Title: Fifteen Freckles and Counting

Timeline: Takes place directly after season two's episode four; right after the fabulous Baywatch reenactment at the end.

Notes: Fanon runs amuck here. The prompt by Spearance (along with several other naughty shippers who will lovingly go unnamed) was that I with my meagre abilities as a writer explain a certain line from season 2's episode 8. You know which one. *waggles eyebrows*

EDIT: Proofreading: do it more, Sniggy. *facepalms*

Warnings: Nudity, hormones, motorboating.

He's here, is all she can think of.

He's here and I'm here and we're still alive and it's not a dream, I'm not crazy.

That is as far as Eva's current level of cogitation gets her before she wobbily gets to her feet, eyes only on her ginger-haired beau.

Evangelyne drags him off while still in an elated dazed and partially dizzy from the recent air loss. Amalia is discussing possible shelter for Lord Wagner's townspeople and Ruel is negotiating compensation, the stingy jerk; but then Yugo simply turns around and flashes them the hugest, most knowing grin she's pretty sure no twelve-year old should be allowed to sport at all.

At that moment, Tristepin turns to the Eliatrope and sticks out a thumbs-up, a giant self-satisfied smile on his face and oh my word they are now winking at each other in a way that can only be subtitled as 'way to go, man' and she might just clobber them both brainless if she wasn't so happy that Tristepin is even alive; is even able to tick her off: the sheer delight of his status of aliveness is currently overriding her custom feminist response to male stupidity.

And thus, because she's so happy he's here, Eva merely rolls her eyes and they disappear into the lush greenery of the nearby forest.

o o o

"Your clothes are soaked," Tristepin says breathlessly, hands on Eva's hips after their lips part for the umpteenth time.

She is no Xelor, but she is remarkably sure time has stopped at least a dozen times in the last ten minutes—or she would be, if that sentence wouldn't be reaching unbelievable levels of corny.

"So they are," Evangelyne answers and leans in close again.

Like the many previous kisses this one is no less clumsy: noses bumping, tongues prodding in new and strange-yet-intriguing places, teeth clacking—and Tristepin (lovesick idiot that he is) can't stop grinning into her mouth, not at all helping their continued attempts at making out become any less inelegant.

It's a blissful sort of awkwardness; it makes Eva smile to rival her dear Iop and spreads a spiraling warmth in her lower belly.

Tristepin takes a step back and—despite having spent the last fifteen-odd minutes making out with the Cra of his dreams—manages a frown.

"Eva, you'll catch a cold," he whines, displaying his notorious inability to concentrate at any task for more than a dozen minutes.

She groans lightly at his complete lack of focus—honestly, if she wasn't in love with this idiot—

Then she catches the oddly serious tone in Tristepin's voice—odd because she does not doubt he's capable of being serious (despite his track record); rather, she's rarely had a chance to properly make its acquaintance.

His face is still flushed from before but his brows are knit together and the look is unmistakably one of worry. Evangelyne tightens her grip around his neck a bit as she beings to understand—he might not say it out loud… but as close as she was to losing him, wouldn't it have been tragic if she had drowned right there on the beach after all they'd been through the last couple weeks?

He was scared for her—still is, even if it's for petty little reasons like wet clothes and colds he doesn't want the risk of losing her staring him in the face ever again.

She can humour him. After all, she's still shaken up too. Also: the heat inside curls around wildly at the sight of his tender worry but that has nothing to do with anything; nope, not at all.

"So, what do you propose?" Eva asks with a light smile.

Tristepin strokes his chin thoughtfully. It is a decidedly unflattering look on him.

"First thing is to get you out of those wet clothes."

At her look of utter embarrassed horror, he verbally stumbles and offers the first half-baked idea of consolation he can grasp at: "Uhh, would you feel better if—if I took my clothes off, too?"

No! protests her horrified brain.

"Yes," announces the coiling warmth in the bottom of her belly without bothering to consult with the rest of Evangelyne.

Before she can open her mouth and dispute the unanimous decision courtesy of her hormones, Tristepin nods solemnly and starts to strip down right in front of her.

It's a rather short affair: after the scarf is off in a glimpse he then bends over to untangle his belt and all coherent thoughts turn into terrified white noise and oh dear Cra oh Twelve Gods oh stop him stop him stop o-ohh never noticed how much that tan actually suits him—

o o o

The little clearing they'd camped in for their impromptu make-out session lets in a generous amount of warm, prickling sunlight.

Eva pays it no heed; her furious blushing supersedes any amount of natural heat short of molten magma.

"I never figured you'd have freckles there," Tristepin says with a sort of fascinated bafflement Eva is not sure she appreciates having directed at her while naked—because somehow, despite his ridiculous prompt, she ended up wriggling out of her clothes as well.

They had been staring, flustered and fidgeting in the altogether before Tristepin decided to present himself as the King of Timing and pop that utterly mortifying line.

"Yes, well, I hadn't considered you were suntanned um, there," she retorts. Just what kind of training he's been up to in that desert, she wonders—and then blushes so hard it's a wonder her head hasn't spontaneously ignited.

"They're cute," Pinpin says, his mouth curling into a minuscule, adoring smile.

"Oh," Eva responds in a tiny, breathy voice.

Silence, and the sunlight, reigns for a while.

The tremendous mortification subsides in favour of a hesitant curiosity as they simply take the sight of each other in.

Evangelyne sits with her legs bundled up against her chest, Tristepin is cross-legged in front of her (and she has to admire how at ease he seems to be with his own body put on show like this, and maybe also a little envious), absentmindedly rubbing a spot—a freckle, she realises—on her knee while Eva has been more or less transfixed on his bare arms—they're really nice arms, she realises. Even though they are on display more or less constantly as per his new look she has never really taken the time to admire them in the context of the two of them being completely butt-naked. It's—not surprisingly—quite different.

They are very nice arms. Eva kind of wants to slide her own up against them. Feel the minuscule hairs rub against each other. Tuck her head under his chin...

Pinpin clears his throat. "Eva—I—" Then aborts whatever topic he meant to instigate.

"Y-yes?" she encourages him, caught between giddily anticipating and dreading whatever he's going to say next considering what his previous train of thought brought about.

"Uh—" Tristepin makes a vague sort of gesture towards her bosom. "Can I—"

Eva's face is suddenly back to being so hot she might just start a forest fire and his is likewise so flushed his hair might as well burst into flames (or it might already have, who can honestly tell?).

"Go ahead," she squeaks with a voice that is not her own.

Instead of copping a feel like Eva expects him to, Pinpin lights up, places a hand on the ground next to her hip and leans forward—her eyes widen—and buries his entire face between her breasts with a gleeful noise while she yelps in surprise.

She raises her arms; caught between shoving him off and flailing them around before she dies of embarrassment right then and there, with a chest full of purring Iop—when it becomes quite clear that Tristepin is neatly settled in and has no intention, ever, of moving even on threat of immense and creatively cruel pain.

Eva sighs and lowers her arms, resigned to her fate.

"... How long have you wanted to do that, you pervert?" she chastises.

Pinpin reserves his right to remain silent but he does concede a thoroughly silly prrrrbbbt sound that reverberates against her bare flesh—

—and, like that, the underlying nervousness and anxiety of entire situation is gone, replaced by the sheer silliness of it all, and Eva can't suppress the bubbling laugh which shakes her body: light and uncontrolled and completely honest in its pure joy.

Still firmly in place, Tristepin chuckles as well and tickles her stomach playfully.

"Iop-brain," Eva smiles and threads her fingers through his coarse hair, before they come to rest on the nape of his neck. His skin is warm and rough and as she drags her fingertips across it he produces a pleased hum like he is the luckiest bloke alive and could simply die happy right there, thank you almighty Iop.

o o o

Tristepin has finally surrendered the freedom of her breasts and is now content with lying on the grass, drawing circles around her belly-button as Evangelyne sits propped against a tree-trunk in the relative shade.

A nagging thought finally makes it to the surface:

"What are we going to do about Armand?" Eva asks.

It might be an undue worry (Cra damn it, it's been her job for so long to worry about every little thing that might go wrong—old habits and all that jazz) however, this one-sided love triangle is just one huge exercise in awkward silences waiting to happen.

"I was thinking of getting him a bag of breath-mints," Tristepin supplies, his advice every bit as helpful as she should have expected. "Or we could start calling him Prince Onion-breath."

"Tristepin!" Eva scolds; because that is entirely uncalled for—besides, 'sour cabbage' is way more accurate.

"What?" he says, all wide-eyed innocence.

"I was thinking more along the lines of diplomatic ways of breaking the news to him," she says blankly.

Between dealing with Rubilax—all bark and snarl and petty theatrics—and the entirely un-amusing showdowns with that conceited bastard Remington, Eva has more or less had her fill of inane male posturing for the century and she pointedly does not need Tristepin spurring the Sadida Prince into another disastrous 'friendly sparring match'. God, males and their fragile egos, she swears to Cra.

"He's a warrior. He knows he has lost and will admit defeat," Tristepin says with an assurance she is sure is entirely misplaced because was he not there the last time they came to blows? "You've made your choice and if there is any honour in that royal garden gnome, that'll be the end of that," he smiles up at her.

Sometimes Eva feels guilty for forgetting that her Iop is admittedly very wise in his simple way. If only the world really was a somewhat straightforward matter of victory, defeat, and honour.

"What if... I'd made another choice," she prods, half teasing and half annoyed at the fact he can still be so secure in his naive fairy tale paradigm.

Tristepin puts on a profusely sour look; like his ego has swallowed something positively vile—and it has, even entertaining the thought of Eva with that pompous git in that way makes him want to punch things and people. Mostly people. One person, really.

"You... wouldn't!"

"Indulge me. Would your codex and personal honour as a Knight allow you go along with it?"

"No, because there is clearly brainwashing involved—or you'd been drugged silly. Clearly," Tristepin says, visibly upset and not a half bit smug about his incredibly clever comeback.

"Obviously." Eva rolls her eyes. "Just like the time the four ugly princesses brainwashed you, right?"

"I—buh," he croaks, stumped for the moment and she almost feels sorry for him. Almost.

"Th-That was a fluke," he blusters, "—they ensnared me! With their sneaky princessness and—uh, it wasn't brainwashing it was a spell—there is a difference—"

Eva decides to take mercy on her dumb, adorable Iop and strokes his cheekbone affectionately: "You're the only hothead I'd want to put up with."

"That's good, because I'd probably punch out any other hothead who wanted to kiss you."

"Oh yes, violence under the pretence of nobility. Very romantic," she teases.

That shuts him up and for a while they sit in silence, his head in her lap—save the occasional breeze which raises the tiny hairs on her legs, it is so relaxed and comfortable that Eva almost forgets they're both completely naked. The scene simply doesn't seem all that different from their usual bickering relationship dynamic sans clothes—once you get past all the dangly bits present, that is.

Evangelyne wonders if it might have anything to do with the fact she grew up in a forest community whose denizens all seems wildly opposed to wearing more than three separate bits of clothing at all times.

Tristepin rolls off her and onto his stomach, giving Eva the second serious look in a span of thirty-five minutes or so. Surely a personal record.

"I wouldn't like it," he mumbles. She is immediately all ears.

A hand is on her hips, just laying there: enjoying the marvel of the fact it even has an Evangelyne to lie on.

"I'd absolutely hate it—I'd want to fight for you until death if I thought I'd have even the tiniest chance with you. ... but if you'd made your choice... if you were sure... I'd back off. I couldn't ever make you love me."

Tristepin's gaze is pointedly not meeting hers, instead rummaging somewhere around her upper torso—Eva is getting used to the fact that that particular area will always be of utmost and keen interest to him, but it does ruin his effort at 'sombre emotional confession time' somewhat.

Eva nods her head to look at him, his wild mane of vividly coloured hair, his lean muscles and wiry frame, pointy ears and those strange markings he can't quite explain how Rubilax left on him (he says he was kind of too focused on not dying to really pay attention). Tristepin is a very honest, very fiery soul; furiously spirited and fiercely devoted. Neither particularly... academic nor perceptive—nevertheless, that doesn't make him any less infuriatingly loveable—Evangelyne finds that no matter how many faults she counts, she simply cannot stop the earnest, blissful gratitude of the knowledge that he exists and how quietly, elatedly content it makes her.

Eva doesn't know how to put that into words; how to compress the swirling mass of affection-gratitude-happiness-annoyance-attraction-amazement; so she merely slides down to lay beside him and kisses his cheek with a tiny 'mwah' sound.

He turns to meet her gaze, suddenly all toothy grin and general Iop mischief.

"You have fifteen freckles," Tristepin enlightens her; because he is apparently also the Baron of Non Sequiturs. Who knew.

"Whu—you counted them?"

"Those on your, uh, front, anyway."

"… Iop-brain," she snorts and he grins at her.

Eva feels his hand grope around the soft grass before grasping hers. She finds that she likes holding hands—his are perpetually warm and rough, and she likes the feel of that; of hands who have gotten dirty, who have worked hard for their fortune and who aren't afraid to grasp at what they desire, however clumsily, never giving up. She likes that.

More than ever when all those hands seem to want is her hands in his.

Tristepin slides his thumb over the knuckles of her index and middle finger—the ones which pull back the bowstring several times each day, during practice, during random encounters, during legitimate danger. His thumb slowly maps the rise and falls of the underlying bones, gently strokes the veins underneath, and massages the cleft between the knuckles in a leisurely rhythm.

It strikes her as the most intimate touch between them yet. Considering current affairs, even.

It's… an acknowledgment, of sorts—This is the hand that draws your weapon; this is the hand that makes you a warrior; the warrior I fell in love with.

Love. It used to scare her; the idea that she might have fallen in love so quickly—over the course of a few months. Because isn't love supposed to a hurricane of tumultuous emotions, partial insanity and total recklessness—all concepts which seriously compromises everything she embraces as her identity? And… how can she even love somebody she hardly knows anything about? Family, past, apprenticeship—?

But…

She does love him, ginger idiot that he is.

And he does love her, freckles, worrywarts and all.

They're in love even if he doesn't know all about her: her newly-developed fears of abandonment and old, gnawing ones of never being fast enough, pretty enough, elegant enough (never enough), and she doesn't know all about his past, and the reasons why a maltreated, snarling ego sometimes (once, luckily) rears its ugly head in the worst of ways.

"Someday," he says, grinning widely. "I'd like to count them all." He manages to make that sentence sound a lot more lewd in context that Eva would have thought possible.

"I'm sure you would."

She lets it go for now—right now she can allow a lot, considering she's just so happy they're alive—

—but if he ever breathes a word of this entire naked jamboree to anybody and she subsequently has to deal with any more knowing winks from Yugo or godsforbid girl talks slash angry inquiries slash painful, never-ending teasing from Amalia she will plunge the Iop into a fresh hell worth the envy of Rushu.

It's simply another one of those little things he'll have to learn about her as they go along.

—end

A/N: If you have made it down here you will undoubtedly have discovered an appalling lack of smut (implied or otherwise) in this fic. That is because while porn is surely a wholesome and delightful thing I simply could not fit sex into their relationship at this point in canon. I'm sure we're all very disappointed.

No, it has nothing to do with the fact that I could never ever in the history of ever write smut with a straight face and take myself seriously afterwards, haha shut up.