He smelled of smoke, which would've struck me as kind of weird, since we hadn't set a fire, but it wasn't a woodsmoke smell. It was deeper, like fire cooking the water out of clay -- it was a peat smoke smell, smooth and rough, almost musty-sweet like tea, but tea brewed with whiskey-scotch. He smelled like care and arrogance and like something inside of him was a little broken where it'd healed all crooked-wrong a long time ago and he'd either never noticed or never felt it worth his time to investigate.

I dunno, maybe you've met men like that. My family is full of them, with Pops topping the list. Got anything other than a head wound or a gut wound? Then leave the bastard alone. It'd heal up fine on its own. That kind of thinking is why Pop's left pinky finger is permanently crooked. It said how-do-you-do-good-morning with a fanbelt and Pops 'let nature take its course' which really means 'don't bother with it so it's sure to heal more bent up than a speeder running on vodka.' Still, nobody's got a finger bent up quite like my Pops, and I guess I've got to love him for it. You can't do anything else with a man like that, since he never listens to your good advice, even when you explain it very carefully with a shovel. They just aren't the advice taking type.

With Auron, it was something different than just a finger healed up so it stuck out funny. It was almost as if he'd fallen and broken something inside of him and it hadn't healed back quite the way it had been before. Maybe it'd been Sin and Jecht and Uncle Braska summoning himself dead -- and for nothing -- that had fractured him along his fault lines so when the bone and flesh knit back together, it did not do so properly. Every once in a while it would feel almost like he had rheumatoid arthritis in his heart or his soul or his kidneys -- some place important -- and working it was like pulling old, sore muscles until it felt like Bahamut doing the Old Bevelle Shuffle along your spine and he couldn't be bothered.

Still, he smelled good, like rice only starting to burn after all of the water's boiled out. It wasn't lilacs or daffodils or even cinnamon spiced wine like Rin. It wouldn't have been what I'd ordered for my plate at the Luca Pick n' Pay, but it was nice and I liked it, which was a little startling by itself, like suddenly discovering you want seconds of liver and onions and brussel sprouts. Maybe he was an acquired taste and I was just finally starting to acquire. Maybe I was just slowly going nutso. After all, it's not natural for a girl to suddenly decide she likes brussel sprouts.

But then, if I didn't like brussel sprouts I had picked a pretty stupid place to sleep -- my nose scrunched up between his shoulder blades and drinking up that whiskey-tea scent, my knees bent against the small of his back, one hand splayed out over his ribs reading the slow rise and fall of his chest, the other fisted up tight and pulling his gi all out of shape and up under my chin. This is not the kind of position you get into unless you -like- brussel sprouts.

Sleeping next to him was like bedding down with a bear -- and here's where I make the crack about their similar temperament. He was massive, and sleepy-cross, I imagined, but he was also as warm as milk set over a fire, and strangely, equally comforting. His back made a safe little hollow on that cold, naked stairway. He was a bear, without doubt, but he was a bear who'd maul anything or anyone crazy enough to tangle with him -- or with the scrabbily mess of arms, legs, and blonde at his back. Ding ding ding. You guessed it -- that was me.

Lying there in the dark, not knowing if it was day or night, not knowing how far down into Spira's belly we'd crawled, not knowing how far we still had to go, it was comforting just to be still and listen to his breathing, slow and even like a metronome measuring out the minutes, almost like he was breathing to pass the time more than breathing to live. My breathing was always quick and short, even when I was still, like all the air was racing adrenaline pumped into my lungs and then racing right back out. Pops always said I breathed like a wild thing -- heck, maybe I breathe like a wild asthmatic.

In the dark, it was easy to be still and listen. The Hymn had stolen away from us at some point on our march. When exactly neither of us could say, like it had just slipped away from our brains and ears, leaving us hollow and empty, standing open like confessionals on some kind of national beer drinking holiday. In the deafening silence that followed us, it was easy to be still, the two of us the only sound in the absolute quiet, like the pulse of the world. His breathing, my breathing, my heartbeat like a chocobo in a wheel, running hard and fast and going nowhere, then -- very soft -- the whisper thin sound of wings on nothing, beating like his heart -- slow and steady -- then claws on claws like raw bone against steel and I could hear the doomchant in my heart, the words dancing out like colored floss from a spool long before I stalled the time to open my eyes and see it, and I was on my belly over his chest, like a penguin on ice as I pulled the pistol from its holster and it came away oil slick, the way a gun sweats. It took two shots, and then I laid still on his chest, panting.

Pops always said, it doesn't matter how hard you wallop something -- if you shoot it in the eye, it's prob'ly gonna die.

"I was waiting to see if it would strike," he said calmly, "If it had come low, I would've taken it."

There was no reproach there, no pissiness because I'd taken his kill, no arrogance, just simple explanation. It was like him.

"It was going to doomchant," I said, cradling the pistol against my chest, hammer back, safety off, like it was the most dangerous baby in the world. He let his hand rest against the small of my back for a bare moment, then he hitched me up by my belt again, rolling out from under me so I slid off of him the way water rolls off a duck's back. He stretched to get my side slung holster and then offered it to me by the steel rivet-worked belt.

"Then I'm glad you're a good shot."

The Shape of His Heart

by Gabi-hime (gabihime at gmail dot com)

Chapter Three: Being the Kicker to Hold

Hold on, back up. I'm sure you want to know exactly how it is that I ended up in pretty intimate contact with brussel sprouts, since I've spent most of the storytelling so far harping on how much they're not my type. I'm more of a butterhead lettuce girl myself, or desert endive at least -- thank you Rin. Brussel sprouts are not my kind of blitzball game. Maybe I needed to check myself into the Djose home for the criminally self-destructive.

Anyway, after he'd laid the bombshell on me that he could not possibly be the Auron in the sphere because he'd never -been here- before -- which I was inclined to believe, whackadoo as it sounded, since this staircase was not something you could just close your eyes and happily forget (or even unhappily forget, really) -- I'd remembered that I'd found two spheres in the upper caves before the National Stairwell Classic began, and I hadn't had the time or inclination to check them yet. Fighting varunas all day will do that to a girl.

With the game afoot and a mystery to solve, I felt that the best course of action was to muddy up the waters even more. Sure enough, in starring roles on both the other spheres were Braska, Jecht, and Old Reliable, with a supporting cast of dinner in the first one and the mention of poker in the second one. Even in the watery spherelight, this time it was clear that it was them and they were them, no questions. I had never seen better Braska, Jecht, and Auron impersonators. Slow and Smug even had that sharpish frown that he always has in all of the recordings from his first pilgrimage, like he's trying to out-severe a falcon.

If that wasn't Auron, and by personal testimony supported by my gut it couldn't have been, then maybe it was his evil twin brother. Or his good twin brother, go figure. I always have a hard time telling with Auron. I think maybe Auron has a hard time telling with Auron.

Whether or not Ol' Dark and Musty had an evil twin, I knew for sure that Uncle Braska hadn't, and I feel pretty sure that Tidus would've mentioned having an evil identical uncle also named Jecht. That's not the kind of thing you neglect to tell a co-conspirator. Heck, it would've blown well my brother's name is Brother out of the water. It's not, really, so you know. It's Yhtan. It means 'strong firstborn son' in Al Bhed. Like anybody would ever call him that.

And it wasn't like he was all hidey-hole secretive about the spheres or what was on them. That would've drawn me like a cat after milk, bound and determined to unravel his secrets so then I could maybe play cat's cradle with them to pass the time. No, he seemed honestly baffled, and that's what really threw me. I didn't know what was going on and we were on that spine of a staircase in the cold and the dark, our spherecast shadows milky-soft around the edges and he told me again that he'd never been here before, and even though it contradicted sense, I believed him, and that made all the little hairs along my neck stand up straight and do the twist.

I didn't know what to think, and Pops always says that when you don't know what to think, it's important to do. Since I doubted Auron wanted me pawing all over his sword with my kit, cramming on custom after custom just for neurotic want of something to do with my hands, I turned my attention to that old jammed piece of junk gun I'd picked up for cheap back at Rin's Macalania.

Somebody must have fished it out of the sea because it had about seventy three layers of gunk on it, all crusted over with shell white calcium deposits. I didn't even know if there was enough of the actual gun proper left of it to even shoot, but it gave me something to do, cleaning it up, while Auron stared alternately at me and then the smoky, silent spheres that were laid out in a little row like eggs in a nest, as if staring at them hard would make them stand up and confess their hoax.

One dizzy vial of acid later, most of the calcium was gone and I was left with the matte steel of the gunmetal black. Without all that crap on it, it was really a pretty piece -- obviously a showy pistol, once upon a time. It had gold lacework inlay over the chamber that curled up in a delicate filligree bower up the shaft and crested over the hammer, and the grip was also inlaid, although the gold had gone to a dull gray-brassy from age and lack of care. I'd see to that once I'd tinkered with the inside. Like Pops always says: It don't matter how shiny your speeder skiff is if it doesn't go.

I think some weird kind of snail must've crawled up inside the barrel and set up house-keeping at some point. There was a lot of weird chunky build-up in there, and I almost wondered if it was even worth trying to dig out, but then I looked up and caught his eye, heavy on me like bent, rusty iron, and I knew I couldn't just throw it down and whine that it was too hard. I had gotten to the point where I wanted Auron to start looking up to me for the things I could do, or at least, you know, start noticing the things I could do, and I'll bet my left leg and arm besides that I'm the best Synthsmith the Al Bhed have ever had. This was just a matter of pride and had nothing to do with brussel sprouts. Or at least, that's what I kept telling myself.

Fecrehk fuh'd dinh dra cgo knaah. Thanks Pops. Except not. Shut up.

So I fished out my mallet and the thinnest drill chisel I had and set to work cleaning out the barrel. It wasn't easy work, getting all that junk out of the barrel's inset spiral besides, but I didn't have anything else to do other than play a rousing game of Stare at Auron's Arms Blankly Until He Says Something About It, which I was kind of playing on and off anyway. He still hadn't said anything. Maybe he thought I was just really impressed with the fretwork on his bracer. I kind of was, at that. I'd put it there myself.

Once the barrel was clean, I pulled the hammer back and started fooling around with the firing pin, and that's when I nearly shot my foot off. Really, I just ploughed a furrow sharp through the stone of the step and chipped a bit of it off as the slug buried itself in the bitumen like it thought it was finally going home, but I may as well have nearly shot my foot off from how far I jumped into the air, squeaking like a mouse sucked into an engine outtake.

Now, I know how to handle a firearm. I'm Al Bhed and the first pistol I ever held kicked so hard that my two-year-old butt was always hitting the floor, and you can be sure that Pops never gave me anything without spending a few years days lecturing me on which end you point at a fiend and where the boom comes out and how the safety works. I was sure I was safe digging around the innards of that gun because I was positive it wasn't loaded, or if it was, it couldn't be dangerous because it'd lain at the bottom of the ocean for maybe a thousand years plus. Silly me. I guess they really don't make 'em like they used to.

Well, whatever it'd shot, it couldn't possibly have been a live bullet. For his credit, Auron didn't growl out anything kin to watch where you point that thing, girl. He just raised his eyebrow and I swear he smirked, although he was hard to read in the spherelight behind that collar. He might've been making faces at me forever and I wouldn't have known the difference. Maybe that's what he did to pass the time.

I cocked the gun again and then pointed it sure and steady down the shaft of the stairwell and then played at the trigger again and it kicked, not hard, but enough to know from the push and the snappish flash of light that it had spit something out of the barrel. The ricochet came some heavy seconds later, faint and far off, echoing somewhere down in the dark and making my stomach sink with the implication of exactly how far we still had to go before getting off this horrid spiral.

"Well," he said practically, "It shoots."

And it did, but I wasn't sure why and I wasn't sure how, but those were both things I was bound and determined to find out. Pops always says that you should never trust anything you can't take apart and put back together again so that it works reasonably well in a minute flat. Of course, I never have known for sure exactly what Pops means by 'reasonably well.' Maybe it's more like 'so it works and don't blow up -- right off.'

So with that in mind, I took it apart piece by piece until I had a picture of exactly how it worked. For being older than Auron's grandad's great uncle, it was still pretty slick inside. It just needed a little oil and a couple of ball bearings. Cleaned out and reassembled, it unjammed itself and as soon as I cocked the hammer again, all that lacework over the chamber started to spin and hum up the air with warmth and a little static, and suddenly I knew how that gun had managed to have live ammunition in it past a thousand years of rot twenty thousand leagues under the sea.

It was pulling it out of the air.

I had found a double action siphon revolver or my name wasn't Rikku Cidolphus -- which it is, by the way. Pops hates his full name.

It was a phenomenal find and I knew nobody'd ever taken the time to really look at it or Rin'd have never let it go -- even in the shape it was in -- for less than a thousand gil. I wonder if Auron would let me bet my new gun against the deed for my leg --

Sheeze. I needed to hide the can opener for that case of worms before I dug myself in so deep that I never saw the sun again.

Anyway, my pistol was pulling ambient magic out of the air, compressing it into respectable bullets, then slamming it out, fast as fire. I knew people who'd've traded both their legs for a siphon revolver. My luck? It was looking up. Way more up than it had been, at least.

I told Auron as much and he made some throaty noise, talkative as ever. I guess he was happy for me. I could've jumped up and danced a jig, inherent weirdness of the evening aside. Getting that gun working went a long way towards making me feel not so much like I'd just crashed my first speeder into a kindergarten picnic with a high body count resulting. It made it easier to sideline that weird feeling in my stomach that had crawled there when he'd said, serious as a maester: that's not -me-.

It shunted off some of the panic that was creeping in from being deep in this hole and down that spiral. I'd been underground before, plenty of times, underground and underwater and sometimes both, in the Cavern of the Fayth and deep inside the guts of Bevelle. Heck, I grew up in the Sand Tunnels of Home, underground or half-underground Burning Bikanel and Scorched Sanubia most of the time.

But this was a different kind of underneath, one that curled up in your bones, pushing the marrow out until there was nothing left inside. It wasn't just dark and damp and inhospitable, it was like some part of the darkness was eating at me when I let my guard down, limp and tired. I like wide open spaces and the big blue sky, but usually I'm not afraid of the dark. I was afraid of this dark, like I was still a little kid and there was a monster in the closet and it was looking right at me and no matter how many times I laid myself down to sleep, it was going to eat me and I'd go down between slavering jaws and that would be that. I didn't even have the reassuring satisfaction that the gruesome would probably eat Brother first.

I shivered and closed my eyes and hoped that Auron wasn't watching me quiver like gelatin at the the patchy blackness at the corners of my vision where the spherelight wouldn't catch and I just knew it could see me. I eased the hammer forward on the pistol and then oiled it up slick before sliding it into the holster. I'd have rather kept it cocked, but I really didn't want to have to deal with the look Auron would give me if I accidentally shot him or something.

With my gun holstered and what there was to be had of my dinner in my tummy, I didn't have much else to do but bed down for the night. Auron had already moved up a step or two and settled, back against the wall, face to the dark, one knee bent underneath him. His nihontou was at his leg, his left arm slung in his gi, and he was slouched, his eye closed. Well, night night to you too, buddy, and thanks for the thought.

I myself wasn't much for sleeping sitting up -- it's bad for your back, not that sleeping on a stairway was going to do much for me -- so I unrolled my sleeping roll and skin and then flopped over on it and sighed the sigh of one who has far too little in the way of padding to shield her from the lumpy ground. I propped my chin up on my hands and studied Old Red and found that he wasn't quite asleep yet, because his eye was open again and trained steadily on me. Yippy skippy. Maybe I was going to get a bedtime story. Little Red Auronhood or something.

"You're not going to sleep like that," he said, and it wasn't a question at all, just a statement of fact.

Sleep like how? On my belly? On my bedroll? Wearing clothes? Wishful thinking there. I don't like brussel sprouts. I swear.

"Yes?" I tried, hoping this was the right answer and knowing it wasn't really, no matter what he'd meant by his query. You don't say you're not going to sleep like that and expect yes for an answer.

He grunted wordlessly and stood, shaking out his gi and crossing the space to where I'd curled.

"Scoot," he ordered.

"Yes, boss," I stuck my tongue out, but I scooted just the same, bedroll and all. He immediately dropped, effectively fencing me in from the sheer drop-off only a foot away.

"Hey!" I complained, "I'm not going to roll off the staircase." I wasn't two. I could sleep safely by myself. Probably.

"I'm not going to take that chance," he said evenly and clearly brooked no further argument from me, "If you did fall, I would have to climb all the way to the bottom of this shaft and scrape whatever was left of you off the stone. Yuna wouldn't be satisfied any other way."

"Gee thanks a whole bunch, partner," I rolled my eyes and flopped back over, "It's nice to know you care."

He grunted again and I settled in. The staircase was so narrow that I could either choose to snuggle against the cold, drippy wall or snuggle against Auron. There were no other options, certainly none that didn't involve snuggling of some kind. I bet you can guess which one I picked. Well, don't expect a reward for guessing, because I already told you and everything.

It was really kind of nice, having him there. I could almost not feel those glowing yellow eyes on my back. Almost, but not quite. I don't know what's wrong with me. I fight monsters for a living, you know? They don't scare me any more. Crap like Anima scares me. I shivered again, ducking my face against his back and curling up inside my skin. He didn't shrug me off or tell me I smelled like peas or anything, so I guess he didn't mind overly much.

"Are you cold?" he asked, and I could only imagine it was because of my shivering.

I wasn't about to admit that I was afraid of the dark. Besides, maybe he'd give me his coat or something. Then I could spend my peaceful evening hours going through his pockets while he dozed. Talk about relaxation. Found: one deed for the right leg, hip to ankle, of Rikku Cidolphus. Cha-ching.

"A little," I said, and tried to sound pitiful. It wasn't that hard. I was jumping at shadows. I -was- pretty pitiful.

"Then just be still. You'll warm up eventually," he said, very helpfully.

Yeah, thanks Auron. You always know just what to say to make a girl feel better.

If you're entertaining visions of me waking up cradled in his arms, my head tucked under his chin and him still sound asleep, having given in to a subconscious need -- not that -I- had been, mind you -- then you may as well not hold your breath, because outside of the occasional fiend that we always effectively dispatched between the two of us, he slept like a rock and didn't move an inch. I didn't even feel like trying to loot his pockets while he slept. It was that kind of night.

And it was that kind of morning; tough dried meat gummed until it was half palatable (and, do the math, half not) and then me worrying over what we were going to eat when that ran out, small sips of water from our canteens, both rationing already without the words actually passing between us, because we'd both heard the distant ricochet of that bullet. I'm desert born and seafaring. Rationing water is nothing new to me, but it's never something that cheers me up.

With a pistol on my hip that was a tad more effective at bringing down fiends, given the terrain, I folded Iron Grip away in my pack and pretty much gave up on any fiend hunting I might have earlier been counting on to get myself in good with the rest of our dance party. Anyway, if we managed to bring back word of lost aeons? I think that'd pretty surely blow a couple of captured float-eyes out of the water. Why Rikku, you sank my battleship. You betcha I did, or would, or something, once we got out of this horrible place.

Lightsphere settled onto my goggles again and the other four tucked into my bag, there wasn't much of a camp left to pack up. The only thing we had to look forward to was an endless succession of steep, narrow steps turning in on themselves Coriolis style. If that bullet gave any indication, then we'd be going down these stairs for a while. He went first and I followed, a few steps behind so I'd be sure to be shooting over his head when we encountered fiends. Two shots, three shots, one shot, I was taking them down long before they got close enough for him to strike. I was a good shot, legs shoulder width apart, arms steady as the Rock of Mi'hen, sighting down the barrel. I shot the throats out of varunas before they could doomchant, their smoky lights spinning off in a carnival glow after they took another slug between the eyes. My bullets went through spirits slow like jello, but they did their damage just the same, carving out wormtrails inside that I could watch spark then ignite, blooming fire inside that ate up their gelatin filling.

Once in the haze we even caught the slow bobbing glow of a lantern, and without thinking, I shot down the stairs and heard the bullet hit soft flesh with a satisfying sink, but then the tonberry screamed and I staggered down under the weight of the karmic backlash, every fiendkill I'd ever made slamming into me all at once, like someone had kicked the backs of my knees until I fell forward on them, skinned and in supplication. Auron took it then, a strike down the center that clove the avocado-soft flesh and the lantern besides. Then he was there, forcing potion down my throat until I coughed and sputtered.

"Next time," he said levelly, shouldering his sword, "Let me take the tonberries."

And I didn't fight him over it. I didn't want to, really. Karmic debt was hard to pay when it came out of your own skin. If he wanted to play the stoic, suffering hero, then I'd let him. He was the one who got to have Legendary Guardian tacked on before his name anyhow. The most I got was something like Rikku Don'ttakethatapart. It just doesn't have the same kind of ring to it.

Without any way to tell time, we marked the day off through varunas and spirits and tonberries and float eyes, skewered and spatula flipped by Auron's sword or riddled up with bullets courtesy of me. Going at a steady march, we covered a lot of ground, and although I tried to keep count of the number of stairs we descended, I always lost tally around five thousand or so. I had given up skipping down the stairs. Everything was too heavy down here, even the air. If he noticed I'd stopped being a Jolly Jessie, he never said anything about it and stayed as silent as a tomb. Our conversations died before they were even born, still and dry on my lips because down here there was just no use trying.

Sometimes I felt over a thousand years old and I wanted to sob and sob and I didn't know why, and always always always always I could feel those eyes on me, even if I couldn't see them.

When we stopped for lunch, he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed and I was grateful for even that little bit of human contact. I felt so terribly alone that I wanted to get as close as I could to him and then burrow inside his skin and live there in the warmth, so there wasn't a Rikku left or an Auron, just a mixed up amalgam Auronrikku, and I wouldn't be alone in the cold here any more, and I wouldn't feel those eyes. He squeezed my shoulder again and then let his hand drop like snow and I ate some more too-salty jerky.

That night we camped beside another sphere recess, and I tried every sphere we had with a quiet kind of desperation. None of them did anything. I was not surprised. After dinner, I got out my synthkit to tinker on my gun a little more to keep my eyes from the crawling darkness that was creeping all around me and inside my head, and I made a few bad jokes that his mouth quirked at -- not quite a smile. I think we were both beyond smiling, although I was still trying so hard.

I dropped a screw and it bounced down a few steps before I lunged after it, knowing I had no spare to replace it. Fortune smiled upon me and I found it in a jagged edged furrow cut into the stone and suddenly I got very very still.

Carefully, I picked the screw out of the crevice and as I did my fingertips brushed the smooth compacted metal of the buried slug.

"Auron," I said softly, all pitiful trembly like the littlest kid -- I still believe in Father Yule, I do, I do, "We were here before. We've been going in circles."

There was nothing from him, just silence, cold, soft silence, and then very carefully came the two quiet, even words that gutted me neck to navel.

"I know."

----

Okay, I cleaned up this chapter so now it doesn't sound like Black Tango wrote it. Thank you again, all my fantabulous readers, and I swear to god I am not seriously rewriting All Dogs Go to Heaven at THIS EXACT MOMENT XD.

Guaranteeing 1000 percent Grade A Original Content every chapter,

Love,

Gabs