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fanfic: final fantasy x/x-2 ficbits

The Illusion of Honorable Intentions (801 words)
Rikku/Wakka - PG/worksafe
The power of love.

It wasn't perfect, by any means, but he didn't think he could fix it, fix her, fix himself, fix them. He thought this every time they fought about dead gods (they had killed him together) and the proper way to show respect (the old ways stuck even if the teachings were gone) and even the fact he wouldn't use machina (it doesn't feel right for him).

She would bristle at him and poke at all his weak places. He would get angry and insult her, and oh, how easily he used racism as a weapon because he knew it hurt her more than anything else. It hurt her (he was lying) and hated the stupid pieces of metal (when he actually thought they were sort of cool) and hated how she could be more excited over salvage than him (he hadn't seen her in three weeks and she was distant).

It never lasted; even with a hot temper and angry words and he would always go to her. He never thought of it as giving in when he would go in her hut and slide in like they hadn't fought. He wondered if this was what love was like, always feeling so much. He would press her down and rub away the moisture on her face and apologize over and over. Then she would swallow him up, all hot mouth and sneaky hands. It was so easy to slip into her, in more ways than one, and he sometimes marveled even as her hands scraped down his back that he could feel so much at once. When she would cry out his name, broken and trembling but complete at the same time, he would swear to never drive her away.

It never lasted; they would fight the next day, like they were lifelong enemies. Yuna would sigh and leave them alone and it would be hissed insults and hard glares and nothing like the wild feeling of her around him. It was more like disgust, and he thought it was funny what both of them wanted was respect for what they thought was right but neither of them would give it.

It was a gruesome dance.

She stayed away longer the next time, one month into two, two into three and he started to worry. He refused to ask, decided to ask, talked himself out of asking and finally Yuna took pity on him and told him she wasn't coming back.

It didn't feel right to him, for it to end so quietly, not with Rikku.

She had always come to him before, always since the end of the journey that had tangled them together. He thought about that and he knew it meant something but he wasn't seeing it, blinded by anger and frustration and wanting her, too, all smooth skin rocking against him that he had taken for granted.

So he found her, in dry sands he hadn't liked the first time he had seen them, greasy with oil of a machina that looked like it would never run again. She didn't say anything when she saw him; she just stared like he was an illusion. And, he thought bitterly, maybe he had been for her, an illusion of something she thought she wanted but then had changed her mind when it became too much work.

He said, I'm sorry.

Okay, she replied, and then there were tears and he hadn't liked them because he didn't know how to deal with them. Angry tears, sad tears, happy tears, all wrapped up together, leaving tracks on her cheeks in the black smudges. She looked bruised and it hurt him, every not-bruise one probably representing one he had caused with terrible words.

It didn't last; her tears ended and he wrapped his arms around her as she battered at him, raging like she never had before. And when she was finally calm, he had a bruised jaw and a black eye and her hands on him and his on her and he wasn't letting go ever again.

It wasn't perfect, by any means, but he didn't need fix it anymore because he was careful not to break it. He thought this every time they almost fought about something, and he would take a deep breath and hug her, breath her in, remind himself what it was like without her, and they learned not to fight about dead gods (they're dead, dead, totally dead, they don't matter) and the proper way to show respect (mind-blowing sex against the wall of the Besaid temple) and the fact that he would never love machina like she did, but that was okay (he loved her too much to give much to anything else).