Auron takes that too-soft touch for what it is, kissing him with the remembered sound of his gasping still fresh in his mind. Tidus's attention, his clutching arms, slices through the last depths of his always so far-away demeanor, the way he drifts from moment to moment as an unachored buoy, free and thus useless, tethering him to the last inch of solid ground he knows. The irony doesn't escape him. Neither does it stop him from scratching his blunt nails in a line along the furrow under his fingers, listening intently for another soft and breathless sound, a little wave cresting and collapsing. Tidus has always been here. He's never really been —

His abrupt thoughts — suddenly and annoyingly unwelcome — don't stop his other arm from finding its way around the body next to his and lifting him that infinitesimal distance so that he's sat on his legs, thighs spread-eagled and warm through the dark material of his pants. His haori is sagging, still half-on half-off his body, the one last physical manifestation of his hesitation. Sitting this way, they're about the same height.