by Emerald Embers
Rated PG for mild yaoi references
Square Enix owns j00. And Final Fantasy 9, and its characters. I don't. I'm making no money off this.
Notes: Scenario adapted (quite extensively!) from the beginning of Treasure Island. I *heart* Robert Louis Stevenson. AKA Bob.
"Anyway Blank, keep an eye out for a guy with a silver tail. Baku'll know what to do if you tell him, but his eyesight's not as good as he'd like to think it is, so just... keep watch, okay?" Zidane had thumped him on the shoulder lightly, eyes concerned. "I know I should hang out with you guys more but I kind of got myself caught up in all this, and I can't keep guard for you. Look after everyone, alright?" The brown-tailed boy had bitten his lip then before hugging him, tail twitching from side to side incessantly. "Take care of yourself." And with that, he'd gone.
Blank sighed before folding his arms and fidgeting to make his position on the windowsill a little more comfortable. Granted, they'd managed to arrive back at home safely, but the warning Zidane had given him made everything seem somewhat less settled than usual. Plus there was the vagueness of the remark. Now Blank was tetchy as to what sort of silver tail this was supposed to be, and he had little or no idea as to why he was supposed to be looking out for it. A little smirk crossed his face though as he realised that Zidane had at least managed to specify the gender of the tail's owner, which was something of a relief. Not that Blank would have complained extensively at having a reasonably legitimate excuse for looking up women's skirts, but still. That would have been a lot of skirt-lifting. And some of the women wandering around didn't exactly have rears he felt like staring at.
It was getting quite difficult to relax these days though. Things kept going really, really weird in other cities, and not only was thievery a pain to survive off when people were taking better care of their belongings 'just in case', but weirdos were starting to hang around in the city more and more. Trying to figure out whether certain apparently male creatures had tails tucked away, or just enormous asses, was not top of Blank's "fun things to do before I die" list.
And sleep was awkward too. Bizarre dreams were starting to creep up on Blank where he was being chased, beaten or fried by the magic of silver-tailed creatures. They rarely looked the same. Some nights it just looked like a regular man with a stumpy little spike, others some strange, vaguely masculine monster with an enormous bushy tail... and the dreams about actually getting throttled by the tails were not pleasant by any description. He'd had dreams about Zidane's tail before, but in those the tail was put to a much more... pleasant use. And it was soft and fluffy and twitchy, not hard and scratchy and ungiving.
Blank sighed, rested his head on his left hand, turning his gaze away from the window for a moment. Zidane sure knew how to get people on edge, just as much as he knew how to put them at ease when the occasion called for it. It had been surreal watching that boy grow up. He'd started out quiet at first, then turned into a major pain in the ass during puberty. He remained boisterous even now, but Baku had managed to literally beat some sense into him. Besides, Blank had developed a certain fondness for the kid. He was good-natured and surprisingly open, though in no way naive. Plus, while most people pretended to some extent that they couldn't bear being in his presence, Blank knew damn well everyone secretly adored Zidane. You couldn't not love someone like that, all brightness and noise and humour. You needed people like that around, they made life interesting.
Blank fidgeted again, his discomfort increasingly not from the windowsill. The kid had made things even more difficult by growing kind of cute as time passed by. While he wasn't quite an oil-painting, he was pretty enough to pass decently well as a girl in certain play roles until he opened his mouth with that ridiculous accent - always mock royalty or mock Ruby. And that huge grin begged to be shared with the world in more ways than one.
Blank sighed and folded his arms, returning to looking out of the window. Zidane was going to pay when he got back if this was a false alarm.
Another smirk crossed Blank's face as he tried to think up a suitable punishment.
The End