A/N: Been meaning to start a drabble series for FFVIII and when I started seeing a whole bunch of awesome prompt ideas on tumblr I decided to do a series based off of those! Might come up with a better title for the series eventually but… hey I can just say Laguna came up with it, right? Sounds like something he'd suggest, lol.
This was written in two main sessions. The first half was written on Laguna's birthday a few days ago and the rest was written tonight. So yea, think of this as a belated birthday gift for Laguna! Even if I wasn't exactly flattering to him here, lol. As much as I love him and try to show that he's actually more serious a character than people think I just couldn't resist here!
Also didn't quite follow the prompt exactly but close enough!
Title: Spider
Prompt: Person A finds a spider and runs away, telling Person B to come and remove the spider, but person B is also scared, and the both of them sit in fear until person C steps in and removes it.
Characters: Laguna, Raine, and Ellone (Had to start off with a Laguna one, come on!)
Laguna hummed merrily as he shoved the door open with his hip, balancing a tray piled high with dishes. After yet again slipping up with his language around Elle he had been delegated to dish duty, and on one of the busiest nights of the week to boot. Humming an upbeat tune was helping him keep cheerful though and his trademark grin was still present well into the night.
"Will you stop that god-awful humming Laguna? Remember, you're not supposed to be having fun with this, not to mention you can't carry a tune to save your own life."
Laguna poked his face back around the door to peer at Raine sheepishly, dredging up his best puppy eyes. "Oh come on Raine, it was just a little humming, plus Elle enjoys it, right?" he said, aiming the last bit at the small tousled head peeking round the stairs.
Raine turned around, glaring at the little girl. "Ellone, you're supposed to be upstairs!"
Ellone looked towards Laguna in panic, knowing she was in trouble. He waggled his eyebrows at her before doing his best impersonation of Raine's glare behind her back, causing Ellone to burst into giggles. Raine immediately whipped back around, catching Laguna mid-impersonation.
"Honestly what will I ever do with the two of you? You guys are hopeless!"
But Laguna could see the smile pulling at her mouth and knew she wasn't really mad at them, so with a laugh he turned back towards the room to put down the tray that was still weighing heavily in his arms. He started up the humming again absentmindedly and began to search for a clear spot on the counter to put down his load. He finally located one and quickly stepped over, wanting quickly to relieve the pressure on his arms. He started putting the tray down before he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He blinked once, twice, and then he could have sworn it blinked back. He screamed and jumped back instinctively, cringing at the inevitable crashing of dishes that followed when his tray tumbled to the floor.
Immediately the sound of the door slamming back open rattled through the room accompanied by the sound of hurried footsteps as Raine raced in. "What happened?! Are you okay, you didn't hurt yourself did you?"
All Laguna could do was gape at her before turning his pale face back towards the counter, raising a shaking hand to point at a spot in the middle of it. She followed his gaze and sighed as it landed on the spider sitting innocently on the tile.
"Really Laguna? You got so scared of a tiny spider that you dropped all those dishes? You should be more scared of me right now than it!"
Laguna gulped at the livid look on her face and struggled to come up with something to say in his defense. "…but it's really big! And I could have sworn it blinked at me! That really freaked me out!"
Raine just continued glaring at him for a few seconds more before sighing again and began to look for something she could either trap the spider with or squish it. Finally her eyes landed on a mug that had surprisingly survived the crash to the floor. Picking it up she carefully walked over to the counter, avoiding the bigger pieces of ceramic shards as she went. In the process of lowering the cup, she locked eyes with the spider, and froze as she realized that the thing was actually quite a bit bigger up close than she had initially thought. She slowly lowered her arms while backing away slowly.
"Raine? What's wrong?" asked Laguna, still crouched on the floor a safe distance away from the counter and the monster that sat on it.
Raine froze in the process of backing up. "Nothing… I just realized that I don't want to use my good mug for this. I'll just…go and get something else." With that she turned and started quickly towards the door.
"Hey!" Laguna shouted, a panicky look forming across his face, "don't you dare leave me in here alone with that… that thing!"
Raine turned back towards him, opening her mouth to come up some sort of retort when the sound of the door distracted her. She turned back around to find Ellone slowly creeping in. "What happen'd? I heard a woud noise…"
"Nothing sweetie. Laguna just got scared of a little spider and dropped the dishes."
"H-hey!" Laguna exclaimed, looking affronted. "You're obviously scared of him too with the way you were hurrying out so fast!"
"Hmph", Raine snorted, "I think you're just delusional!"
"Delusional?! I just call em' like I see em'!"
Raine, her face colored a deep red from anger, raised a finger to jab in Laguna's face, opening her mouth to yell when she was interrupted yet again by Elle.
"Uhh, Raine? Uncle Laguna? I don' see what's so scawry about a lil' spider…"
The two adults whipped their heads around at that, surprised to see little Elle at the counter, the mug that Raine had abandoned in one hand while the other was pressed tightly on top, the spider nowhere to be seen.
"Elle! What are doing over there! There are pieces of broken dishes everywhere, you could get hurt!"
"You caught the spider?!"
The two had spoken at the same time and Ellone looked confused for a moment before breaking out into a smile. "I was cawful, pwomise!" she directed at Raine and then she walked towards Laguna. "I caught it! See!"
"Aww, what a brave little girl you are!" Laguna yelled out as he swept Ellone up into a large bear hug.
"Ahh! Uncle Laguna, stop!" she said giggling so much she could barely talk. "Your hair tickles!"
"Ah sorry," he laughed, putting her down and settling for ruffling her hair instead. Ellone wasn't paying attention though; she was staring intensely at her hands.
"Ellone what's wrong?" asked Raine, leaning down towards the girl.
She looked up at them, her eyes wide. "The spider's gone…"
The sentence hung in the air for a moment before chaos ensued.
Raine had jumped back with a squeal, moving so quickly that she nearly gave herself whiplash. Laguna had already grabbed Ellone and was almost out the door before Raine was even all the way up.
Laguna's yells and Ellone's giggles echoed through the hallway as Raine raced behind them.
Throughout the whole fiasco, the crowd of customers in the dining room hadn't even batted an eye. Just another normal night now that Laguna was living among them.