Title: Worthwhile

Author: Sandra

Rating: PG

Author's Note: Yay, childish!

"A shortcut, she says," huffed Wakka, muttering under his breath as another blinded Zu flew over his head. "A shortcut."

"Well, eheh, in my defense—"

"A shortcut to the FARPLANE, YA?"

Rikku sniffled, meekly tugging the feathers off her boots, huddled protectively between Datto and Keepa. "But Wakka!" she whined, "I could've sworn Luca was... left? of Sanubia Desert..."

Wakka glanced at her.

Rikku cowered. "W-well, I would've stopped to ask for directions. Um. Eventually."

Wakka twitched.

"I would've," mumbled Rikku, bottom lip quivering.

Keepa patted her head, then looked up at the tattered canvas billowing above them. "S'long as you can get us out, ya?" he said and promptly squinted as hot sand seeped through the awning and into his left eye. "Soon."

Rikku cracked a sheepish grin, digging her heels into the sand. "Eheh, um..."

Slowly, Wakka spun around, dropping into a crouch in front of her. "Yes?"

"Weeell," she sang, hiding behind Datto's shoulder. "Remember how, when I sort of... crashed the ship, I said that thing, I said—"

"Rikku."

"—I said I wouldn't be able to fix the rheostat... thingie without the proper machina... thingie?"

Wakka narrowed his eyes.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?" asked Rikku warily.

"Okay," nodded Wakka. "We eat chocobo stew tonight."

The chocobo, who'd been innocently pecking at the peeling rope holding their sunshade together, gave him a shrill, annoyed Kwehh!, folded its wings, and scratched at the burning sand.

"Yeah," grumbled Wakka. "Same to you. Now, someone hand me something pointy, ya?"

Rikku gasped, jerked up, bolted past Keepa, and threw herself in front of the chocobo. "But I... I named it," she pouted, draping herself across the fractured saddle and turning to Wakka with a convincing cry. "Poor Lyhto!"

Wakka shut his eyes tightly.

"That's Al Bhed for We're All Going to Starve to Death," he told the Aurochs with an aggravated sigh, scrubbing at his dirty forehead.

Keepa tittered. Datto promptly dug an elbow into his ribs, and cleared his throat.

"Shh," he whispered urgently, brushing an imaginary speck of dust off Keepa's shoulder. "Y'know how the Cap'n gets when-we-interrupt-his-little-love-spats!"

Keepa's eyes widened in horror.

Datto laughed nervously, staring past Keepa's shoulder into the sand-covered dunes. "Eheh. He heard me, didn't he?"

His only reply was a violent smack upside the head, which sent him sprawling across the sand.

Quickly, Keepa held up his hands as the spiked ball bounced back into Wakka's shaking hands, and whimpered, "C-cap'n! He said it, not me!"

Flushed a deep crimson, Wakka dug his nails into the ball. "My. What. Datto?" he asked pointedly, ignoring the urge to square his shoulders and fix his hair.

"Your... your flawless aim?" tried Datto, picking himself up off the ground with a pained groan.

"My WHAT?" repeated Wakka loudly, horrified to find Rikku watching him with the most curious of expressions.

"W-well," began Keepa warily, helping Datto up, "why were we off in that heat, ya?" Both Aurochs quickly ducked, shielding their heads and squeezing their eyes shut.

But Wakka remained frozen, glancing at the chocobo for support.

The chocobo upturned its beak snootily, flapping one wing as though to flip him off.

"Eh?" asked Wakka, baffled.

Datto straightened first, glancing about with a certain sort of terrified apprehension. "Ya gotta admit," he grinned sheepishly, "it's kinda crazy you'd make us go fix up Home for a bunch of Al Bhed—"

"—hey!" whined Rikku, crossing her arms with a pouty frown.

"—if you didn't... um, have a thing for... uh, this one?"

Wakka's jaw dropped.

"Yeah, Wakka," grinned Rikku wickedly, cocking an insolent eyebrow, "ya gotta admit."

Incredulous, Wakka spun on his heel. "We were doing you a favor!"

Rikku bristled, braids tangling around her dusty goggles. "Yeah, well, if it hadn't been for people like you, Home wouldn't NEED rebuilding!"

The Aurochs squinted and took several leaping steps back.

Wakka closed his mouth with some difficulty, then forced himself to lay a hand on Rikku's tiny shoulder. "Listen here, ya—"

Rikku swatted his hand away, turning around. "Big meanie," she mumbled dramatically. "Fine, be that way." She glanced over her shoulder through half-lidded eyes. "You can just go on and forget about your present, then!"

Wakka's features softened instinctively.

"Present?" he asked, embarrassed.

Rikku stuck out her chin, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "Yes."

Wakka scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "What kind of present?"

Unruffled, Rikku harrumphed. "I'm not gonna tell you now. Because you're big. And a meanie. And a big meanie."

Cheeks oddly dark, Wakka squirmed, picking at imagined lint. "Rikku," he smiled apologetically, flashing her a lopsided grin. "C'mon. We're friends, ya?"

Rikku twined her fingers behind her head and stretched innocently. "I don't know..."

"And you know I'll keep helping with Home," continued Wakka earnestly, pounding his chest. " 'Cause... 'cause I learn fast! Didn't I finish those machina off before the deadline?"

"Well, maybe you would've if she'd stopped bending down around you..." muttered Datto under his breath.

Wakka ignored him. "So," he said with a grin. "I think I deserve this present."

Rikku tilted her head, giving him a fascinated sideways glance. "You won't eat Lyhto?"

Wakka paused, glancing at the chocobo and the assortment of spices tumbling out of Keepa's backpack. "Not on purpose."

Rikku shuffled closer, fidgeting with her ruffled shorts. "And you won't yell at me for something that's totally your fault?"

Wakka frowned. "What's my fault?"

Rikku offered him a repentant grin. "Um, well, you know how I crashed the ship?"

"Yes," mumbled Wakka.

"Well, I didn't really," purred Rikku sweetly, cheeks pink.

"No?"

"No," she offered sheepishly, touching a finger to her chin. "The ship crashed itself."

Wakka stared.

"Because I wasn't anywhere near the Bridge, eheh?"

"And where were you?" asked Wakka, exasperated.

"Um."

"Yes?"

Rikku shrank in on herself. "Deck?"

Wakka shook his head, muttering, "Why? We had an important game to get to, Rikku, ya?"

Rikku's head snapped up, her words coming in a heated rush, "I really, really, really, really wanted to finish your present on time, definitely before the game, but I couldn't at Home because Vydran thinks I'm a work mule and there were twenty-seven water flans in the basement and—"

"...present?"

Smiling wildly, Rikku clapped her hands. "Because you've been so helpful!" She wrinkled her nose and heaved a great, big, theatrical sigh. "So technically, it's your fault, see?"

Flustered, Wakka swatted at empty air and waved at the canopy overhead. "Oh."

Rikku hooked a thumb into a loop of her frayed green shorts, then quickly averted her eyes, scuffing a toe in the sand. "Yah. So..."

"Yah..." replied Wakka, tugging at the icicle pendant around his neck as though it were choking him.

Keepa and Datto exchanged amused glances, safely tucked away behind the squawking chocobo.

"Venom Tackle, Cap'n!" suggested Datto helpfully.

"Tackle Slip, Rikku!" cheered Keepa, tossing his chipped wristband at Datto.

"Kweh!" added Lyhto.

Blushing furiously, Rikku hastily bit her lip, then reached out both hands to fix Wakka's dirtied bandana, setting it even more askew. "There. Much better."

Startled, Wakka smiled gleefully, helping her tuck his unruly hair behind his ear. "Uhn."

"Maybe," chirped Rikku, satisfied, "I'll give you that present anyway."

Wakka opened his mouth to ask.

And with a relatively demure squee, Rikku pounced, little arms and legs clinging to him most inappropriately. "In Luca," she giggled into his ear, then fled.

Wakka watched her dart past the shelter of the splintered awning, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. He turned to his Aurochs with the goofiest of grins, and raised a smug eyebrow.

"Check your pockets, Cap'n," coughed Datto, hiding a grin behind his hand.

Frowning, Wakka slipped his fingers inside his pockets. Immediately, he gagged, shivering.

"Pudding?" asked Keepa cheerfully.

Disgusted, Wakka scrunched up his nose, shaking with anger. "Pudding."

"You owe me 50 Gil, ya," Keepa whispered to Datto.

"Excuse me one minute," said Wakka calmly, then spun in a wide arc and scrambled after the distant black dot on the horizon he decided was Rikku. "Stop running!"

A disembodied, "You stop running! No one's chasing you!" answered him beyond a sandy dune.

So, grinning despite his shield of complete and utter annoyance, Wakka leapt over the scorching foothills, gaining speed and shouting, "It's too hot to chase you 'round and not get a stroke!" He climbed a particularly steep dune, his feet slipping, and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "So come here and save me a Phoenix Down, ya!"

A muffled giggle made him look behind a crooked framework of driftwood tacked together to a metal post. "Luca is seventy thousand miles LEFT of here?" he snorted, looking at the sign. "Well, can't say math's an Al Bhed strongpoint."

"Hey," came a tiny, outraged voice. "I'll have you know I was seven when I made that sign."

"So... yesterday?" grinned Wakka, trying to inconspicuously scoot closer.

Preoccupied with thinking up several witty comebacks, Rikku missed the stiffening of muscle, the hunching of shoulders, the sheer predatory glint flickering in his eyes...

So, when Wakka tackled her to the uncomfortably hot sand, Rikku did what any self-respecting Al Bhed would—she threw sand into his eyes and cried out for her Daddy.

Unfortunately for Wakka, Daddy was closer than he had any right to be.

"You do realize, eteud, that we have a game in thirty minutes?" asked Blappa, towering over them with a chattering Negator buzzing around his head.

"What happened?" asked Lakkam, staring at the squirming mess of tangled limbs. "Ooh, Cid's gonna kill him."

The Al Bhed Psyches symbol on Lakkam and Blappa's bucklers crackled to life. "Kill who, eh? Eh?"

"Vydran!" shrieked Rikku, pushing a nearly-blind Wakka off. "What are you doing here?"

A shiny lump of metal descended from the clouds and Cid's voice became less static-y. "Psyches are playing the Aurochs, Rikku," he shouted maniacally. "I might have bet a few Gil, is all!"

Blappa covered his buckler. "Fifty thousand," he amended conspiratorially.

"What? What was that?" screeched Cid, then quickly refocused. "Who am I gonna kill?"

Dazed, Wakka looked up at Lakkam's proffered hand. Suspiciously, he took it and rose, rubbing the sand out of his eyes. "Uh... hey, Cid," he mumbled into Lakkam's communicator.

Silence.

"Vydran?" asked Rikku tentatively, scooting closer to Wakka and unobtrusively slipping her hand in his.

Wakka gave her an utterly stunned blink, but was quickly distracted by Cid's outraged howling. Thankfully, Wakka's Al Bhed was mediocre at best, so he could pretend Cid was barking out ingredients for a delicious vouivre pie.

Squirming nervously, Rikku briefly glanced at him, then the sky, then at their joined hands.

Blappa turned his communicator off.

"Rikku crashed the ship!" explained Wakka quickly.

Lakkam nodded, tapping her communicator off as well.

"And..." continued Wakka, "...we have a game in twenty minutes?"

Rikku gave him an odd, undecipherable smile, stretching on tippy-toe, then kissed his dirty cheek, scurrying off to Cid's descending ship and shouting cryptically, "I'll make it worth your while, promise!"

Lakkam and Blappa fixed their eyes on Wakka, who was alternating between looking absurdly proud and wholly terrified.

Finally, he grew uneasy, and mumbled, "We have a game in twenty minutes, ya."

"Oh, not you, vneaht," said Lakkam, patting Wakka's back. "You get to have a little chat with Cid."

"But... pudding!" tried Wakka desperately as they dragged him away.

"Yes, yes," soothed Blappa, "pudding."