Final Fantasy XII (Vaan, Ba'gamnan/Penelo) [week 5, prompt 2]
Title: Quite the Pervert Author: Sister Coyote Rating: Quasi-worksafe (sex heavily implied but not on-stage) Word Count: 500 Summary: Only Penelo at her best could sound quite that shade of irritated-yet-affectionate.
When Vaan opened the door on Penelo and Ba'gamnan tangled up together in a heap of limbs and scales and ears, it didn't take him long to react. His dagger was in his hand and he was shouting, "Take your hands off my friend, you -- "
Then he registered that Penelo had been the one on top; that she had been flushed, but not especially distressed-looking; and that her expression was darkening like a sandstorm on the horizon.
Ba'gamnan was harder to read, but he looked mostly amused. "She wasn't protesting a moment ago," he drawled.
"He's not attacking me, you jerk," Penelo said, with a level of breathlessness that -- oh, crap -- and she was rolling off Ba'gamnan with a noise that -- oh. Dear.
Penelo grabbed a piece of blanket and hauled it over her lap. She was still wearing her vest, but the motion just drew attention to the fact that she wasn't wearing anything under the vest -- her flush continued down nearly to her navel -- and that she had nothing on from the waist down. Vaan quickly dragged his eyes up to the ceiling and stammered.
"I -- I'm sorry, I mean, I thought -- "
He couldn't see Penelo, as he was counting the boards in the ceiling, but he thought her voice softened perhaps a little, as though she might not immediately find her gun and shoot him in the foot. "I came looking for him, if you must know -- "
"Your little friend's quite the pervert," Ba'gamnan continued, sounding entirely pleased with himself.
" -- so you don't need to protect me or whatever. I appreciate that you care, but, well, why did you think I let you play all the humes when we go to bars?" Now she sounded exasperated. That was what convinced him that she really was all right, ultimately; only Penelo at her best could sound quite that shade of irritated-yet-affectionate.
There was absolutely nothing Vaan could say to that, so he stuttered, "I -- I'm sorry!" And he could smell bangaa on the air, not to mention... and all of a sudden he had to get out of there. "Sorry!" he said again, and whipped around the door, slamming it behind him. He leaned his shoulders against it and tried to catch his breath and expel the image from his mind.
From inside, he heard Ba'gamnan laugh -- bastard -- and say, "I don't think much of your partner's imagination."
The bedropes creaked. "Oh, don't be too hard on him," Penelo said. "He's just surprised. Anyway, last time he saw you, you were trying to kill him."
"Perhaps next time I'll buy him a drink," Ba'gamnan said, hoarse and sultry, and the bed creaked again.
"See if he makes the same mistake I did and accepts it," Penelo said, full of laughter, and then the bed groaned and Vaan sprang away from the door as if he'd been burned.