hastegas: (Hi ho silver hair! Away!)
hastegas ([personal profile] hastegas) wrote in [community profile] jigglephysics2015-05-18 09:07 pm

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Life had long since become cyclical for Tidus.

He wakes up. He eats. He mulls around the house. He goes for a long swim. He comes back in, showers, heads to practice. He comes home. He swims again or practices on his own on the deck of his home by the water. He tucks back into bed again and sleeps.

The only upheavals in his painfully predictable life alone in his home come from games, the occasional night out with his team or an adoring fan and Auron's visits. He looks forward to them, no matter the context, because they tear up the heavy, grey blanket that has long since settled over him and smothered him slowly under its weight. He wants change. He wants a life without sunrises and sunsets he has to count down. Tidus wants tomorrows that come too soon and yesterdays that leave too late. He wants adventure, excitement, something to break this mold he has been shoved into as he cycles through his life in a house of ghosts and silence.

Practice never brings fatigue and coming home in the dimming light of dusk brings little hope of sleep when he hasn't worn out his reserves of energy just yet. It's not that he wants to sleep, that's just boring, but it would at least be a change of pace to get truly worn out and knocked to the ground by his own muscle aches. Nothing in this common rotation brings challenge for him anymore. It's likely why he lives for the thrill of games and the adrenaline that runs through him right before he submerges himself.

He pushes the door open and greets the quiet, emptiness of his house with a loud 'I'm home!' that seems to echo off of nothing and greet him in return. He crinkles his nose and tosses his bag of wet clothes from his practice across the room towards his couch.

"I can't think of a single thing I want to do tonight... No one even wanted to go out this time. This sucks."
entrust: (pic#768213)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-19 02:08 am (UTC)(link)
Cyclical doesn't begin to describe Auron's life.

There are two sides to living in Zanarkand. One, the peace he supposes he should be grateful for; and two, his utter detachment from every event that goes on around him. It's what happens when you live in a bubble, the same steps retread in the same small space over and over; all places, no matter how large they seem, become small once you've found each edge of their confines. After traveling from one end of Spira to another, Zanarkand couldn't be anything but claustrophobic with its skyscrapers and its endless ocean.

It's one of many things he didn't consider when he made the journey. Those many things include among them the adjustment it would take to live in a time so removed. It may have existed once, but Jecht's world was a different world.

And Jecht is the one reason he's here. He doesn't even surprise himself anymore when he drifts irrevocably toward the little houseboat tied to the dock. He stands on the deck, back facing the city, looking out to sea. The sun sets slowly. Something about it is different than the sky in Spira, and he's seen so many different skies. Clouds catching fire; pale, canary-yellow suns; ruddy, storm-laden firmament. In Zanarkand the heavens seem just that much further away. The stars are more difficult to make out above the city lights.

Auron leaves his thoughts when he hears the sound of Tidus's voice float up muffled through the floor of the deck, loud and bored. It's been an uncomfortable summer. Air too heavy, too hot. Blitzball is the only respite anyone has in this city, but it means something else to the boy below deck. He can sympathize.

Of course, that doesn't mean he's here to entertain.
Edited 2015-05-19 05:51 (UTC)
entrust: (pic#768214)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-22 01:15 am (UTC)(link)
If Auron didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be out on the deck. He has a whole city to hide away in, although he has nothing to hide from but the words of his friend, which haunt him in every sudden recollection that's brought about by this place. But he hasn't even tried to make an escape. This is the shape of his life now. When living inside of a memory, what can you do but look on the past, and regret? What he's does here is the only thing that he can do.

It's something.

Auron glances sideways, toward the sound of footsteps on stairs. Tidus is rarely quiet. Not in sadness, not in happiness, and surely not in boredom. So when he immediately breaks the silence, there's no reaction. But when has he ever seemed taken off-guard by anything? What could shock the dead?

"I didn't want to interrupt."

The even sound of his voice falls somewhere inscrutable between sarcasm, nonchalance, and amusement.
entrust: (pic#768211)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-24 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh? Am I inconveniencing you?"

When Tidus comes to stand before him, hands on his hips with his skinny elbows bent at sharp angles like he's trying to be chastizing, he lifts his gaze to look him up and down. Auron's face is half-hidden behind his collar and his sunglasses, the latter of which he obtained not long after he arrived. The scar running down the right half of his face is what causes him to stand out among the people here more than even his manner of dress or speech. The people of this city lead easy lives, free of turmoil; free of Spira's hard choices; free of Sin, and fiends, and early, bloody deaths.

Even Tidus has noticed how out-of-place he is. But Auron has never answered any of his questions, so, in the end, he knows scant more than anyone else could claim to.

The answers to those questions aren't important any longer. Likewise, neither is the answer to the question he's asking now.
entrust: (pic#768218)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-24 05:41 pm (UTC)(link)
"Perhaps that's for the best."

Some discretion would be nice, although he has his suspicions that Tidus doesn't see the use in it. Much like his father wouldn't have. For that reason, he can't even blame it on age. Regardless, he didn't come here to impart life lessons — He knows the futility too well. The only difference he knows how to make is by being here. And if that means untimely visits, well...

That's just who he is.
entrust: (pic#768217)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-24 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Auron laughs softly, unable to help himself, even as his gaze falls to some middle-distance. No, he's nothing like either of Tidus's parents. It seems absurd to make the comparison, despite what he's doing here. And apparently he isn't the only one who feels that way.

Not that he could understand why it's truly so ridiculous. Jecht would probably laugh too. Would have laughed, if he'd been able to stay long enough to see his attempts to acclimate, overwhelmed by the bright lights and the task set out before him. He was never all that good with children.

It's easier now.

Mostly.
entrust: (pic#768215)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-25 06:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"Would you have me leave?"

It's a rhetorical question, of course, but when he asks it he sounds as serious as he always does. Auron doesn't move from where he's leaning at first, but he reaches up to adjust his collar, tugging at it with his fingers while he watches Tidus fidget and stretch with his back to him, silhouette outlined by the fading color of a sky on fire guttering out.

Auron puts his hand behind his back to push himself upright with his eyes to the ground.

"If that's what you want..."
entrust: (pic#768216)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-27 02:57 am (UTC)(link)
"You assume that what you see is the only truth."

Auron can't blame him for that. In the past he's opted not to spare Tidus's feelings if there was something that was necessary for him to hear, but this is one situation where there's nothing else he can say, through no choice of his own. No real choice, anyway. It isn't as though he can admit that he's from another world, or that he died almost a decade ago. No matter his intentions, nothing in Tidus's life has prepared him to believe these things.

So he carries on. It's not really so bad, but sometimes he wishes...

"I have no reason to leave. Even if that is what you want."

Instead of leaning back against the mast again, he steps up to the rail at the nose of the ship. There's the faintest staining of color over the horizon, a ribbon over the dark, flat sea, where somewhere beyond lies Spira, and Sin. Out this way the light pollution isn't as extreme, so on good nights the sky comes close to true blackness. Perhaps it's that that draws him, or the sea itself, or simply the little houseboat and the person inside it. If he's honest with himself, he hasn't put much thought into what brings him around day-to-day. Zanarkand has given him plenty of distractions in the form of this careless, mouthy, over-excitable seventeen-year old.

"You can tell me."

If he wants him to go, if he doesn't want him to go, if he wants something else entirely.
entrust: (pic#768218)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-30 03:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Auron looks away from the faded sunset, noticeably silent, but not in the way that he was when he was laughing. There's no detectable trace of humor in this, not even the faintest thread, although if Tidus is looking to find it he might see it just because he wants to. His hands touch the railing, not to steady himself. It never once occurred to him, when disappearing into the city, into the flood of people between the impossibly tall buildings, that he might think he was going away. Maybe it's all too obvious what he is. It's just that Tidus, with his absent parents and his absence of knowledge, can't begin to guess at the truth. They have no sendings in Zanarkand.

Before Tidus has a chance to break the silence, Auron speaks.

"It never occurred to me that you noticed."
entrust: (pic#768214)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-31 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
The accusation he should take offense at, but he can't quite get there. He's left, sometimes for days at a time, so there's no claiming he's always given him his full attention. His wanderings never take him so far away that he can't do what he was meant to do, but that doesn't prevent him from putting himself out of reach. The gulf between them was already wide, and it's widening. In the half-truths and untold truths, in the unkind reality of his existence here. It's not a life.

The individual he has to blame for that is very far away.

Jecht, similarly, continues to operate on borrowed time.

But thinking about that now doesn't help him confront his son.

"The only one?"

Tidus is standing to his right, so in order to face him properly, he has to turn away from the sea and the sky, and back toward the city. Perhaps he leaves out of guilt. It's just — There's so much of it, he can't dig his fingers in to disentangle one reason from another. What use is there in trying to save himself? It's already swallowed him up.

"You mean, pay more attention to you."
entrust: (pic#768211)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-31 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Tidus can't see it when Auron smiles. Obviously.

His expression isn't fixed in place; by nature he's not a welcoming man, but he turns his arm to take gloved wrist in gloved hand anyway. It might even be encouraging, the squeak of leather and the whisper of fabric. Zanarkand's nights are warm enough that he doesn't actually need these things, the layers meant to protect from fiends' sharp teeth and ward away inclement weather. There's rain from time to time, and dark storms pass overhead that make the streets and buildings shine under their inundation, but to the people here it's nothing more than an inconvenience.

That's all most things are.

It occurs to him to question if Tidus feels the same. If he's just as bored, just as wearied, just as ill-at-ease. If he isn't looking for his own escape, knowing there's nowhere to run to. Maybe they can understand one another in some small way, after all.

But rather than asking, he says instead, in his usual tone of voice, "I made my decision a very long time ago."
entrust: (pic#768218)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-31 06:42 pm (UTC)(link)
It doesn't escape his notice the way Tidus holds himself as though he's waiting to be shaken free, shrugged off like a small stinging insect, or any other kind of hanger-on. When he steps forward to lean against him, Auron places his left hand on the bare back of his neck, haori falling loose from his shoulder where the other sleeve hangs free.

"I've never lied to you."

That's precisely the reason why he's shared so little. What sparse truth he could have offered, he has, and the remainder stays locked away until the day comes that something changes, and it can be opened. Or perhaps nothing will ever change. His hope for the future has long been subdued. It's got nothing to do with Zanarkand. It's got nothing to do with Tidus, either. He didn't ask to be watched over. Except now, that's exactly what he's asking for.

But the time's since past that he could say he was doing this for only one person.

"That is to say... I am staying."
entrust: (pic#768213)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-31 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, it's not wrong. But he would rather that distance than the kind of walls that lying would raise up between them, no matter how much kindness it was motivated by. Even if the truth never came to light, Auron would know. Better to keep it in the dark, as though one day it could be exhumed and come of some use to either of them. Not much seems to mean anything in this city.

Auron touches the back of his thumb to the soft hair at the nape of his neck.

"I promise."

Easy to say, because he already has. Tidus just doesn't know it.
entrust: (pic#768214)

[personal profile] entrust 2015-05-31 10:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"I don't think that will be necessary."

There's a lightness in his voice, but he wouldn't take that for granted. More surprising things have happened to him. That he's here at all is one of those things, although it's no surprise to him that he kept his promise to Jecht, or that he's making this promise to Tidus now. It seems the path his life has taken — or whatever this could be called — has become almost cyclical. There should be comfort in that. It's all too reminiscent of home.

It's been a long time.

When Tidus reaches for his shoulders, Auron places his gloved hand against his back. It seems the right thing to do. His skinny wrist is hot against his bare arm, and there's tension in his limbs, his hands. He can hear him breathing, see his shoulders rise and fall with it. Whatever this place is, really, it makes no difference.

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