't," Lightning replied evenly. "Not anymore, anyway. The Guardian Corps does keeps me pretty busy."
"Ah, that sounds more like the Lightning Farron I know," Fang laughed. "Why'd you join the army in the first place?"
At this, an uncomfortable expression came onto Lightning's face. Their conversation had obviously been on lighter topics; she didn't really want to share anything too heavy, but there was really no way to answer the Pulsian's question and avoid that. "Dad died when I was a kid. Mom went too when I was fifteen. I had to support Serah and I somehow, and the Corps take care of their own."
"... I'm sorry." The apology in Fang's voice was sincere.
Lightning sighed, and shrugged. "It was a long time ago. It's fine."
"... my parents went when I was seven."
Lightning looked over at the other woman, and could see a serious look on Fang's features. "... how did they go?" Lightning asked quietly. She already knew the gist of it, from Vanille, but she wanted to hear it from Fang.
"Same way a lot of kids' parents went, those days." Fang replied. "Fighting vipers. Losing." She sighed. The sigh had a very 'let's-not-talk-about-that-now' sort of feel to it.
Lightning didn't press the issue.
Instead, they continued to talk about other things, getting to know each other.
Fang told Lightning about her childhood, about the orphanage, and the others that she and Vanille had grown up with - Donda, Leiz, Shayla and Tombas. She told Lightning about the time Vanille almost died because of Fang's recklessness with the gorgonspid, and how they used to sleep on the roof of their school to give some of the others some privacy.
She told Lightning about how much trouble she and Vanille used to get into, all the boys that would chase them around, and some of her more creative ways of rebuffing them.
She told Lightning about how Vanille used to be engaged, to Donda, and the pressures she herself had faced to carry on her own bloodline.
Lightning was amazed by some of the peculiarities of Oerban society, for example, that folks would get married at so young an age. There were so many things so radically different from Cocoon's customs - 'how so', Fang would ask - and then Lightning would have to explain.
Fang didn't tell Lightning everything, and they both consciously stayed away from the heavier topics, sure to blow the mood (like the effects of the war of Transgression, friends going Cie'th, etc). Some of the bits, Lightning already knew from Vanille, but the pink haired woman was still glad to hear the stories from Fang herself.
In return, Lightning told Fang about herself. She wasn't anywhere near as forthcoming with personal information as she had been about general Cocoonian customs, but with a bit of coaxing from the Pulsian Hunter, she told Fang about how close she and Serah had been as children, and which sports she used to play as a child ('Figure skating?' Fang had asked. 'What's that?'). She told Fang about her first mission with the Guardian Corps, and what an unmitigated disaster that had been. She told Fang about their house, and how she hadn't had the time to clean it in forever. When Fang wouldn't stop needling her about it, she even told her a little bit about her first girlfriend (First year in high school. Her locker was stuffed to the gills with love letters for weeks from a horde of admirers. She thought she'd pick one of them to keep the others at bay, but that ended up backfiring spectacularly).
They lost track of how long they'd been talking for, and it wasn't until Lightning realized that she felt a bit light headed and dizzy, that Fang had asked, "hey, how long have we been in here for anyway?"
"I have no idea," Lightning confessed. It was a strange sensation - she felt almost... tipsy... from sitting in the hot water for so long. Looking down at her hand, she realized that her fingers were beyond pruned, and that her skin was several shades darker than her hair. The fuzziness in Lightning's mind almost reminded her of drinking a little too much. "... how long can we stay in one of these things?"
Fang sighed. "If we've been in a spring long enough to ask ourselves that question, then we should probably get out," she said reluctantly. But as she got up to do so, she flashed Lightning a grin. "Well, thank you very much for the date, Sergeant Farron. I had a lovely time." She extended her hand to help Lightning up.
Lightning's lips twitched into a smile as she accepted Fang's hand. "This was a date?"
"Sure, why not?" Fang's laughter was light. "We went hunting, even though *that* part was a bit of a disaster, then we ate and relaxed and got to know each other, and hey, we even got to see each other naked." She laughed again. "Wow, maybe this was actually the second date, yeah?"
Lightning couldn't help but laugh too. "How easy do you think I am? It's at least the third or fourth."
Fang raised her eyebrow at the challenge. "Honey," she grinned cockily, "I am Oerba Yun Fang. You would've been mine by the end of the second date."
"Oh, how you exaggerate," Lightning rolled her eyes. "It's the end of the first, and you haven't even been able to kiss me yet!"
Fang smirked, giving Lightning a hooded look. Her eyes drifted down and Lightning realized that the hunter still had a grip on her hand. With no further warning, Lightning suddenly found herself being pulled off balance.
Between the sudden movement and her head still spinning from the heat in the hot spring, Lightning suddenly found herself being dipped backwards, held only by the strength in Fang's arms. The other woman's face was dangerously close to her own, and her eyes were sparkling with mischievous intent.
"Say that again?" Fang teased.
But Lightning found herself unable to speak. She could only stare up at Fang with wide eyes.
All of a sudden, all brevity fled the scene. Lightning became acutely aware of several things - the precariousness of her position, the pounding of her heart in her ears, and the marvellousness of Fang's toned body so close to her own.
At the same time, Fang could feel the sudden tension in Lightning's body, and realized she was crossing a line. Her own eyes widened.
They both froze, not quite sure what to do next.
A little ways from the hot spring, an errant cricket gave a single, curious chirp.
"I can let you go." Fang offered, not moving.
"Don't." Lightning replied, also not moving.
"What?" Fang blinked, but otherwise still not moving.
And then Lightning brought her arms up to place her hands over Fang's shoulders, sliding them up over Fang's collar bone, before locking her fingers together behind Fang's neck. She pulled herself upwards to capture Fang's lips...
... and their would-be kiss was interrupted by a loud cry of "Oh! *There* you two are! We've been looking all over for you!"
"Gah-blubblub!" Lightning cried out and ended up swallowing a lung full of water when Fang gave a start of surprise and dropped her into the water.
The rest of the evening proceeded like a clockwork comedy of errors.
Their pseudo L'Cie family, worried for their safety when they hadn't returned, had set out to look for them and found the remains of the skunkenzila. From that, Vanille had been able to deduced that this meant they'd come back to Sulyya. Finding their clothes hanging out to dry had confirmed this.
Upon stumbling upon the pair in the hot spring, Vanille's eyes had instantly lit up and, with absolutely no regard for the presence of their male companions, or the daggers her female companions were lobbing at her with their eyes, promptly stripped herself of her clothing to join the other two women in the water.
It wasn't until after she'd gotten in the water, took one look at Fang, and then one look at Lightning (rather waterlogged at the moment), did the math add up in her head and she groaned. 'Come on, guys! It's a friggin' *hot spring!* I haven't been in one of these in forever! Don't kick me out now!'
Though Fang had been ready to do just that, Lightning had stopped her, and allowed Vanille to stay.
Fang had given a silent look Lightning, whom pointedly refused to meet the hunter's eyes. Instead, Lightning chose that moment to leave, citing that she'd been in the water too long already, and quickly stalked passed the menfolk with such a look of such pissed-off-ness in her eyes that not one of them dared to make a comment about her nakedness (although Snow actually did turn to Sazh afterwards and whisper, 'huh... so *that's* where her brand is.').
This left Fang and Vanille in the water, as the men folk also left them their privacy (not following after Lightning). Fang didn't particularly want to stay in the water, as she'd been in it just as long as Lightning had been, but wasn't about to leave Vanille by herself, so she stayed at the edge of the pool while Vanille soaked.
Vanille had known better than to ask Fang for any details (realizing she had been *this close* to really pissing off her oldest friend).
When that was done, and the men returned, Sazh had asked what was so special about taking a bath. Vanille then explained in excited detail all the fabulous virtues of hot springs. The menfolk, clearly impressed, had wanted to try the water out too, so Fang and Vanille let them do that.
They didn't see a lick of Lightning until the men were long done with their own soak. By that time, it was well into the night, so they turned in, going about their usual guard shifts.
This didn't leave Fang with the chance to talk to Lightning at all during the rest of the night, and it bothered her.
Now that they were out of the heat, back in their clothes, and with the rest of the group, the soldier was back to acting completely normal. Any hints of the playful, sensual woman from the water was hidden neatly back under Lightning's normal mask of detached neutrality.
It was enough to eat at Fang's mind for the rest of the night.
The next morning, Fang woke up extra early to have a word with Lightning, who had taken the last guard shift of the night.
Finding the other woman, Fang waved her a greeting. "Good morning, Sunshine." Lightning simply nodded her head in acknowledgement, though Fang could tell that more was going through the soldier's head than she was letting on (her ears were turning red again).
~Damn,~ Fang thought. She was hoping that after opening up to each other yesterday, the soldier would have retained some of her friendliness.
"I was hoping to talk to you about yesterday." Fang said.
A barely discernable tick appeared around the edge of Lightning's left eye. "If you were wanting to pick up where we left off, I'm afraid the moment's passed." She finally said, her voice neutral.
Fang frowned, wishing the other woman would give her more to work with. "Actually, Listen, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sorry about Vanille's craptacular timing, but the truth of the matter is... I'm actually a little glad."
Lightning raised an eyebrow, but otherwise, didn't react, simply waiting for Fang to continue.
The hunter sighed. Honestly, this was like pulling teeth. "Alright, I'm just going to say it. I love teasing you, Light. You're hilarious fun to poke at. But I know I can go overboard with it, and I know I did yesterday. I'm sorry. But you can't deny that there is something between us. Something good. From that first fight in Palumpolum onwards, I could tell, and I could tell that you could tell too. What that something is, I don't exactly know, but, I'd like to find out, and I'm thinking that you wouldn't mind to either. If I'm wrong, then so be it, I won't go there again. There. I've said my piece. I don't want there to be awkwardness between us. Are we good?"
Lightning was silent.
Fang couldn't help but feel like a complete ass.
Then, suddenly, Lighting reached out, grabbed the front of Fang's sari, and pulled Fang towards her.
Their lips met.
Fang's mind went totally blank for a second, before she closed her eyes and eagerly kissed the other woman back, moving her hands behind Lighting's head to keep her close.
There was nothing else of importance in the world in that moment, nothing at all, except for Lightning's mouth on Fang's lips and her hands cupping her cheeks, and *her* hands digging into *her* hair and the warmth that was pouring forth from each of them into the other. That was all there was in the world, and that was more than enough for the both of them.
Eventually, they parted.
And Lightning smiled at Fang. "Yeah. We're good."
AUTHOR'S NOTES & OMAKE
*cries and headdesks* Comedy is HARD! ;_; I have lost track of the number of times I've re-written this chapter. The amount of writing I've tossed out is probably more than the length of this chapter alone!
My apologies if Lightning seems a little OOC in this chapter... some of the previous drafts of this version had her REALLY OOC, but I think I've corrected most of it - please let me know if I've missed anything!
Thank you for reading! Hope you liked it! The next part will go back to pre-game times, and should be the last one of those!
Cheers,
Jen-chan
OMAKE 1: If It Had Been Anyone Else Instead
[FANG is holding LIGHTING in the classic Hollywood kiss pose. They stare at each other with open desire in their eyes.]
FANG: ...
LIGHTING: ...
[They move in to kiss each other.]
SNOW: There you two are! We've been looking all over for-!
[A hail of bullets rips into his chest, staggering him. When that doesn't immediately kill him, a bladed Lance is thrown into his gut, while a gunblade is lodged into his forehead]
SNOW: [Dies]
SAZH: ... [Looks over at a quivering VANILLE] Next time we have to go looking for those two, maybe you should take point.
VANILLE: [Still quivering] No way!
OMAKE 2: Strawberry Blondes Have More Fun
FANG: And here I thought I had you figured out.
LIGHTNING: You know nothing about me.
FANG: Oh yeah? I know you're a natural pink-! [looks down] uh... uh huh huh... [Laughs goofily]
LIGHTNING: [Self conscious] What?
FANG: ... Nothing. I just... [Hastily tries to stop the blood from trickling out of her nostrils] ... didn't think you favored Brazilian style...
OMAKE 3: Tell-tale Signs
[LIGHTNING and FANG finally are able to team together, but LIGHTING can't stop thinking dirty thoughts about FANG]
FANG: What are you thinking about?
LIGHTNING: Hmm? What makes you think I was thinking about anything?
FANG: The tips of your ears went red.
LIGHTNING: ... damn. [Caught red handed]
FANG: [Grinning] So? What were you thinking about that's got you so hot and bothered?
LIGHTNING: If you must know... handcuffs, ball gags, stilettos and hot wax.
FANG: ... [Eyes get really big] ... seriously?
LIGHTNING: ... why? Does that bother you?
FANG: ...
LIGHTNING: ... [slightly disappointed]