Meeting
Take care of my kid, Jecht had asked him. Geez, like Auron knew anything about raising children.
But since his friend's wife was doing just fine, Auron felt like simply checking in every now and again was sufficient to live up to his promise. The blond eight-year-old seemed to be growing up normally; Auron had watched him from a distance and seen Tidus talking with other kids and joining in frequent pick-up games of "gritzball"--the youngsters' name for the adaptation they played on a bare stretch of concrete. So Auron just wandered around this dream of ancient Spira, returning to Zanarkand every few weeks or couple months to fulfill his obligation. Until one visit when he saw Jecht's kid sitting alone on a dock crying.
Auron felt a flutter of anxiety. Looked like it was finally time to actually talk to the boy. He didn't have a clue how he was supposed to handle this. He reluctantly tucked his glasses in a pocket and approached.
"Tidus?" He ended up asking. The kid swiped his arm across his face before looking over distrustfully at Auron.
Suspiciously, Tidus frowned and inquired, "How'dya know my name?"
"Your father and I were..." Auron hesitated, finally settling on: "good friends." That answer earned the swordsman a full-on scowl.
"My old man was a good-for-nothing deadbeat. I hate him!" Tidus said this with more venom than Auron would have previously thought was impossible for a half-grown whelp to have.
Auron felt obliged to defend his fellow Guardian's honor. "Jecht told me that he wished he had been a better father. He didn't plan on..." Again, Auron hesitated as he chose his words. "...dying." The lie would have to do; Jecht's life was far too complicated and incredible to be explained or believed.
But Tidus wasn't going to accept Auron's appeasement. His small face settled in resolute anger. "So what? He did. He left me and, an'-" his face crumpled and the next words were twisted with some painful emotion, "-Mom alone!"
Auron was getting the impression that Tidus was out here crying alone for a different reason than a childish insult or injury. Out of his depth--comforting did not come naturally to a man like Auron--he stepped closer to the boy and lowered himself onto one knee. "What's going on?" He tried to smooth his gravelly voice into something soothing but wasn't sure if he'd managed it.
Tidus' reply came on a fresh wave of tears and a heartbroken wail: "He died, and now Mom's dead too!"
The man refused to give into panic. He hardened his jaw and breathed and began to try to understand the entire situation. "When? What happened?"
"She just got sick, ya know?" The boy's shoulders hunched in and he wrapped his skinny arms around himself and swayed back and forth a tiny bit. "They burned her body today. Now I'm all alone, an' I'm gonna have to live on the streets 'cause I don't got any gil, an' I'm gonna starve and then I'll die too!" He buried his face in his arms and wept.
...Jecht... Auron thought helplessly. What the hell was he supposed to do? Pat the kid on the back and say "there, there"?
He cleared his throat and patted the kid awkwardly on the shoulder. "There, there."
In a whirl, the boy twisted around and launched himself at Auron, wrapping his arms tightly around the man's neck. "A-wah-hah-aaa!" He wailed, shoving his head against Auron's chest.
Auron froze. Okay, he told himself. Let's do this step-by-step. One: maintain your balance. He shifted so that both his knees were planted on the splintering wood of the pier. Two: Hold the child. His left arm managed to squeeze from where it'd been pinned, and went around the kid's upper back. His right hand tentatively stroked blond hair. Three: Say words of comfort.
...
No words of comfort were coming to mind. Auron couldn't very well tell Tidus that his mother was going to come back, nor could he say: "Don't worry! Daddy's not dead! He's just off in the future being a big, bad fiend!"
"I'll give you some gil. You'll be able to keep your house. You won't have to live on the street," Auron consoled. At least he could alleviate one of the boy's fears. But he was dismayed as Tidus' crying grew louder.
The samurai was mystified. Surely the knowledge that he wouldn't be homeless should have made the kid feel a little better. One has a significantly higher chance of survival with a roof over his head, after all.
Tidus wailed something in response. It was too distorted by sobs and gasps for oxygen for Auron to understand, though. All he could do was keep rubbing the boy's back and smooth the kid's tangled hair, and pray for the inspiration of the right words to come to him.
Something sparked in his mind. "You're not alone," he heard himself saying. "I promised Jecht I'd take care of you. I'm here."
Amazingly, Tidus started calming down. It was a slow process, but his crying eventually subsided into hiccups and sniffles. "You're gonna take care of me?" Tidus asked in a small voice.
"Yeah," Auron reassured. "I don't really know how to, but I'll stick around and make sure you get food and do your homework and go to bed at a reasonable hour every night." He hesitated. "Is... that okay?"
The boy's head finally left Auron's clothing so blue eyes could look up at the man's scarred face. Auron was initially put off my the massive amounts of slime hanging from the kid's nose, but he reminded himself he'd seen worse globs of goo in the Macalania Woods. Besides that, the boy was kind of cute. In a still-growing, long-legged, scraped knees, crazy haired sort of way.
Tidus, too, seemed to be measuring Auron up; trying to decide whether Auron "sticking around" would be acceptable or whether taking his chances alone seemed the better option. Auron guessed that he passed the test because Tidus finally nodded solemnly.
"Yeah," he said, then appeared to rethink his answer and decided to quickly rephrase it into something that seemed even less eager. "I mean, I guess it's okay. You really knew my dad?" The blue eyes narrowed as the blond tilted his head as if he was daring Auron to lie.
Auron nodded just as seriously. "Had a tattoo here-" he indicated his chest, "brown hair, goatee, cussed a lot, bawled like a baby when he got drunk, and kept yelling at me to watch him do some stupid fancy blitzball move."
Unexpectedly, Tidus grinned. There were two gaps in his toothy smile.
"...What?" Auron asked nervously. "I can't remember what he called it. I never was a big fan of the game."
"He was fucking overrated anyway." The boy stood up. Auron followed suit.
"Should you even know that word at your age?" He muttered.
"What?" Tidus asked cheekily. "'Fucking?'"
"No. 'Overrated.'"
Tidus shrugged, but he secretly thought it was cool that the guy wasn't yelling at hitting him for using the f-word. Mom would've gone nuts. That thought brought back the choking grief. Tears blurred his vision, and his knees buckled.
Unthinkingly, Auron scooped up the kid right when he started to fall. He noticed that Tidus was starting to cry again. This time he felt sympathy instead of panic. "I'm gonna take you home," Auron informed him kindly.
The boy tried to stop crying. "I'm not a baby. You don't need to carry me."
A mild "I know," was the only response he got. The man started walking.
"You don't even know where I live," Tidus protested.
"Yes I do."
The blond couldn't think of any other protests he could make, so he just studied the face of the man carrying him. Old. Only had one eye and a wicked scar slashed across the hollow where the other should have been. Stubble. Dark hair with silver streaks. A belated realization occurred to Tidus.
"Hey."
The man grunted.
"What's your name?"
"Auron."
There was silence for a while while Tidus squirmed and tried to get out of Auron's hold. The man's arms were huge. Accepting the fact that his struggling wouldn't free him, Tidus suffered the indignity of being carried sulkingly.
A thought struck him. "Hey!"
Auron raised an eyebrow.
"You're not gonna make me eat carrots, are you? I hate carrots!"
"Yes, I am," the swordsman deadpanned. "Every single night. And after a week of them, I'll have to drown myself in a lake because I hate carrots, too."
Tidus thought about this. "You're joking," he determined.
"I don't joke," the man replied seriously.
The boy poked Auron. "Do too. If you don't admit it, I'll start screaming right in your ear."
Auron studied the boy from the corner of his eye. "You would." He grimaced. "Fine, we'll make a deal. I'll never make you eat carrots if you never accuse me of having a sense of humor."
Tidus pretended to consider the offer seriously, but a tiny smile thwarted all his allusions to sobriety. "No broccoli either."
"You drive a hard bargain," Auron rumbled. "Fine. It's a deal."
"Fine," Tidus echoed, hiding his smile. He turned to watch his home get more distinct as they approached it. Mom wasn't waiting for him. Dad hadn't been there for a very long time. Tidus had avoided being in the house in the last day and a half; the emptiness scared him. But now he wasn't scared of going inside.
--
Notes: I actually started this before the other two FFX drabbles about these two. This is only now being posted because I was having trouble with the ending, there was no sappy one-liner that came to mind to wrap it up. I considered leaving it off after Auron introduces himself, but that didn't feel right. Eh, I'm still unsatisfied. But I'm done with this, and am casting it out on the Intertubes as is.