Everything Looks Better Ch. 07

"Those bad days, as you put it," he said with light grit in his voice, "were your best days of personal growth."

He remembered them because they shaped her into the woman he would eventually care deeply for, but it didn't hurt on that day she was wearing her short cheerleading skirt and the matching tight sweater and she had touched his hair in a way that made his spine tingle.

"Wait a second. That day on the swings, I wasn't 18 yet."

He glared at her. "To me you were. Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Of course, please."

"Do you remember when you and Tidus were children and you used to play on the swings together?"

She narrowed her eyes into wary slits. "Ye—esss." Two syllables.

"You had difficulty swinging on your own and Tidus would let you sit on his lap so you could both pump your legs."

"Lots of kids did that. It made the swing go higher."

"Yes, well..." He slipped a finger between the buttons of her pajama top, stroking the dip of cleavage there. "There were no swings at the monastery where I grew up. I imagine I might need help learning to...pump."

Something deviant burned in her cool blue eyes. "Swings, huh? You're kinky."

"Hmph. So we've established." He raised his eyebrow sardonically. "Have my answers satisfied you?"

"Just the opposite," she said with a suggestive curl of her lips, sliding her fingers through his chest hair.

Laughing, he turned her hand and kissed her palm, noticing the braid of dark tissue across her wrist. Gently, he twisted her hand up to see her scar better. His scar.

Raine's focus changed, looking at something behind him, until Auron realized she was looking at his dead eye. Her gaze followed its path from the apple of his cheek up to the side of his forehead, back down again, her expression flatly casual, like she was scanning the sports page. Remembering herself, she snapped her attention back to Auron's good eye.

Raising her hand to his face, he softly kissed the twisted flesh before guiding her fingers up to the blind side of his face. Startled, her eyes searched his, as if to ask if he was sure, and he nodded once.

Her breath quickened as she cupped his cheek, gravely studying his scar, outlining the wound with her thumb. Some parts he could feel, some he couldn't. Aside from his own hands, his scar had never been touched before. Propping herself on an elbow, she grazed his cheek with her nose before her lips brushed against the edge of his beard, traveling upwards to his eye, her breath hot on his cheek and temple as she licked upwards to his eye socket, swirling her soft tongue where the lids were fused together. Auron raggedly sighed, suddenly aware of a nerve linking his eye to his groin, and he groped for her under the coverlet, pulling her warm body on top of his.

Her knees tightened around his waist, her pubic bone settling in a not unpleasant way against his erection. His hand went to the back of her neck to lower her face to his and she kissed him hard, their teeth hitting. This was his first "second time," and Auron was delighted with the urgency of it, their intense kisses, eager writhes and bold caresses.

When she broke away, a thin spider-web of silvery spit glinted as it connected their lips and Raine's eyes were primal as she wiped her bottom lip with the back of her hand. She eased up, tugging her shirt up over her head. Without the dark screen of his glasses, her nipples appeared paler and pinker than before and there was a tender flush of arousal in her cheeks he hadn't noticed last time. Her breasts beckoned him and he sat up to kiss them, his hands tracing the spine and muscles in her back. Fingers burying in his hair, Raine bent back slightly to watch him, her breath uneven between her wet lips as she smoothly steered him to the breast that needed the most attention.

Hardly able to stand the friction in his pants anymore, Auron fell back on his elbows. For a moment Raine looked lost and Auron offered her a hint, his eye flicking down to the tent of his arousal before arching an eyebrow at her. Grinning, Raine fumbled with his drawstrings as if opening a wrapped present and one of her hands brushed against the tip of his erection. He flinched and groaned.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

He was about to let her know it wasn't a groan of pain, but by then she had peeled his trousers down until he sprung free. She stopped, giving his erection a puzzled look and checking inside his pants. Auron scowled, irritated by his own insecurity. There was not a chance in hell Jory was more impressive than him.

"Do you always go commando?" she whispered.

"Commando?"

"You know, without underwear?"

"Oh," he grinned. "Always."

With a nervous giggle, she grabbed him with both hands and kneeled down to put him in her mouth. He sharply inhaled and then lowly moaned in exhale. He nearly let his head dangle backward in pleasant relaxation, but he was fascinated by the sight of Raine cradling his balls and he didn't want to miss the occasional look she'd shoot up at him to measure his response. He resisted the urge to jerk his hips upwards, the incredible pressure of her strong tongue squeezing him against the roof of her mouth, the tugging, vacuum sensation of her sucking drawing him further into her. With a wet plop, her lips came free.

"You're very good at that," he grumbled, hating the idea that whiney Duggle ever enjoyed her lips like that.

With a cool smile, she rocked forward and toyed with him between her thighs, lining him up to her. She sunk down and he hissed like he was dipping into a Gagazet hot spring. Her walls were scorching, her body temperature so much higher than his, and they gasped at the same time as they acclimated to the other. Raine shivered, clenching around him and Auron lifted his knees, clutched her waist and planted his feet on the bed to drive into her. Every plunge did amazing things to her breasts.

Like a bolt, Auron sat up, holding her against him. He tried to throw her down on the pillow without sliding out, but it couldn't be done.

Raine squirmed to adjust to the new position. "I thought it was my turn to be on top," she breathed.

"Next time," he rasped. "It's time I give missionary a try." He leaned back slightly to look down between her legs, her blonde pubic hair matted and dark from their fluids, and reinserted himself. Lifting up on his knees, he grabbed one of her thighs and stretched her leg back, flinging the crook of her knee over his shoulder.

She smiled lazily. "Missionary with modifications," she said and jerked when he jammed into her.

He experimented with different angles until he found one that made her gasp. As she smashed shut her eyes, her head pressed a deep crater into her pillow. Immediately, Auron drew out until just the tip of him remained inside. "Did I hurt you?"

"Yes," she said breathlessly.

Auron froze, unsure how to proceed, but she opened her eyes into thin slits, looking at him through her lashes.

"Do it again," she whispered.

Grinning, he kissed the side of her knee and thrust forward. Arching, her moan was nearly a scream and Auron knew he'd found the right spot again. He drove into her, his gentle bumps eliciting soft moans at first, and then he began stabbing into her. She was beyond sounds now, her fists collecting wads of his chest hair. He hissed, but didn't slow down until he felt the shudder of her orgasm. Auron pounded once more, feeling the pleasurable pinch of her cervix, spurting his own silent explosion. He crashed on top of her, exhaustively spent.

"I'm getting sweat on you," she said between breaths and pushed on his shoulders.

He hadn't noticed, but flopped over on his back anyway. Raine's chest was still quickly rising and falling, droplets of perspiration beading on her smooth breasts. "I need to shower again," she declared.

Auron nodded. "Let's go."

C-South Residence

In the fading evening light, before the street lights were activated, Auron waited idle on the front stoop, surveying the local children as they played freeze-tag in the street. Across the road, one of the neighbors was watering his garden and another neighbor was at her mailbox, sorting through magazines and bills. Limping down the sidewalk in front of the house, an old man with his grey-muzzled dog raised his hand in amiable greeting and Auron nodded back, wishing Raine would hurry up.

Behind him, the door finally unlatched and Auron faced Raine. She was still in her cheerleading uniform, but seemed better now since their conversation on the swings. She summoned him inside. "They said it was okay."

"You said they wouldn't mind," Auron said.

"They don't," she said with a simper. "I asked them."

Auron braced himself and stepped over the threshold, into the entryway of the split-level home of Raine's great aunt and uncle, the first time he had been inside. It was humid and smelled of roasting meat. The game was on upstairs and it was intermingled with the general sounds of cooking: running water, a spoon beating the side of a sauce pan and the heavy, muffled boil of something thick. Downstairs was dark, below ground and faintly dank.

"You can take your boots off here," Raine said, pointing down to the rug with a pile of shoes in an array of sizes. Her sneakers were already at the top of the pile.

Auron didn't usually like taking his boots off for any reason so that he was always battle ready, but he doubted a fiend would come tearing through sleepy C-South. Leaning his sword on the wall next to a brass coat rack, he bent down to loosen the laces, then propped against the door to kick off his boots. Considering his gauntlet for a moment, he snapped it off and hung it from one of the coat-rack's hooks.

"Can I take your coat?" she asked eagerly.

"No. Thanks."

Her eyes were dancing. "Do you want to see my room?"

"I've seen it."

"From the inside?"

Auron hesitated, wondering the harm in humoring her, but was instantly suspicious of his own judgment to be alone with her in her room. Possibly, it was to prolong the inevitable meeting of her aunt and uncle.

"I'm going to show Auron my room," Raine called up the stairs.

Auron shook his head, disapproving, but she just smiled at him. What made Raine believe her aunt would think that was anything but a bad idea?

"I'll call you when dinner's ready," the older woman answered and Auron glared up the steps at someone invisible.

"Come on," Raine said.

She grabbed his hand, flicked on the downstairs light, and Auron's head whipped sideways from the combination of her sharp tug and his reluctance to follow. At the foot of the stairs, they maneuvered through a cramped family room, between dusty boxes and mismatched furniture. Raine brought him to a dim hallway with a few doors, dropping his hand as she disappeared into the first dark room on the right.

Auron stood blind in the doorway while she shuffled around the familiar room and a click later, she was bent by the lamp next her unmade bed. She snatched up a few intimate items off the floor on her way to her cluttered desk where she turned on another lamp. Auron drifted in slowly. Her bedroom smelled so sweet it was almost dizzying and he noticed a molten cluster of scented candles on top of her dresser, next to several boxes of matches. Her walls were a collage of posters, mostly punk bands, kittens and a diagram of a water molecule behind her door, but Auron halted his attention on the poster over her headboard: the center for the Zanarkand Duggles, half-nude and dripping wet.

"That's for appearances," Raine explained, while she inconspicuously shoved the dirty underwear from the floor into the top desk drawer. "I'm a Duggle now. You can thank peer pressure for that."

"Hmph."

"So what do you think?"

Auron nodded listlessly at the rest of the room. "It looks suitable."

"Oh, I want to show you something," she said. She kneeled by her bed, lifting the dust ruffle to rummage underneath. Her short little umbrella skirt hiked up, revealing a sliver of white underwear and his shoulders shook in silent chuckle at the print of red hearts. He was looking at the undergarment of a girl, but his eye meandered a little too long at the milky white thighs of a woman. Darkening, Auron spun around to face the mirror over her dresser, quietly chastising himself.

For distraction, he glanced over the photos tucked into the frame of her mirror, group photos of her friends, of the other cheerleaders, a couple old pictures with Tidus and some older ones of her mother and father, discolored and worn, as if folded many times. Jecht's face was rounder and more clean-shaven than when Auron knew him and his arm draped coolly over his wife's reedy shoulders. Moving on, Auron's focus wandered over to the picture of Raine with Jory, captured in a spontaneous pose when Raine had jumped on Jory's back and he was carrying her piggy-back for the camera.

How sweet, Auron thought with a deep glare. Brainy Rainy and the boy she was having sex with.

Where did the time go? It felt like just yesterday she was reprimanding him for stepping on sidewalk cracks, frantically upset about the condition of his mother's back. Today, he was having demonstrative fantasies of her on the swings.

"Here they are," Raine said behind him. She had three white tubes, all different lengths, and when she handed him one, he realized it was a rolled up poster.

"What are these?"

"Tidus' old prints."

Auron snapped off the rubber band, unrolled it partway and turned it right side up. It was a group photo of Tidus' old team, the Zanarkand Abes, signed by all the players in black permanent marker.

"Those are actually all their signatures. It's actually worth a lot." She handed him another one and Auron traded her.

"Why don't you hang them on your wall?" Auron asked rolling off another fastener.

Her grimace was loosely disgusted. "I used to, but they made me uncomfortable, so I took them down."

"Uncomfortable?"

"His bedroom eyes freak me out."

Auron unrolled the poster and realized what she was talking about. The second picture was a close-up of Tidus, the lighting filtered and dreamy, and he was as undressed as his Duggle equivalent over Raine's bed, with a very unbrotherly look on his face. Auron smirked and rolled the poster back up. "I see."

He wasn't particularly interested the last one, but she had worked so hard to find them under her bed. It was an action shot they used to sell at the stadium vendors.

"I've been trying to find some of my father, but those are a little harder to find."

When she replaced the rubber bands on them all, she tossed them on her desk, then bounced on her bed and leaned back on her hands, crossing her legs by the ankles. Their eyes met for an instant before skimming to other parts of the room. He was becoming delirious from the suffocating scents of all those candles and the air vibrated as their separate chemicals mingled in the space between them, agitating in an unstable reaction. Auron didn't realize this was the first of many moments like this, fighting vile instincts and feeling subhuman for having them in the first place.

"Dinner!"

Aunt Naya's supper call startled them both. Auron nudged himself away from the desk and waited to follow her upstairs. She got up with a vaguely irritated look on her face, but it didn't seem completely directed at him. The air outside her bedroom was noticeably cooler.

Raine stopped at the landing by the front door, where his katana was still leaned up against the wall and inclined conspiratorially towards him. "Whatever you do, don't mention anything about the Duggles' losing streak. It will set off my uncle."

"I'll try to hold back," Auron said blandly and mounted the stairs two at a time after her.

Straight ahead on the main floor, the dining table had four settings and in the steamy kitchen, Raine's Aunt Naya was reaching into one of the cupboards for a stack of four plates. She spun around, her smile genuine and beaming until her eyes rested on Auron. He tried not to notice as the woman's expression swiftly altered into something phony and remotely maniacal.

"Aunt Naya, this is Auron," Raine introduced, apparently oblivious to the immediate shift in her aunt's nature.

"Hello Auron," the older woman said stiffly, glancing with aggravation into the living room, where her husband was busy with the game. From where Auron stood, Raine's uncle was just a helmet of white hair over the back of his rocking armchair.

Auron's head bobbed once in respect. "Good evening." He stopped himself before he called her "ma'am." She couldn't be that many years older than him.

A wild grin still pasted on her face, Aunt Naya stared intensely into the living room. "Cete, come meet Raine's friend."

"In a min—dammit! Get him!"

Every one of Auron's muscles seized, until he foolishly realized Uncle Cetan was screaming at the screen, the audio swelling with cheers. Cetan was sitting forward in his chair, hostile from an undesirable turn-around in the game.

There was an uncomfortable moment as the three of them stood looking at each other, and eventually Aunt Naya gestured toward the table. "Auron, why don't you have a seat?"

Raine dragged out one of the chairs. "Sit here. This is where I usually eat," she said and skipped to the chair opposite him, against the wall.

Slowly sitting, Auron was content to wait for the elder man, but Aunt Naya lifted a bowl of mashed potatoes and handed it to Auron. "Why don't you get us started?"

Auron let his sleeve fall back so he could hold the bowl with both hands and flopped a generous spoonful onto his plate, passing it across the table to Raine, who was eying his uncovered arm with a deep blush as she flicked open her napkin and laid it on her lap.

"Son of a—" Uncle Cetan muttered from the living room, as the horn on the television announced the final score. Auron assumed the Duggles had lost, one game of many, apparently. Hastily scooting in his chair, Auron gave the patriarch room to stomp by. At the head of the table, across from Raine's aunt, Uncle Cetan whipped his chair out and slumped into his seat, grumbling something about a worthless defense and Auron got his first real look at Raine's uncle. His hair was not all white, as he previously thought, but marbled black and gray, deep grooves frowning around his eyes as he offered Auron a curt nod and reached for the mashed potatoes.

"You look familiar, Auron," Aunt Naya said. "Do I know your parents?"

Auron opened his mouth, but Raine spoke up. "Auron's an orphan, Aunt Naya."

"Over at St. Dolam's?" Uncle Cetan asked, jutting his thumb, apparently in the direction of St. Dolam's.

A local orphanage, Auron assumed.

"Bevelle, actually," Raine said, lips twitching as she met Auron's eye. Auron slanted his head formidably at her, but she was unruffled at his reproach, almost giddy, her eyes bright and gleaming with mischief. Raine waved her fork in the air and seemed to dot an imaginary "i" with it as she pointed slightly to Auron's right. Aunt Naya was holding a bowl of buttered peas in Auron's blind spot.

Cetan reached across the table to spear a few slabs of roast. "Never heard of it."