Tidus was adored by all since he had started playing Blitzball. He rose to the top quicker than one could blink. He could hardly go anywhere without someone noticing him and fawning, or fainting, or squealing, or asking for an autograph, or just generally calling attention to him.
But what no one knew was that he had issues. Sure, in the face of public he was always smiling and laughing, but behind closed doors where even the tabloids could see he was still struggling with his father, Jecht. Jecht had been a drunk, and when drunk, which was almost every moment he wasn't playing a game, loved to put down Tidus and tell him how much a failure he was and how he'd never amount to anything.
By this point, fame and glory had told him otherwise, but it never seemed enough to Tidus. He didn't know how far, how famous, how popular, or how many things he'd have to achieve, so long as it finally felt like enough. Even though he knew this was never going to happen. There was no such thing as enough to please his long disappeared father.
But Zidane was always there to lend an ear and help. Whether that meant listening to nothing other that Tidus's breathing on the other side of the phone line or filling the silence with idle chatter to distract him, or actually listening and comforting and trying to help, he did it all. And he really, at this point never expected to win the athlete's heart, since he had been many girls just dying for even something so simple as a one night stand.
Zidane had been away for a few weeks setting up, rehearsing and performing a play with his group Tantalus and when he was going home he found himself at Tidus's door instead of his own. He shrugged to himself and knocked on his friend's door. It was a little past midnight, but he figured if he ended up here there must have been a reason. And if Tidus was sleeping or simply didn't answer the door he could just go home.
But the athlete did answer the door. And while his face wasn't wet, his eyes were red in that way where Zidane knew exactly why he ended up here instead of his house. He takes a few steps across the threshold, Tidus closing the door behind him and leaning against it. Zidane turns to look at him, expression soft, and cups the younger's face in his hand. Tidus looks up at Zidane, eyes shining with new tears now that the door was closed.
"Make me forget…?" He asks Zidane helplessly and Zidane's heart broke again, as it always did when he asked this of him.
"I always do, don't I?" The elder asks leaning in and kisses Tidus, knowing he'd regret it in the morning, as he always did, and they'd just play it off and ignore it happened like they always did. This had happened numerous times before but Zidane still knew Tidus would never actually love him.
Zidane didn't mind always being Tidus's on call emotional helper. Even if it was three am, he had only gotten a few hours of sleep and had to be up at five in the morning, he still picked up the phone for his friend and listened and talked, and was just, essentially there for him for as long as he needed. That's all he could do.
Zidane was sure he was the only one that could be watching one of Tidus's interviews or anything and see that the smile did, in fact, reach his eyes, but the look behind the smile and those eyes was so broken. But he was sure that was because he was the only one that had to watch the eyes break when they were younger and had to endue listening to these stories and wondering what type of father said and did these things. Eventually Tidus had even stopped calling him dad and started calling him Jecht like they weren't even related.
It hurt Zidane to see Tidus so hurt. But Zidane suffered through because Tidus was hurting worse and you had to empathize before you could help. All Tidus really needed back in those days was an escape for the moment. Keep him over for a night or hang out with him for a couple hours and he'd be fine, so long as you didn't leave him alone for longer than five minutes. You didn't even have to fill the silence.
He's loved now, of course he is, how could he not be? And he probably will be until the day he dies, Zidane knows this. He knows he's not the only one Tidus could use as a lifeline, but he's the one Tidus picks and it makes him happy. Even more so since he's been dating Yuna for what feels like forever to Zidane But she still didn't even know a fourth of what Zidane knew. And she was never his emotional on call either.
Zidane always did anything he needed to make sure Tidus's self-worth never dropped below a reasonable level, since he knew Tidus was worth more than he'd believe around Jecht. He only wanted to make the younger's life easier on him. All Tidus ever had to do was tap on his window or knock on his door if it got bad enough he left his house and Zidane would always let him in and cuddle him until the sun rose or the feelings passed. Normally it was whichever came last.
Often, Zidane would find himself doubting that he was doing anywhere near a good job in helping Tidus. But the latter always kept coming back so he had to be doing something right. In always boosting Tidus's self-worth he was slowly loosing his. But he figured it was a necessary sacrifice and he could live with it.
He only told Tidus about it once and had made sure the athlete hadn't been upset about anything at the time. Tidus merely looked him in the eye, smiled, and reassured him that he did fine. Tidus had been fifteen and Zidane had been seventeen then and that was the first time Zidane could remember his and Tidus's lips connecting. The first time he could remember them being intimate. The first time he remembered ever helping Tidus forget.
Zidane still felt he didn't do a good enough job, but he figured it didn't matter anymore. Tidus would still come back time after time, and he was still chosen when the younger needed to forget. Not Yuna, never Yuna, and Zidane took pride in this fact. Tidus could go from crying silently on the phone and Zidane mere listening before the former would ask him to come over and help him forget and hang up.
Zidane knew it wasn't always perfect. And it was almost never as good as rainbows, butterflies, and unicorns. And he knew that level of happy could only be obtained by letting Tidus go which he would never do. He knew it was almost never even remotely close to perfect the way only a friend of someone like Tidus could. Tidus was an abuse victim, even if the only abuse he ever received was verbal, abuse was abuse and Tidus was the victim and would probably never get over it.
Life was always one compromise to the next. Zidane knew this as well. The current compromise he was struggling to uphold was trying not to sabotage Tidus and Yuna's happy relationship any more than need be so long as Tidus kept coming to him for help. He never told Tidus this, of course, because it'd be basically like confessing which he'd never do to someone who already had someone. But just because he was in love with his best and longest friend, or maybe because of that very fact, it never stopped him from picking up girls at a bar or one of his performances. But even in the middle of that, he'd always come running if Tidus needed it. He was wrapped around Tidus' little finger and he knew it too.
But being Tidus's lap dog never bothered Zidane because it was the way things had always been. Zidane's door was always open for Tidus and so long as Tidus never left Zidane's heart was full and complete and he never needed anyone else for a friend. He survived the schooling years without another friend, so he could survive the rest of them Tidus was his life, and he knew he was obsessed but he didn't care so long as he could help. That was all he wanted.
Zidane made sure Tidus knew that whatever time of the day, whatever day of the week, whatever month of the year the athlete was always allowed to interrupt anything Zidane was doing and take up as much time as he needed or wanted. Made sure that Tidus knew he never needed to knock, or ask if it was a bad time. All he had to do was contact Zidane in some form, and even if the entire time they were in contact it was silent, so long as it helped Tidus, Zidane never felt like time had been wasted.
Zidane really didn't mind being at Tidus's beck and call, no matter what he heard from anyone else that being that codependent was bad. He didn't care because he knew Tidus needed him too and that was all that mattered. Rain or shine, night or day, Zidane was there and he knew that so long as Tidus remembered that it helped him get through the day so he never broke where anyone but Zidane could see.
And sometimes, sometimes it got so bad that Tidus didn't want to burden Zidane with his troubles. He was sure everyone had gotten to the point they thought no one deserved to see or deal with them as they were. But when that happened Zidane almost always got the strangest feeling that Tidus needed him and so he'd set out to find him on a swing at the park in the dead of night or call him and hear the wind blowing into his mouth piece more than his voice itself. Those were normally the moments when Zidane just held him and let him cry. Or that Tidus would beg him to help him forget.
Zidane knew all of Tidus's little quirks. Knew when he was actually genuinely happy. Knew when he was torn and hiding it well enough to fool the world, and knew exactly when he fell out of love with Yuna. Tidus had made sure no one knew, but Zidane saw the small signs. Tidus was spending less time with her, stopped giving her good bye kisses. It was the small things. But it was enough to raise Zidane's hopes of finally getting his best friend before he put them back in place.
It was another phone call night where Zidane was simply listening to his friend talk when Tidus admitted he felt he no longer loved Yuna. Zidane's heart leaped with joy but he managed to suppress it and question his friend the standard why's and why nots. And while explaining Tidus admitted that he felt vaguely like he was falling for Zidane. The elder knew this too good to be true but was never one to pass up a chance.
That was the night that Tidus came over and they had sex to simply show the other instead of making Tidus forget. It was that morning, sitting on Zidane's lap that Tidus called Yuna and organized the meet to properly break up with her. It was that phone call that they kissed for the sheer hell of it once it ended. It was that meet up that had Yuna with a small smile upon seeing them walk up together, shaking her head and saying she knew it. It was that line that had Tidus falling over himself trying to make sure Yuna knew it wasn't her. It was that conversation that Zidane ended with a kiss. This way there didn't need to be phone calls, and trips for Zidane to be there for Tidus, since Zidane never had to leave.