Desert Rose
Chapter Thirty-Two: Interruptions of the Efficient and Timely Nature
by PrettyGothGirl

All Standard Disclaimers Appy: FFX/2 is property Square Enix. Al Bhed fanon culture was compiled by me.
Summary: Love is like the rose, it only thrives with tender care and a little adversity. Chapter Thirty-Two: Sen accidentally spills the beans which leads Gippal to take drastic action and interrupts Rikku versus a whole bunch of boys.
A/N: Extreme Alternate Universe. Fanon Culture Based. Shortly, the Al Bhed are a nomadic tribal people living on Bikanel without any contact with the rest of Spira. If you want to see the source document, email or comment. Ahem, I wanted to write this chapter for a very long time. I really enjoy this chapter and I hope you all do too. Thank you XMisfitLeaderX for your lovely reviews! They are very much appreciated.
Setting Notes: A Culture of Honor. The Al Bhed don't have laws so to speak. Their actions are governed by whether or not their deeds and words match up, their integrity and fidelity. One does not insult, take advantage, harm or kill another because it will harm ones honor as well as the honor of the person one has harmed.

Gippal tightened a screw on the loom's frame. The loom was coming together nicely and with Eli's help, it might work better than the original machine, which had been lost in all the 'improvements' he and his brothers had forced upon it. A shadow fell across his work.

"Tell me what you did to get father to banish you." Sen demanded from the nominal doorway.

Gippal ran his hand behind the frame to make sure the screw was through but not poking out the back. "I was efficient."

Sen walked around the machine and into his field of vision. She stomped her foot. "Damn it, Gippal. I can't do that!"

Gippal looked up and raised his eyebrow. "You want to be banished."

Sen crossed her arms. "He's even driving mother to distraction and mother is touched by the totems for putting up with him."

Gippal snickered. "Go visit your friends."

"I've tried that!" Sen flung her arms out in an overt gesture of annoyance. "It takes an hour, tops for him to find me. Sometimes, I'm halfway to another camp and bang."

"Go further." Gippal paused. "Go visit one of your Tyibreha friends, like Rikku."

Sen sighed. "I'd need Rikku's permission and her commsphere isn't receiving still."

"I know." Gippal muttered and frowned. He focused on the machine and couldn't look at her. His chest ached for a bit. Sands, he missed talking to his girl.

Sen sighed and leaned against the workbench. "I'm sorry, Gippal."

"It's not your fault."

"That was a sympathy sorry, not an expression of guilt sorry." She repressed a grin. He always got those two mixed up.

"Oh." Gippal rubbed the frame with his thumb for the lack of anything better to do. "I miss her."

"I'd be worried if you didn't."

Gippal half smiled. "I love her." He didn't look up at Sen. He wasn't sure what her reaction would be.

"I wondered when you would realize that." She said. He risked glancing up. Sen had her lips pressed together. She smiled a little. "In fact, I think you're a little obsessed with her."

"So?"

Sen shook her head. Then what he said sunk in. "You admit to it!" She pointed at him. "You admit to being obsessed with a girl."

Gippal blinked. He really couldn't see what the big deal was. "And I repeat, so?"

Sen laughed. She covered her eyes and sank down to the floor until her knees pressed her chin. She inhaled deep breaths between whoops. She spread her fingers to look at him and then close them again, laughing harder.

Gippal stared at her in bewilderment, mouth hanging slightly open. He finally snapped his mouth shut. "Sen." He whined, picked up the nearest screw and chucked it at her. It hit her on the top of the head. "Explain."

She looked up and tears were rolling out of her eyes. "I- I- can't."

Gippal rolled his eye, picked up another screw and threw it at her. "Sen!" He picked up another one.

"It's just not you. " She stopped laughing.

He paused mid throw. Sen peered through her fingers again. His jaw dropped and he stared at her. She started laughing again. His mouth opened and closed. "What?"

"You-" She pointed at him and shook her head. She laughed harder and couldn't continue. Her hand dropped. He really didn't get it. He didn't understand what other people thought or saw of him and his habits. And this obsession with Rikku, it was a huge one eighty. Maybe you did have to be on the outside to get the joke.

Gippal scowled and debated about pouting. He crossed his arms. He didn't see where being him had anything to do with being obsessed with Rikku. Rikku was very obsessive worthy. She was bright and funny and indulged his quirks. He pouted. She was amazing in bed. He had every reason to be obsessed.

Sen inhaled deeply and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Of all the girls you've been with, you fall in love with the virgin." She giggled. "That is so not your lady's man, sleep with the experienced style."

Gippal stilled. His brain stumbled. "Huh?" Rikku had been a virgin.

Sen didn't know what caused his incomprehension. So she tried to explain. "You're a lady's man, a regular charmer and every girl you've ever been with has had experience. And not that Rikku doesn't have some experience just not-"

Gippal interrupted. "Rikku was a virgin?"

Sen stopped and stared. "You didn't know. She didn't tell you." She slapped her hand over her mouth.

Gippal wasn't really seeing Sen anymore. "That was her first time? She didn't act like it." His brow furrowed. "She didn't say anything. And isn't it supposed to hurt? She didn't act like it hurt at all."

Sen could see that he was thinking about doing something. He had that gleam in his eye. "Gippal, oh sands, I shouldn't have said anything. Look, she probably didn't want you to know and fighting, riding chocobos, sex toys, it could be anything, just not another man." He wasn't listening to her.

"I've got to go." He muttered and stood up.

"Gippal!" Sen rolled to her feet. She reached out after him.

He was already moving, walking away. "I've got to see her."

Sen stared after him. This might not end well. What had she just done?

Rikku turned in place, creating a small dip in the sand under her heels. Her hands curled around the hilts of her sai, as she tried to keep her eye on every male in the large and somewhat loose circle around her. The light of the moon reflected off their skin and hair. Outside the circle she could hear murmurs of the other villagers. Her heart pounded in her chest and she could feel her pulse in her fingers and in her ears.

This was not good.

One of the boys moved and she spun and caught his eyes. He eased back.

This was not good at all.

Another one moved, springing forward to try and grab her. Rikku danced out of the way, kicking him in the butt as he passed. The night breeze almost froze the sweat as soon as she made it on the back of her neck and under her armpits. She danced on the edge of a blade here.

A few of the villagers chuckled. Rikku wished they wouldn't. Yeah, it might be funny, but it also goaded the men on.

If one of them as much as touched her, she was going to have to kill him. She steadied her breathing. The boy shoved to his feet with his arms and retreated back to the circle. Her eyes darted between them, which one was going to try next. She knew some of them, knew their names, their occupations, had maybe shared a meal with them if their paths crossed on her journeys and their patrol routes. She knew them.

She didn't want to have to kill any of them.

So far, she hadn't had to do anything more drastic than a punch or a shove. They weren't working together. So far.

Her brain scrambled. Why were they doing this? Why all of a sudden was she the top prize in some game that she had never understood the rules of anyways? Had she become a challenge to them? She hoped the weapons master was taking notes.

Two rushed her.

Damn it, she had to maintain her central position. She sheathed her sai and flipped to her hands. She executed a rotating kick with both feet that managed to hit both of them. They stumbled back and still spinning she shifted down, swinging one leg out and catching one behind his ankles making him fall. The other recovered in time for her to swing up with both legs and use her feet to push him back in the chest.

She stood up and pulled her sai again and put them in a throwing position.

"You know," a familiar and welcome voice drawled from behind the circle. "I don't think she wants to be touched."

Rikku almost sobbed with relief. Gippal! She took a few steps back so she could keep her sai and her eyes on both downed boys. "Get back." She hissed.

"Gippal." Keyakku said loud enough for everyone to hear.

The boys scrambled to their feet and retreated back to the circle. Rikku flipped her blades to lie along her arms and spun slowly until she found him. She let out a long breath and nodded at him.

Gippal nodded back.

Leather creaked behind her, she spun, rotating one blade out and met the boy's eyes that had been trying to sneak up on her.

Gippal snorted. "Bad idea. Positively bad idea."

Rikku took a step backwards towards Gippal's voice.

"Stay out of this." One of the boys said, his voice low and filled with menace.

Rikku took another step back.

Gippal moved between the two boys in the circle. He looked around, mentally counting the boys and coming to a few conclusions that he didn't at all like. "I don't think so." He curled his lip. "Now I see why it was so easy for me to make it across the border. So many men leaving their duties to try and take one Tyibreha."

Silence fell over the village, and broke with Cid's quiet monologue of curses.

Rikku took another step back and his arm curled around her. Warmth radiated off him and she finally allowed herself to shiver because of the night's cold. If she was asked, that was the excuse she was going to maintain, never fear.

But what was Gippal doing here? "Gippal." She murmured. Maybe it didn't matter. She just wanted to go, to get away for the moment. Run away and not return for hours, days, years.

Some perverse sense of humor overtook him. He leaned his head down to the level of her ear. "I want to hear you say it." It was probably the only time he would be able to get her to say something so trashy and awful.

Her eyes widened. Say it? Say what? It didn't help that the timbre of his voice made tingles run down her spine to pool at the bottom of her back. "Wha-"

"Come on. Ta-"

Her brain switched gears before he could finish. And it automatically filled in the rest of the sentence. 'Take me, take me now.' Her inner voice moaned in seductive tones. Blood rushed to her cheeks and ears. "Gippal!" She hissed. She stomped on his foot and had the pleasure of hearing him yelp. "Now is not the time!"

He chuckled. "Sorry." He murmured.

"You are not." She murmured back.

He snorted and couldn't stop his snickers. "No. I'm really not."

"Can we just go?" She whispered. It came out faint even to her ears.

He sobered. "Yeah."

"You can't." One of the boys challenged him.

Gippal's gun was pointed at the nearest one. "I have one armful of very willing girl and a gun that says I absolutely positively can." He tilted his head. "Can you say that?"

Cid stepped in. "Let them go."

"But-" Anikki stepped in front of his father.

"Are you defying me son?" Cid's voice turned low.

Anikki took a step back, his eyes widening. "No."

Cid nodded. "They've won, now let them leave."

Rikku sagged in relief. Gippal nuzzled the top of her head, holstering his gun and she sheathed her sai. "Come on," he murmured and they turned. They walked out of the circle, Rikku tucked into Gippal's side, her head leaning against his shoulder. The boys and villagers parted to let them pass. They had no choice but to do otherwise.

Cid waited. He looked calm. Under the surface, he seethed. A hover started and took off. The boys started to move. "Sit down!" He shouted.

Everyone sat.

Satisfaction curled in Cid's chest. "Blappa, assign a guard to these brats and work up a patrol unit for the Thunderbird border. Send it out immediately. Everyone else, back to bed." He paused. "As for you boys, I'll deal with you in the morning." He turned on his heel and stomped away.

The boys stared at each other with wide eyes across their circle. It was going to be a long wait until dawn.

For the moment, Gippal reserved judgment of what had just happened until he knew the full story, logic. His gut churned under Rikku's clasped hands as she cuddled up against his back. Her head pressed against his neck and shoulder. She shivered against him. Whatever had happened scared his girl. People and things that scared his girl were to be killed by him. That was the way it worked. It was just the way it was supposed to be. His gut still churned though. His jaw tightened. Whoever had scared Rikku was going to pay.

He drove with careful precision to the nearest oasis and stopped the bike. He shut it off. Neither of them moved for several minutes.

Finally he moved. He twisted at the waist, pulled one leg over the side and lifted his arm so he could put it around her. "Come on, let's go inside sweetheart." He murmured. She nodded against his chest. He picked her up and walked them inside the oasis and sat down near the shore. Gippal wiped her tears away with his thumb. "What happened?"

She inhaled raggedly. "A girl's raid, I think," she looked up at him, her eyes too wide for her face, "But they came just for me."

He had never heard of a raid for just one person. It went against the entire spirit of those types of raids. He frowned and stroked her back. "I don't get it."

"I don't either." She shook her head. "I was never important to them before you." She said. Anger churned in his gut over that slight to his girl. "And I told Pops that the next time they tried to take me they'd be dead not in pain, just-"

He stilled and his voice turned low and calm. "You said what?"

She blinked and looked up at him. "I told you before, that I'd kill anyone who would try to take me."

His hand clenched on her back. "I didn't think you were serious."

"I meant it at the time, but I just didn't think-"

"That's right," he hissed. "You didn't think."

"I know that!" She shouted. She leaned back away from him.

"You set yourself up as a challenge, now every boy is going to try and take you every single raid." He wanted to shake her. "All because you opened your mouth and gave an ultimatum with deadly consequences. They'll try just to see if you go through with it."

"And I will. I don't want to and won't want to but I will." Tears pooled at the bottom of Rikku's eyes. "I didn't believe they'd try again." She finished in a whisper.

"You humiliated them." Gippal had a hard time talking through his clenched teeth. He wasn't sure how he was managing it.

"Of course I humiliated them. They humiliated me!" She shoved away from him and ended up on the sand. "Of course, you wouldn't understand that." Her voice tightened and she turned her head away, crossing her arms. "Maybe I reduced myself to their level. Tit for tat over and done with, but if stupid male pride is going to get in the way, if they manage to get a hold of me, I will kill them." She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, tears sliding down her cheeks. "I'll regret it later. But I'll do it now." Her eyes flew open. "I hate that bitch." She whispered. "She turns me about and twists me all up forcing me to say things I don't mean and don't think the consequences through enough. And I can't afford that." She pounded her thigh with her fist. "Damn her."

Gippal stared at her. He'd been dating her for months and he still didn't really know her. He tried to think about it from her point of view. Every raid being left behind, staring after them as they ran away with all the other girls. It had to hurt and after a while, that hurt had to turn to anger, to a fierce pride that she was never taken and never would be taken by them because she was better than they were. Of course she'd fight, of course she'd spurn them and humiliate them. Because once they did start trying, it was for all the wrong reasons. He sighed and tried to relax everything. What she'd said was said, there was no taking it back. And in reality, there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn't a Phoenix. That bit of logic bled the last of his anger away. Besides, she'd be more pissed if he ever insinuated she couldn't take care of herself. "Nhadala?" He asked, hoping it was the right bitch.

"Yes."

"She pushed you."

Rikku nodded, still staring across the oasis. "After the last girl's raid, the one I ran away from."

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his lap, back to his chest. "She has problems."

"And now I have problems." Rikku muttered and leaned her head back against his shoulder. She closed her eyes and reveled in his warmth.

He snorted. "I think Cid seemed pretty pissed about the whole thing."

"Oh disasterrific." Rikku muttered.

"He's right to be though. I'd be pretty pissed too if I was a Chieftain."

"About what?" Her lips curved up into a smile, but her eyes remained closed. It revealed her dimples and he wanted to kiss her.

"Oh everything. My daughter, the patrol, the stupidity of young men, the other girls, but primarily about my daughter." He rubbed his cheek on her hair.

Rikku giggled.

They sat like that for a while as the moon dipped lower in the sky, thinking separate thoughts. Gippal finally decided to broach the subject that had brought him there in the first place.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Her eyes opened. "What?"

He rubbed her stomach. "That it was your first time."

She sighed. "Gippal, you knew it was my first raid, Aasta opened her big mouth, remember."

"No. Not that. Our first time being your first time," He said. She still didn't look like she got it. "Having sex."

Her face cleared. "Oh."

"I would have been more gentle and romantic and-"

She raised a hand and put a finger on his lips silencing him. She turned. "I didn't want gentle at the time. I didn't want it planned or staged or any elaborate seduction. I wanted it to be real, passionate, just the two of us without control." Her lashes lowered. "You've made up for the lack of romance later."

"But-" He frowned. "Didn't it hurt?"

She lied with a straight face. "I fell on a fencepost as a child."

"Oh." He couldn't think of what else to say.

Rikku couldn't keep it up. She giggled. His brow furrowed and she broke into a fit of laughter, leaning her forehead against his chest. "You- believed me." Her shoulders shook.

He scowled. "Rikku." He poked her side.

She looked up and wiped her eyes. "I have sex toys." She smirked. "Though none as big as you." It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but color rose to her cheeks.

"Damn." He whispered. "Tyibreha are naughty."

Rikku flushed and batted at his shoulder. "I didn't let the other girls use them on me. Sands, Gippal."

Gippal groaned. "I wasn't thinking that, but-" He paused and leered at her. "You are naughtier than I am if you were."

"Why you!" She shoved his shoulders and pushed him back into the sand.

He grinned up at her. "No wonder you knew what I was going to say with the dirty talk. What type of books do you read?"

"Evidently the same ones you do." Rikku said tartly. "You were the one who wanted me to say it in the first place." She made her voice breathy and as exaggerated seductive as possible. "Oh Gippal, take me, take me now."

He blinked. "That's just not right." He said. She laughed and it turned into a squeak as he rolled them over. "I won't let that stop me though." He said before he pressed his lips to hers.

She wrapped her hands around his head, sliding her fingers through his hair. Their lips met and parted over and over again. He moaned, pulling away slowly. "I missed you." He whispered.

"Me too." She cupped his cheek. He turned his head and kissed her palm. She blinked rapidly. "Gippal, did we just have our first fight?"

"Hmm," He stared down at her, why was this relevant now? "I think so."

"Wow. Weird." She propped her body up with her elbows and kissed his chin. "I'm sorry for making you mad."

He coughed and tried not to laugh. He straightened his face. "I'm sorry for not thinking about your side of it before I got mad." He brushed his lips across hers.

"Good. Can we get back to kissing and cuddling now?"

He grinned. "Absolutely, positively."

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