"Yuna…" Why was he on the floor? That’s right… he was dying. There had been a battle…with who?

Seymour woke up abruptly, panting and sitting up.

Where was he? It was dark, but what he could make out wasn’t familiar.

"Seymour?" he heard Yuna ask behind him. "What’s wrong?"

This was Beseid. Now he remembered. He was staying here with Yuna.

"Are you okay?" she asked, wrapping her arms around him.

"Yuna, please," he said, trying to calm down. "Let go."

"I’m not trying to seduce you," she said. "I mean this."

Was that what she thought he meant? "Yuna, let go."

"What is it?" she asked, not letting go.

"I… it was just a nightmare. I have those from time to time."

"What about?"

"Yuna, let go. And leave me alone, I don’t want to talk about it."

"Why not?" Yuna asked.

"You’ve had them before, why—"

"Yuna… you scare me."

"I…" she said, slowly taking her hands away. "I’m sorry…?"

"Don’t touch me, please," he said. "I should go, I do not feel comfortable here."

"Don’t," she said, grabbing his arm as he began to shove the thin blanket away. "Don’t go."

"Is that an order, Yuna?"

"Please?"

"Yuna, I was serious earlier today, and I still think it is for the best," he said. "I should not be here if we are to separate soon."

"Seymour, I’m not going to let you do this."

"What do you mean ‘let me?’" he asked. "It’s my decision."

"It’s mine too. I’m not going to let you do this to yourself."

"Do what?" he asked. "I do not wish to be hurt anymore. I am letting you go back to your friends Yuna."

"I care about you too. Don’t do this. I know… I know what it’ll mean if you do this."

"And you still doubt how serious I am about it?"

"No, I… You shouldn’t do this. Tell me what you want, please."

"What I want is not something one can exactly ask for."

"I don’t understand."

"If you can’t, then you can’t. Don’t go looking for an answer you cannot find. I doubt you will truly miss me."

"Stay…please. As a favor," she said, gently taking hold of his wrist.

For a long time Seymour was silent, and still. "As a favor," he finally replied, and Yuna didn’t settled back down until she knew he was asleep again.

It was barely after noon. Yuna had found Seymour after he wandered off again. It wasn’t a difficult task with no one wanting him near them.

Just as she had brought him back to their hut, Paine and Rikku grabbed her and led her away—whether she liked it or not—without explaining why.

Lulu and Wakka were left with Seymour.

"I don’t want to talk to him about this!" Wakka complained. "I don’t even wanna think about him doing it!"

"Well, then you can explain to him about women and I’ll explain to him about men."

"Why am I involved in this?" Wakka whined.

"Let me put it this way: he’s not leaving until he and Yuna have a nice time on their honeymoon."

"Why can’t someone else make him go away?"

"To be Frank, I’ve been wanting to leave this island since I got here," Seymour said.

"You two just go in that hut and start talking!" Lulu said.

Neither man wanted to argue with her and they both wandered into the hut.

"Whatever this is about, I think it’d be more subtle and painless if you just killed me again," Seymour said.

"Yeah…um… look: You’ve been good…relatively," Wakka said, scratching his head. "Uh… Lu said something about a talk and… well, obviously your parents…um…didn’t…"

"If this is about what’s happening in my bedroom, I already know what you think you have to explain to me. And I’d like you all to keep your noses out of it!"

"Hey, I ain’t interested," Wakka said defensively. "Lu, he already know about—oww!" Wakka complained, as he was hit with a shoe flying in from the doorway. "Well, looks like I’m stuck here until I tell you something."

"Looks like we’re in the same boat, then," Seymour said.

"Yeah, looks like, kinda," Wakka conceded. "’Cept I’m younger than you and I got lucky with her—ow! Damnit, knock it off with the shoes, I’m tryin’ to tell him stuff!"

"Except mine seems to enjoy confusing mental torture instead of blunt physical torture."

"Maybe you wanna talk to him and I’ll throw stuff!" Wakka yelled form the doorway.

"What the bloody fuck am I involved with now?" Seymour asked.

"I’d like to see you come in here and do a better job!" Wakka yelled.

"Okay, far enough," Paine said, and she and Rikku let go of Yuna.

"What’s going on?" Yuna asked.

"Somehow we got the job of telling you about the birds and bees," Paine complained.

"Yeah," Rikku said. The fact that she was her usual bouncing self frightened Yuna immensely. "…"

"…"

"Well?" Yuna asked.

"Well, you probably go the basics, so…" Rikku started.

"This is going to take a while, isn’t it?" Yuna asked.

"Well, what’ve you tried so far?" Paine asked.

"Pain—screw it. I tried everything. And your idea of jumping on him didn’t work."

"I didn’t tell you to do that, I said you seemed to have done everything short of it."

"Well, it didn’t work. Especially with you barging in on us."

"Yuna, he thought you were going to kill him or something. He wasn’t turned on."

"He was too!" Yuna said. "Trust me on that one."

"What have you tried, Yunie?"

"Should I really be telling you guys this?" Yuna asked.

"Look at it this way: things can’t get any worse," Paine said.

"That is not comforting," Yuna said.

"Well, they can’t," Rikku said. "Unless, of course he does manage to get a divorce, that’d be bad."

"Right, and he’d just swim back to where he came from," Paine said. "Hey, maybe if you promised not to him this time, you could have sex with him."

"Maybe if you asked him," Rikku said.

"He said it wasn’t something one could really ask for."

"Well, I’m all out of ideas," Paine said.

"Maybe it’s not about sex," Rikku said.

"How could it not be about sex?" Yuna asked. "This is my honeymoon!"

"It was just a suggestion," Rikku pouted.

"Are you sure it’s wise to leave Seymour with Lulu and Wakka?" Paine asked.

"Who else should talk to him? I’m sure his father would love the idea of it, especially since Seymour’s twenty-eight!"

"What about Anzi?" Paine asked.

Rikku giggled.

"What?" Yuna and Paine asked.

"She didn’t tell you?"

"She said it would be awkward. And Lulu said something about a mechanic," Yuna said.

"Yunie… um, let’s just say she plays for the other team," Rikku said, patting Yuna on the shoulder.

"She plays blitzball?" Yuna asked.

"What’s that have to do with anything?" Paine asked.

"Okay…" Rikku said. "Let me put it this way: do you want Anzi to explain it to him?"

"That is a point," Yuna said, thinking about someone who called him ‘sweetie’ explaining sex to Seymour.

"What if this doesn’t work, Yuna?" Paine asked.

"Then I’m all out of ideas and possibly a marriage."

"So where’s the downside?" Paine asked.

"Paine!" Yuna scolded.

"You keep saying that," Paine said.

"Paine, I actually like this guy," Yuna said "I’m really trying here, I just have no fucking clue what he wants and he wants me to figure it out!"

"Well, then figure it out," Rikku said.

"I can’t," Yuna said. "That’s the problem. I’m trying everything to have sex with this guy and that damn shower’s getting more action than I am!"

"Well, at least its not hot water," Rikku said.

"Yes, thank you," Yuna said sarcastically. "I appreciate the encouragement that at least I haven’t been dumped for a water faucet."

"How do you know?" Paine asked Rikku. "Just because he doesn’t know how to swim doesn’t mean he’s stuck on shore leave."
"What?" Yuna asked.

"It cant’ be that fun," Rikku said.

"Well, I do happen to know what you Al Behd can do with shower heads."

"I thought only girls could use those, though," Rikku said.

"I’m pretty sure they’d work for men if you aimed them right," Paine said.

"How the hell would you know?" Yuna asked, finally understanding what she was talking about.

"Uh… Here, talk to Rikku," Paine said, shoving Rikku at Yuna and running off.

"So, what’s he look like?" Rikku asked. "Shades match the curtains?"

Yuna sighed. Maybe this was a bad idea.

* * * * *

Seymour hadn’t left the hut and it was now evening.

It wasn’t because he’d found any topic brought up that day particularly interesting—let alone something he wanted to even say a sentence about—but a matter of having not been able to get out the door.

After Lulu finally got fed up with Wakka’s ramblings that Seymour wasn’t sure what they had to do with sex, she kicked him out and said she’d take it from there. She started to talk about women’s’ feeling, then there was something about taking out the trash which led to a long argument between the two in the doorway of ‘his’ hut between the two about who was watching the kid, who took better care, and who ditched it for hobbies like sports or moping. By the time they got to something about Lulu mentioning Wakka’s brother in bed, Seymour thought it might be a better idea to kill himself then and there, only his headache from the whole thing left him immobile—although it contributed to the ‘kill me now’ thoughts in his head.

After that, he managed to fall asleep despite the loud noises only a few feet away. Living with his dad being so pissed at him actually had an advantage.

He woke up when the noise suddenly ended.

Instead of some natural disaster knocking both Wakka and Lulu into silent injury, it was only Paine shooing them both away.

"Go on, the village has heard enough and Yuna wants in!" Paine said, shoving both of them before going back to her own agenda.

Seymour stretched and inwardly wined at how disgusting he felt, having spent he entire day inside and still covered in sweat.

"Seymour—"Yuna started.

"Frankly, Yuna, I’d rather have Wakka start talking about of women are like a game of bltizball, considering how bad he is at it," Seymour said. "If you don’t mind, I smell like an old sock and the shower’s only painful if I fall on it."

"Is that what this is about?" Yuna asked.

Her only answer was the bathroom door closing.

"I guess he took getting smacked a bit too hard; is that all?" she wondered aloud, taking off her shirt.

* * * * *

Seymour desperately tried to calm the tumult in his head. He couldn’t hear himself think over all the thoughts and inner voices in his head.

Yuna had turned the struggle to have a good honeymoon—he had never really figured out who it would be a good honeymoon for—into the same game he had been determined to escape all his life.

To look good enough in the world’s eyes, he’d had to be better than everyone else at everything, right down to the tiniest mannerisms.

There were only two people who could win ‘Put Seymour in his Place’ against him. His father and Yuna. Good thing Anzi and his mother hadn’t hated him.

"Shit," Seymour muttered, leaning back in the water, reprimanding himself for forgetting the first rule of the game: keep everyone at a distance.

The less they knew, the less they saw, the less weakness they could find. But no… he had to fall in love…he had to be a big idiot and tell Yuna about it. He had to expose himself to her and then he was completely surprised when she attacked the very chink in his armor that he told her about.

No, it would’ve become obvious eventually. Everyone would have preyed on it, just as everyone preyed upon the fact that he’d never known a woman in the slightest. Kinoc had teased him, his father had berated him on it , people had giggled and now Yuna was belittling him about it.

After everything she’d done to him—even if a lot of it was blurry in his head—what could possibly have made him so stupid as to trust her to treat him like an equal?

He didn’t want to have to compete any more. He didn’t want to have to fight, not against Yuna. But the only alternative was to be ignored, and he didn’t want that either.

He had no idea about romance or sex or intimacy, and he didn’t even have the hometeam advantage of being bale to disappear to wherever he wanted. In every way, this was Yuna’s territory, not his.

"Seymour…?" he heard as she opened the door.

‘Speak of the devil,’ he thought.

"Come on, open your eyes," she said in a sultry tone. "I’m not going to hurt you, I promise."

Seymour slowly opened his eyes and looked down.

She reached up and brushed the lock of hair out of his face.

Sweet Yevon, she was beautiful. He was so tempted to touch her, just innocently touch her, just once, naked or not.

Seeing her, the way her body curved and angled, the water dripping down her hair and her skin, the way her small breasts bounced slightly as she moved… his face suddenly felt hot and his heart suddenly felt frozen over.

‘What the fucking hell is going on’ Seymour wondered. "Yuna… what do you want?"

"It’s not obvious?" she asked, stepping closer.

"Yuna, why are you acting like this all of the sudden?" he asked. "You’re confusing the hell out of me."

"You’re in here all the time," she said. "I thought… maybe… it’d help you relax, and you wouldn’t be so scared."

He tested what she was saying and traced his finger over the edge of her face. Maybe… maybe if he just pretended… maybe if he told himself it was what he wanted… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to take pity…

He closed his eyes and his hand fell to cup her bare breast and she shivered in response. Her sin went taught and he could feel she was enjoying herself. She wanted his hand there, she wanted this. He could give her what she wanted. He could make her happy… maybe.

That would solve everything, making her happy in this way.

His other hand went to her other side, slowly trailing down her wet skin, tickling at it went, stopping at her hip to hold her, his fingernail buried in her hair.

The first hand brushed against her nipple with his thumb, eliciting a tiny moan from her, despite the fact that he was ad-libbing everything. He had no idea what she wanted.

He bent down carefully. Yuna jerked slightly at the sudden onslaught of water against her chest. Once she realized he was kneeling on the wet floor of the shower, she carefully spread her legs slightly for him. His hand had left her breast and her nipple and areola ached for it to return. The anticipation was killing her. ‘No more going slow’ she silently pleaded.

Seymour watched intently, nothing could take his eyes off her as she moved. Nothing could distract him from his target, nothing could make him stop… he thought.

He stopped. He felt frozen inside.

He suddenly remembered being hit, stuck across the face. And it wasn’t by Yuna.

What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he thinking?

He didn’t want this. He didn’t want something false, something out of pity. He didn’t want a transparent attempt to stay in a marriage that was never meant to be.

She didn’t want this. She couldn’t. Who would want to make love with a freak?

Besides… even if it didn’t hurt… even if she truly wanted this… what the hell did he know about pleasure?

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