Summary: Laguna meets some interesting characters, all the while trying to make it through his journey. No one said it would be easy.
A/N: It could be either of the brothers, and I'm pretty sure I'm placing this in one of the cycles before 12th, now that I have duodecim...I love spamming enemies with Laguna from afar! I don't like Yuna's long distance much, and Kain I cycle between love and hate with. Like his apparent loyalties (*joke*).
People, Pleaser
Kitsy-Katsy
The guy was a like a cat, all sleek and agile and limbs.
"Thanks, thanks so much!" Laguna gulps down potion after potion like a starving man, observed by the guy who'd rescued him an hour-day-month ago. You can't be too clear about the passage of time in this place.
"No problem." Hero's got a tail that curls and bunches behind him like a cat, and his smile isn't too far off the mark either. He's got a vicious fang peaking out of the lips framing his smile, and Laguna feels like it there's something he's missing, something he should be asking, but he dismisses it, glad that there's at least one thing going for him right now. He doesn't want to think about where he's going to find bullets to replace all the ones he just lost. Like trying to find a bullet in a haystack-except not.
"So, you headed anywhere?" The question is delivered smoothly and not entirely out of place, but Laguna almost chokes on the drink that he's been chugging down, like a good, tall glass of Horizon's finest, as he attempts to answer it, somehow still shocked by it. Hero smiles sharply, patting his back in different places like he's playing a drum, up-down-then-around, ruffling his jacket as his hands pass around, but he doesn't think much on it as the rhythm helps and he's back to breathing like a normal human being in no time. Only to smell something that stinks to high heave-Oh. Him. Yeah.
"Wherever the winds take me." Laguna delivers, still short of breath, but damn if he doesn't sound mysteriously cool. Like yeah. Maybe he could sneak that into his next state of the union address...
"You sure?" Hero poses the question archly, leaning forward, ever forward, and still smiling like he's got a secret that he doesn't want to share. Laguna takes a few steps backwards, stumbling and then tumbling onto his behind with a thump when he forgets to feel out his path and trips over a bit of rubble.
"I-I'm pretty sure!" He exclaims, bewildered and grateful when Hero backs off and perches himself on a rocky surface, directing his gaze up at the ever-present stars. Laguna jumps to his feet as suavely as he can, still trying to get his bearings, and sits lightly on a nearby structure. They don't say anything for a bit, so he starts to fidget. Small-talk? Sounds about good right now.
"Where're you headed to?" His companion shrugs, obviously disinterested in anything but the stars' warped shining selves above them. Laguna's pretty sure stars don't shine like that, because he's seen them on Lunar Base, and those stars, closer than they are now on land and out of deep space, never gave him such shivers. The heebie-jeebies they were, downright frightful.
"Somewhere." Hero comments, noncommittally. His tail sways hypnotically, and Laguna can barely withhold the urge to touch it like a ball of shiny string, or a newly-issued machine gun, and decides to sit on his hands to stop it. It works, sort of. But now he's reminded by the lack of ammo in his pocket that he really needs to scavenge and maybe beg off of a moogle, the stingy little balls of fur. He saw a gunblade in their catalog, but he'd headed straight to the guns in stock before he gave it another thought. And he'd seen a glint in the mog's eyes when he saw him almost drool over some of the higher-tech models, but, then, who were those gunblade for-?
"Somewhere, a place I have to return to. Neither Cloud nor Squall shall hinder me." Hero hums this as he would a little ditty, his voice lilting and adding an exotic tilt to the words and painting a wistful picture in the air between them. It's a pretty tune he weaves, familiar, and Laguna thinks about Julia and Raine and all that came afterwards. And then he registers another issue he's been avoiding thinking about for as long as he's been wandering about. Squall. And that just sunk his mood about a hundred points below "happy". Thinking about the...situation tended to do that to him. Laguna begins to tap his foot, part anxious and part frustrated as a flood of other unhappy thoughts begin to penetrate his haze of survivor's giddiness.
"Why did you help me?" Laguna puts it out there, to silence the nagging doubt in the back of his mind. He's not what you'd call highly observant about the obvious, his buddies reminding him of that often, but he'd like to think that when it counts, he knows the right thing to say or ask to get out of or into a situation. Ideas and words are his thing, and the thought of this guy, Hero or whatever his name really was (because in true Laguna-fashion, he hadn't bothered asking him it in-between the realization that he hadn't been absolutely murdered to death by a munchkin and the idea that he really wanted the pain to stop...please?), helping him so much without asking for anything or expecting anything in return, or even mentioning the thing, is weird. Unless the guy was some sort of-
"Do I need a reason?" Laguna looks up, lost in his thoughts for a moment, and observes a softening of the sharp look on Hero's face. "Do I need a reason to help someone? "
"Uh-No, I mean, no!" He's aware of a warming on the bridge of his nose, so close to blushing its embarrassing all over again-he hadn't meant to offend the guy who saved him! "I was just curious-"
"I mean, if I get into trouble, I expect you to help me out, 'kay Gunny? Give and take and all that." The tone is flirty now, light-hearted and utterly devoid of any of the gravity that had previously suffused the situation. The blond winks, tail curled around his waist, and starts walking off in a direction Laguna thinks is the opposite of where he's going to be headed. He sometimes feels like his thoughts get ahead of themselves in this place, though he's not sure how that's possible.
"I-I will!" Laguna punches the air, a grin ripping his features as he pumps a fist up at the thought. He's got an ally! A friend! No matter how odd the guy was, he's glad that he's not the only one watching his back now! Hero looks back for a moment, only a short moment, but raises his hand in a good-bye gesture, soon disappearing into the far-off distance.
"I help out any of my buddies!" Laguna reminds himself, energy returned to him in spades. He's alone, and now realizing how he probably needs to mosey along now before his voice attracts more trouble and munchkins. And the mogs wandered into the oddest places, almost like they didn't want to part with the wares they were meant to sell, which explained the abnormal pricing-
His smile falls, as he thinks for a moment before shaking his head in thought and turning to continue in the opposite direction, "Even if they're really weird. I mean, he helped me 'cause he was nice, why try to hide that?"
A/N: I've decided that when he isn't saving the world, or impressing a girl, or leading a crew of misfits, he's a bit shrewd (thief) and channels his inner actor a lot, hence the bipolarity. Also wanted him to seem a bit like an uncompromising cat (though he's modeled after a monkey, isn't he?). He's also been left alone to stew in his thoughts, alone in this world after the events of the IX, and wants to have a bit of variation.
