Diving for Pearls - 21) Watching, 84) Trust, 95) Secret(s)
Title: Diving for Pearls (part 2)
Setting: Sometime during the pilgrimage
Themes: 21) Watching, 84) Trust, 95) Secret(s)
Pairing: Auron/Rikku
Rating: K
Warnings: Nope
Summary: First part is here.
"You're really lucky I'm here," Rikku said as she peered into the swirling sphere. Auron's grunt told her exactly what his opinions on that were, and she looked up with a scowl. He might be able to scare Yunie with his impressions of constipated sandworms, but Rikku was cut from a different cloth. Like canvas to Yunie's silk. "In case you haven't noticed, this is a sphere."
"Somehow I noticed."
"Well, maybe you're not completely hopeless after all," she said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, this sphere doesn't have a player attached. Did you notice that?" She folded her legs neatly under her and dropped to the ground; her goggles she secured around her eyes and her gloves she pulled tight. Right. "If you have the training and equipment to build an impromptu player for a moldy old sphere, then knock your big smelly socks off." She searched through her bag, and when her fingers found what she'd been looking for, she grinned in triumph. "Genius machina tinker Rikku once again saves the day. Here, check this out."
He bent down over her outstretched hand to examine the ring of gold that she displayed. Even with her goggles tinting everything turquoise, she could see his face clearer than ever before. The butterflies in her stomach bounced off the walls as she studied him. He hadn't changed, not really, from the young man they all ogled at in Tidus' spheres. If he smiled once in a while, he'd probably turn their group into his own private harem.
He frowned again, thankfully not turning suddenly clairvoyant. And clearly not comprehending the magnitude of awesome. "Well?"
"Stole this baby from the theater in Luca last time I was there," she chirped back with a wink. "Er, I mean totally and legally found. So I don't need to build a new player," she added hurriedly, lest he decide to march her back to the city to give the player back. "This player's meant for a music sphere, but it shouldn't be too hard to adapt. Give me a few minutes and we'll crack this thing open."
She unclipped the bag from her belt and dumped its contents onto the ground. Once she had the right tools, she pulled the ring open, exposing the glittering innards. The gears inside would have to be re-arranged a bit, maybe a few removed, but all in all, modifying the player was a piece of cake with strawberries on top. She'd only just started adjusting the magnifier when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She shivered a bit, and when she was sure that her cheeks had faded from tomato-red to a less embarrassing shade, she looked up. "What?"
"What?"
"You're staring at me like I have a second head growing out of my shoulder blades, and while that sounds cool in theory, imagine what a pain in the neck it would be feeding it. Pain in the neck, get it?" She grinned at that, but he didn't seem particularly interesting in a discussion about extraneous pieces of anatomy.
Her smile didn't falter though, it just slid into slyness. He could deny it, but he couldn't hide it: he was curious. Who knew? Maybe he was the Legendary Guardian of Mechanics, too. He was puzzle, all right, this Auron of theirs. "Wanna watch a master at work? Here, I'll show you what I'm doing. Even a Yevonite like you will can understand."
She inched closer and put the open ring on a flat stone in front of them. He tucked his arms into his coat, rustling the sleeves as he settled down, but his dark eye was fixated on the player. "I know this kid back at Home who's a prodigy with spheres," she said absently as she fiddled with the gears. "He's too little now to do much, but I know that one day he'll be amazing. Just like me. Here, see this?"
He leaned down, close enough for her to see the stubble across his jaw, close enough that his breath ruffled her hair. "See what?"
"Huh? Oh, the ring is basically a magnifier. It's actually a fairly simple piece of machina. See this little doodad? If I switch some things around, it'll magnify the images in the sphere and not just the sounds. Sphere's are strange things, huh?" She added thoughtfully as she popped some springs out. "They've got so much in them. Like big oysters."
She ventured another look at him, her eyes lingering along the line of his throat while her heart, lungs, and stomach started a parade through her chest cavity and her banging knees provided the percussion. Damnation! He smelled like the few ocean storms that made it into the desert or maybe like a night when all her inventions worked perfectly.
Her fingers danced over the ring as she stared, pulling out and tucking pieces automatically, as efficient as a well-oiled machina. She wanted to figure him out too, to pull his secrets free as easily as she did a sphere's ring, to learn how he ended up with Jecht and Uncle Braska he got the scar and lost his eye and how all those things fit puzzle-piece together.
It didn't take long, just as she had promised, and when she snapped the ring around the sphere, it sprang to life, as if it had been waiting, just dying to show someone the memory it had swallowed. She cheered in triumph and yanked off her goggles before she placed it carefully on the ground and scooted away in search of a comfortable log on which to plant her butt. She hesitated as her heart tried its best to burst out of her chest cavity but then dropped onto a flat rock next to one of Auron's tree-long legs. She focused on the sphere instead of looking at him, but it was only blurs of green, green, and more green, and squinting her eyes did nothing to clarify.
"Think it's a dud?" She whispered, even though the sphere-movie was silent. She managed to glance up at the frowning Auron before inching away to prod the sphere carefully with a stick. "That sucks like Seymour's hairstyle! If it is busted, you can totally give it to Tidus."
The greens finally sharpened into leaves - The sphere was being carried through the woods! Rikku leaned forward in anticipation, and from the corner of her eye, noticed a shift in Auron's position.
"Heh," snorted a male voice from the sphere.
Auron inhaled sharply, like he'd been kicked in the gut by someone with steel-tipped boots. Her gaze flicked up at him again and she leaned closer to make sure his heart wasn't in the process of exploding - Dragging his corpse back to camp was not a happy prospect.
The voice snorted again. "I knew it."
It had taken her a second of replaying the voice through her thoughts, but recognition struck like a lightning bolt from Brother: It was Jecht!
He definitely was walking through the woods. More like creeping actually; Jecht was carefully parting branches and stepping with infinite care, like he was walking on eggs. After a thousand years, he got to where ever the jughead was going; he dropped down to his knees and held the sphere up to his face. "Found 'em," he said, then grinned wide and white. "Take a look at this!"
A blur again, then the sphere focused: someone was in the center of the little field, kicking furiously at something round.
"No way!" Rikku dared to breath, leaning forward so far that she had to grab Auron's knee to prevent herself from toppling onto her face. It couldn't be. It was as impossible to swallow as one of Tidus' dinners. "Is that?"
It was a hallucination - It had to be! But no, the red coat couldn't belong to anyone else, and when the sphere zoomed in, there was no mistaking the sour-milk expression. A younger Auron (clear, clean face with peach-pink lips and narrowed eyes - not that she noticed these sorts of thing, of course) grimaced and bent down to pick a blitzball up. He pushed his long ponytail impatiently from his face and stared at the ball, inspecting it's curves with obsessive care. After a deep grimace, he tossed it into the air, drew back one of his long legs, and kicked so hard at the ball that his leg practically blurred.
And missed.
And fell flat on his back.
Rikku clamped her hands over her mouth, but her laughter leaked out like air from a punctured tire. Jecht's booming laugh filled the sphere. "I knew it! I fucking knew it! I'm never gonna let you live this down!" He jumped up and ran, giving the sphere a mouthful of black pants. Great job directing. When the sphere cleared, an even more piss-and-vinegar expression had settled on Auron's face. "Got any last words for the sphere, champ?"
Still on the ground, Auron waved half-heartedly at the hovering sphere and then squeezed his eyes closed. "I hate you, Jecht."
At that she dissolved completely into laughter and whacked him playfully on the back. "You can laugh," she said between gasping giggles. "Come on!" She grabbed a fistful of his coat to wipe her eyes and when they were clear of laugh-tears, a site as amazing as a sphere was there to greet her: Auron was smiling, one that practically creaked it was so un-used, but there it was, like sixteen rainbows and a room full of balloons and a lightning-bolt straight to the heart. There was a flash of white teeth between his lips, and then he chuckled and rose slowly to his feet while Rikku rolled on the ground and gasped like a fish on the bottom of a boat.
"I'd forgotten about that," he said as he reached for the sphere. He held it in his palm again, jiggling it slightly as if he were weighing it. "Jecht laughed for the rest of the night. He could infuriate me like no one else. He was..."
They both frowned. There were at least a thousand things she could say - should say - but Rikku stared at her dirty knees. Being fifteen was as tragic as drowning in a puddle. If she were Lulu, she'd have a dozen speeches and blitzball-sized boobs. "Bet he did things like make you rue the day you were born. Anyway, if Tidus is half the nut case that Jecht was, the pilgrimage was probably all fireworks and over-cooked beans. And that's good, too, because I bet your life was severely lacking in both those departments." She paused to catch the butterflies of thought. "A friend like a rash and and a cure all rolled up in one."
"A friend." He repeated the word slowly, letting it melt on his tongue like a good piece of Bevelle toffee.
"Must have sucked," she said, quietly, then waved both her hands frantically. "I mean, not just sucked. Because of course it did. I mean, it must have been like pulling out pyre flies and slicing each one in half. Must have been like swallowing broken glass."
"Yes."
"That's what it was like when Home... died."
"I know."
She jumped to her feet and tossed her goggles in the air. "Can't build a new Home out of tears, you know? And hey, you know - Hey, you've got us now, right? Lose two, get six. And since I'm Al Bhed, that counts more because I'm more amazing that the average bear. You should consider yourself blessed, you know. Not just anyone gets to share a camp with the wondrous Rikku."
"Here." He held out his hand, the sphere rolling in his palm. "Take it."
"But Tidus?" Her mouth was wide enough to swallow the whole damn ocean.
He ruffled his coat like a bird settling feathers. "He's not to see it," he said at last.
"Funny how things turn out, huh?" She leapt and did a neat twirl in the air as she cheered. Lady Luck had come back with a vengeance! "Lips are sealed," she agreed quickly as she tucked it away. She hopped to her feet, spun in a neat circle, and then winked one of her spiral eyes. "'Sides, I owe you a secret."
He turned, his coat billowing out dramatically behind him. If he had his own music sphere, it'd be the perfect time for it to swell - Probably some rocking piano, maybe a wailing guitar. The man was cool.
But he also was a terrible blitzball player.
Rikku spun her goggles around her finger, then took a few long strides to catch up with him. She slid her hand into his and squeezed his fingers, giving him a grin so bright it threatened to blind him completely. His glasses slipped down his nose, and his with the startled expression on his face, he looked as young as the Auron on the sphere.
Not too bad for a night's work.
Setting: Sometime during the pilgrimage
Themes: 21) Watching, 84) Trust, 95) Secret(s)
Pairing: Auron/Rikku
Rating: K
Warnings: Nope
Summary: First part is here.
"You're really lucky I'm here," Rikku said as she peered into the swirling sphere. Auron's grunt told her exactly what his opinions on that were, and she looked up with a scowl. He might be able to scare Yunie with his impressions of constipated sandworms, but Rikku was cut from a different cloth. Like canvas to Yunie's silk. "In case you haven't noticed, this is a sphere."
"Somehow I noticed."
"Well, maybe you're not completely hopeless after all," she said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, this sphere doesn't have a player attached. Did you notice that?" She folded her legs neatly under her and dropped to the ground; her goggles she secured around her eyes and her gloves she pulled tight. Right. "If you have the training and equipment to build an impromptu player for a moldy old sphere, then knock your big smelly socks off." She searched through her bag, and when her fingers found what she'd been looking for, she grinned in triumph. "Genius machina tinker Rikku once again saves the day. Here, check this out."
He bent down over her outstretched hand to examine the ring of gold that she displayed. Even with her goggles tinting everything turquoise, she could see his face clearer than ever before. The butterflies in her stomach bounced off the walls as she studied him. He hadn't changed, not really, from the young man they all ogled at in Tidus' spheres. If he smiled once in a while, he'd probably turn their group into his own private harem.
He frowned again, thankfully not turning suddenly clairvoyant. And clearly not comprehending the magnitude of awesome. "Well?"
"Stole this baby from the theater in Luca last time I was there," she chirped back with a wink. "Er, I mean totally and legally found. So I don't need to build a new player," she added hurriedly, lest he decide to march her back to the city to give the player back. "This player's meant for a music sphere, but it shouldn't be too hard to adapt. Give me a few minutes and we'll crack this thing open."
She unclipped the bag from her belt and dumped its contents onto the ground. Once she had the right tools, she pulled the ring open, exposing the glittering innards. The gears inside would have to be re-arranged a bit, maybe a few removed, but all in all, modifying the player was a piece of cake with strawberries on top. She'd only just started adjusting the magnifier when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She shivered a bit, and when she was sure that her cheeks had faded from tomato-red to a less embarrassing shade, she looked up. "What?"
"What?"
"You're staring at me like I have a second head growing out of my shoulder blades, and while that sounds cool in theory, imagine what a pain in the neck it would be feeding it. Pain in the neck, get it?" She grinned at that, but he didn't seem particularly interesting in a discussion about extraneous pieces of anatomy.
Her smile didn't falter though, it just slid into slyness. He could deny it, but he couldn't hide it: he was curious. Who knew? Maybe he was the Legendary Guardian of Mechanics, too. He was puzzle, all right, this Auron of theirs. "Wanna watch a master at work? Here, I'll show you what I'm doing. Even a Yevonite like you will can understand."
She inched closer and put the open ring on a flat stone in front of them. He tucked his arms into his coat, rustling the sleeves as he settled down, but his dark eye was fixated on the player. "I know this kid back at Home who's a prodigy with spheres," she said absently as she fiddled with the gears. "He's too little now to do much, but I know that one day he'll be amazing. Just like me. Here, see this?"
He leaned down, close enough for her to see the stubble across his jaw, close enough that his breath ruffled her hair. "See what?"
"Huh? Oh, the ring is basically a magnifier. It's actually a fairly simple piece of machina. See this little doodad? If I switch some things around, it'll magnify the images in the sphere and not just the sounds. Sphere's are strange things, huh?" She added thoughtfully as she popped some springs out. "They've got so much in them. Like big oysters."
She ventured another look at him, her eyes lingering along the line of his throat while her heart, lungs, and stomach started a parade through her chest cavity and her banging knees provided the percussion. Damnation! He smelled like the few ocean storms that made it into the desert or maybe like a night when all her inventions worked perfectly.
Her fingers danced over the ring as she stared, pulling out and tucking pieces automatically, as efficient as a well-oiled machina. She wanted to figure him out too, to pull his secrets free as easily as she did a sphere's ring, to learn how he ended up with Jecht and Uncle Braska he got the scar and lost his eye and how all those things fit puzzle-piece together.
It didn't take long, just as she had promised, and when she snapped the ring around the sphere, it sprang to life, as if it had been waiting, just dying to show someone the memory it had swallowed. She cheered in triumph and yanked off her goggles before she placed it carefully on the ground and scooted away in search of a comfortable log on which to plant her butt. She hesitated as her heart tried its best to burst out of her chest cavity but then dropped onto a flat rock next to one of Auron's tree-long legs. She focused on the sphere instead of looking at him, but it was only blurs of green, green, and more green, and squinting her eyes did nothing to clarify.
"Think it's a dud?" She whispered, even though the sphere-movie was silent. She managed to glance up at the frowning Auron before inching away to prod the sphere carefully with a stick. "That sucks like Seymour's hairstyle! If it is busted, you can totally give it to Tidus."
The greens finally sharpened into leaves - The sphere was being carried through the woods! Rikku leaned forward in anticipation, and from the corner of her eye, noticed a shift in Auron's position.
"Heh," snorted a male voice from the sphere.
Auron inhaled sharply, like he'd been kicked in the gut by someone with steel-tipped boots. Her gaze flicked up at him again and she leaned closer to make sure his heart wasn't in the process of exploding - Dragging his corpse back to camp was not a happy prospect.
The voice snorted again. "I knew it."
It had taken her a second of replaying the voice through her thoughts, but recognition struck like a lightning bolt from Brother: It was Jecht!
He definitely was walking through the woods. More like creeping actually; Jecht was carefully parting branches and stepping with infinite care, like he was walking on eggs. After a thousand years, he got to where ever the jughead was going; he dropped down to his knees and held the sphere up to his face. "Found 'em," he said, then grinned wide and white. "Take a look at this!"
A blur again, then the sphere focused: someone was in the center of the little field, kicking furiously at something round.
"No way!" Rikku dared to breath, leaning forward so far that she had to grab Auron's knee to prevent herself from toppling onto her face. It couldn't be. It was as impossible to swallow as one of Tidus' dinners. "Is that?"
It was a hallucination - It had to be! But no, the red coat couldn't belong to anyone else, and when the sphere zoomed in, there was no mistaking the sour-milk expression. A younger Auron (clear, clean face with peach-pink lips and narrowed eyes - not that she noticed these sorts of thing, of course) grimaced and bent down to pick a blitzball up. He pushed his long ponytail impatiently from his face and stared at the ball, inspecting it's curves with obsessive care. After a deep grimace, he tossed it into the air, drew back one of his long legs, and kicked so hard at the ball that his leg practically blurred.
And missed.
And fell flat on his back.
Rikku clamped her hands over her mouth, but her laughter leaked out like air from a punctured tire. Jecht's booming laugh filled the sphere. "I knew it! I fucking knew it! I'm never gonna let you live this down!" He jumped up and ran, giving the sphere a mouthful of black pants. Great job directing. When the sphere cleared, an even more piss-and-vinegar expression had settled on Auron's face. "Got any last words for the sphere, champ?"
Still on the ground, Auron waved half-heartedly at the hovering sphere and then squeezed his eyes closed. "I hate you, Jecht."
At that she dissolved completely into laughter and whacked him playfully on the back. "You can laugh," she said between gasping giggles. "Come on!" She grabbed a fistful of his coat to wipe her eyes and when they were clear of laugh-tears, a site as amazing as a sphere was there to greet her: Auron was smiling, one that practically creaked it was so un-used, but there it was, like sixteen rainbows and a room full of balloons and a lightning-bolt straight to the heart. There was a flash of white teeth between his lips, and then he chuckled and rose slowly to his feet while Rikku rolled on the ground and gasped like a fish on the bottom of a boat.
"I'd forgotten about that," he said as he reached for the sphere. He held it in his palm again, jiggling it slightly as if he were weighing it. "Jecht laughed for the rest of the night. He could infuriate me like no one else. He was..."
They both frowned. There were at least a thousand things she could say - should say - but Rikku stared at her dirty knees. Being fifteen was as tragic as drowning in a puddle. If she were Lulu, she'd have a dozen speeches and blitzball-sized boobs. "Bet he did things like make you rue the day you were born. Anyway, if Tidus is half the nut case that Jecht was, the pilgrimage was probably all fireworks and over-cooked beans. And that's good, too, because I bet your life was severely lacking in both those departments." She paused to catch the butterflies of thought. "A friend like a rash and and a cure all rolled up in one."
"A friend." He repeated the word slowly, letting it melt on his tongue like a good piece of Bevelle toffee.
"Must have sucked," she said, quietly, then waved both her hands frantically. "I mean, not just sucked. Because of course it did. I mean, it must have been like pulling out pyre flies and slicing each one in half. Must have been like swallowing broken glass."
"Yes."
"That's what it was like when Home... died."
"I know."
She jumped to her feet and tossed her goggles in the air. "Can't build a new Home out of tears, you know? And hey, you know - Hey, you've got us now, right? Lose two, get six. And since I'm Al Bhed, that counts more because I'm more amazing that the average bear. You should consider yourself blessed, you know. Not just anyone gets to share a camp with the wondrous Rikku."
"Here." He held out his hand, the sphere rolling in his palm. "Take it."
"But Tidus?" Her mouth was wide enough to swallow the whole damn ocean.
He ruffled his coat like a bird settling feathers. "He's not to see it," he said at last.
"Funny how things turn out, huh?" She leapt and did a neat twirl in the air as she cheered. Lady Luck had come back with a vengeance! "Lips are sealed," she agreed quickly as she tucked it away. She hopped to her feet, spun in a neat circle, and then winked one of her spiral eyes. "'Sides, I owe you a secret."
He turned, his coat billowing out dramatically behind him. If he had his own music sphere, it'd be the perfect time for it to swell - Probably some rocking piano, maybe a wailing guitar. The man was cool.
But he also was a terrible blitzball player.
Rikku spun her goggles around her finger, then took a few long strides to catch up with him. She slid her hand into his and squeezed his fingers, giving him a grin so bright it threatened to blind him completely. His glasses slipped down his nose, and his with the startled expression on his face, he looked as young as the Auron on the sphere.
Not too bad for a night's work.