Author's note: Don't own Suikoden IV. Still one of my two most favorite games of the series.

I noticed how...little this pairing seems to exist in the fandom. I'm fully aware other people might prefer something else, but since said something else exists in greater abundance than this, I wrote this instead.

I hope you enjoy it. If you don't, please don't start telling me who should go with who. I don't need wank here.

No Strings Attached
Chapter 1
by Kaluin

Things hadn't gone exactly as planned. In fact, if he had to be truthful, some things had gone wrong.

...okay, maybe everything had gone haywire.

For one, he'd failed at making a good impression, but he didn't know why! He'd used every trick in the book, had introduced himself, engaged in a conversation and been his own humorous self. He'd approached the kid someplace public, smiled from the beginning and looked at him in the eye--though that had been annoyingly easy since they were the same height, argh!--but none of those tactics seemed to have helped!

He should've successfully bagged their army leader and dragged him off to bed in a snap, yet Lazlo had smiled off his every attempts at inviting him to talk and gone off to god knew where, leaving the pirate alone on the deck to stare at his back in disbelief.

Thus, Hervey had gone back to see his best bud to clear his thoughts with a good bottle of rum.

"I don't get it, Sig," the hotheaded pirate scowled into his drink. "I was cool, charismatic and very sexy, so why didn't it work?"

"Hervey, did you even make sure he was interested?" For the most part, Sigurd didn't look at his friend, carefully aiming at the target hanging off the wall before letting the dart fly right into the center of it.

"Of course, I did!" Hervey slammed his bottle on the table to emphasize his point. "You were there when we rescued him from Dario! He was looking straight at me!"

"Did it even cross your mind that you could've imagined that?"

The answer was an immediate and resonant "No."

"..." The taller pirate had to exert a lot of patience to refrain from throwing Hervey overboard. Although Dario would surely cheer at such an event, Lady Kika would probably be displeased at the loss of such a loyal underling, no matter how expendable and debatably useful the fire starter was. As such, he sighed and continued throwing darts at the target on the wall.

Really, the ideas Hervey would come up with sometimes. And he was just as persistant as a dog who was given a bone. It hadn't even occurred to the sienna-haired pirate that perhaps Lazlo was simply a straightforward youth.

"All right, assuming Sir Lazlo is somehow interested in you, do you think your methods would work on him in the first place?"

"They're foolproof, Sig!" Hervey repeated himself with a glare. "There's no way it couldn't have worked!" Though those favourite method of his had failed him this time--and a couple more time in the past, but he wouldn't admit that to his buddy.

"If you say so." Sigurd obviously didn't believe a single word out of the shorter pirate's mouth at the moment.

Hervey growled unhappily. This was not good...

"...Look, why don't you try another approach?" He suggested quickly, pulling all the darts off the wall. "Talk about him. Ask him what he likes. That sort of thing."

"Dammit, Sig, he's not a girl!"

Speaking of which, that reminded him... "Hervey, why are you going after Sir Lazlo instead of a girl?" That was fairly puzzling as Hervey never had gone after males before. Why start now?

"Why?" Hervey stressed, a grin slowly growing on his face.

It was that look again, the one that made Sigurd believe he shouldn't have said a thing. He dreaded to hear what his friend had to say, but it was much better to hear it now than to find out later, especially where Hervey's crazy plans were concerned.

"It's because he isn't a girl, Sig," the shorter pirate started confidently with his demented logic. "Don't you see? He looks like one, but he'll be low-maintenance and there won't be any strings attached! It's perfect!"

The dark one couldn't help stare at his comrade while dread filled his being. There were so many flaws in this idea and that wasn't even counting their young ally's reaction to it.

Before he could even attempt to dissuade Hervey from such an insane notion, Nalleo appeared at their doorstep, looking into the room.

"Sigurd, Lady Kika's asking for you," the boy called when his eyes found Sigurd.

"Tell her I'm coming," he answered automatically, paying no attention to Nalleo's departure and adressing his friend as he put down the darts. While he would try to imprint the severity and foolishness of such a concept, he couldn't help but think the flighty pirate would dismiss his warning. "Hervey, think about what you've just said while I go see Lady Kika. I don't think Sir Lazlo would agree to such terms."

"You worry over nothing, Sig." He waved such concern easily as he took another swig of his drink. "It's a win-win situation!"

Sigurd had no time to say anything to that--undoubtedly, Kika would know what held him up, but he still preferred to answer promptly to his lady captain--and shook his head before heading toward the door. He stopped there, the moment to throw a last word of caution to the wilder pirate.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

He left before his buddy could finish swallowing his mouthful of rum to properly dismiss the warning. Thus left alone, Hervey muttered after his departure, childishly mimicking him before putting away those words and resuming his drinking binge.