DISCLAIMER: I don't own FFX, and I don't know what sort of things a Spira hotel would be equipped with.
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"What do you have to say for yourselves?"
They were back in the hotel lobby. Rikku and Seymour were seated in armchairs next to each other, staring up at Auron. The legendary guardian stood with his arms crossed, wearing the tight-lipped frown of an angered schoolteacher. Lulu and Wakka watched from a loveseat off to the side.
"We're sorry, Auron," Rikku said timidly.
"Sorry?" he repeated. "What you did was dangerous, Rikku. Not to mention childish. How many things could've happened to let Seymour escape? Outside of that, you created even more hazard on your own. I know about what happened in that bar. 'Sorry' doesn't cut it."
"I would like to say that I had no voice in the matter whatsoever," Seymour spoke up. "I was merely an unwitting participant."
Rikku swatted him. "Traitor!"
Auron glared at him balefully. "If you hadn't been with her, I would have had no problem letting her wander off. She generally has some common sense on her own."
"But nothing happened to us," Rikku said soothingly. "I'm okay, and Seymour's still under control. Did you really have to drag us out of the karaoke place by the ears?"
"You deserved it."
"But did you really have to come onstage to do it?" she protested. "We didn't even get to finish the song!"
"And I didn't even get Giara's address!" Seymour fumed.
Auron raised his eyebrows. "That is something I'd expect from Tidus."
Rikku's green eyes widened. "Hey, you are kinda acting like Tidus!"
Seymour sickeningly realized it was true. He, acting like that stupid, clumsy, idiotic blond thing? "Dear Yevon, no..." He shuddered in horror.
Rikku laughed. "Well, there's his punishment. And I promise never to wander off and start barroom brawls with an unsent evil guy ever again. Are we forgiven, Auron?"
"You're as forgiven as you're going to be," Auron said. "It's late. The airship will be here early tomorrow. We ought to get to sleep." He tossed a key to Lulu and glared at the group. "And don't touch anything in the minibar unless you have the gil to pay for it." He touched his sword hilt. "Or else."
Their adjoining rooms were on the third floor. They were separated by two back-to-back doors. Each room had two beds. One had a rollaway bed waiting as well.
"How're we sleeping?" Wakka asked.
"The same way we always do," Rikku replied. "Guys and girls."
Wakka groaned. "Aww, I don't wanna sleep with him." He pointed at Seymour.
"He'll be on the rollaway bed," Auron said.
"Wait. Why must I have the rollaway?"
They ignored Seymour. "I still don't wanna," Wakka said. "He's creepy and evil. An' he probably snores, too."
"Wakka, you snore," Lulu pointed out.
"And Auron grinds his teeth," Rikku added. "If anything, he should be begging not to sleep with you guys."
"Not that I am overly enthused about rooming with you," Seymour said, "but what, may I ask, is wrong with me? Don't you owe me for salvaging a win for your pathetic blitzball team?"
"Yeah, maybe, but it's principle, ya?" said Wakka. "He's Rikku's. Can't he sleep with you girls?"
"No!" Seymour exclaimed. "Do you have any idea what she will do with that?"
Rikku made a face. "Eww!"
"That's a bit inappropriate," said Auron.
"Okay, how 'bout this? Me an' Lu will be in one room—"
Lulu arched an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"In separate beds! In separate beds!" he assured her hastily. "So then Rikku, Auron, and Seymour will be in the other room, ya?"
"NO!"
"EWW!"
"That's extremely inappropriate."
"Forget it, Wakka," said Lulu. "Seymour's with you."
"Must I really be?" Seymour asked. "Can't I sleep in the hallway?"
"No." The girls retired into their room.
Rikku stuck her head back through the doorway. "And Wakka, be nice to Seymour." She shut the door behind her.
"I'm gonna go shower," Wakka grumbled.
Auron sat down on his bed and started reading a book, leaving the rollaway for Seymour to set up on his own. It took some time, for Seymour had never used a rollaway before and, while he didn't quite know what to do, he certainly was not going to ask Auron for help. This was good, because Auron didn't so much as glance up from his book when Seymour started laughing and got his arm stuck in the bed because Wakka got soap in his eyes and let out an anguished bellow.
Wakka emerged from the shower, his eyes red and his hair damp and slightly less vertical. He wore a pair of boxers and an old T-shirt. Auron went in for the next shower, finishing somewhat faster and wearing only a pair of grungy pants. Seymour took his turn in the shower. He realized as he began the difficult task of peeling off his pants—how had he gotten into them in the first place?—that the only sleepwear he had was his boxers. He hadn't noticed before, as all sleeping had been done at odd hours when Rikku decided that he should. Wearing only his underwear seemed crass to him. Also, the room was a bit chilly. After he'd showered and dried off, he decided to fetch his second shirt from Rikku. He opened their connecting door—
"Hey!" came an angry shout. A powerful shock hit his neck as the door slammed shut. "Geez, don't you knock?"
"Don't you lock your doors?" Seymour shot back. "I only opened it a couple of inches, anyway. I saw nothing, so you had better not tell your family that I've been trying to...to peep at you."
"Well, I wasn't going to, but since you suggested it..."
Wakka chickled. Seymour massaged his forehead in exasperation. "Just give me my other shirt."
"Say please."
He sighed. "Please."
"Pretty please with sugar on top."
Why was she being so juvenile? "...Pretty please with sugar on top."
"Now do a dance!"
"What?"
"She gets slaphappy if she's up too late," Auron said without looking up. "It isn't personal. Ignore her and she'll go away."
"I don't hear dancing!" Rikku called in a singsong voice.
"Rikku, give him the shirt," Lulu said beyond the door. "You can play with him some more tomorrow."
"Fine." After a moment the door opened a crack. Rikku stuck her arm through the gap and handed him the shirt. "There you go. G'night!" The door shut.
Wakka guffawed. "Oh, that's great. She's really got you whipped, ya?"
"Have her put Calhoun on you and see how you fare," Seymour groused as he pulled on the sleeveless remains of his outer robe. "Of course, if Lulu held the controller, you would probably like it."
"Hey, what're you saying?" Wakka demanded.
"Both of you shut up and go to sleep," said Auron. He turned out the lights.
Despite his unusually eventful day, Seymour was not tired. He lay awake staring at the ceiling, pondering Wakka's observation. Yes, Rikku certainly had him whipped—Seymour wasn't familiar with the slang term, but it sounded appropriate. There was so much she could get away with so long as she had that blasted controller. It was intolerable. ...Well, he didn't suppose today had been too bad. Blitzball had been entertaining, especially since he had won. (He smiled again at the memory of the unconscious floating blitzers.) And the ditching of Auron afterward had been enjoyable, especially towards the end. Actually, come to think of it, even the debacle in the questionable bar had been kind of fun. Rikku was...growing on him, he had to admit.
Yes. Growing on me. Like some sort of fungus.
He started to doze off to the melodious sound of Auron grinding his teeth when something crashed into the rollaway.
"Ow! Son of a—"
Seymour sat up. "Wakka, what are you doing?"
Wakka rubbed his bruised shin. "I'm gonna go prank the girls."
"For what purpose?"
"It's tradition," Wakka said. "Me an' Tidus do it all the time."
"Then won't they be expecting it?"
Wakka thought about it, then shook his head. "Na-uh, 'cause Tidus isn't here, ya? They wouldn't think that I'd do it all by myself."
"Right. Of course," Seymour said sarcastically.
His tone was lost on Wakka. "Hey, you wanna come?" he asked. "Rikku said I had to be nice to you. This might be kinda a fun bonding experience or something, ya?"
Seymour shrugged. There seemed to be no harm in it. "I have nothing better to do."
"Great! C'mon." Wakka headed out into the hallway.
"Why don't we just use the adjoining doors?" Seymour asked.
"They locked theirs after Rikku gave you the shirt. But they usually forget this one..." He moved out of Seymour's line of sight. Seymour heard him jiggle the door handle. The door clicked open. "See?" Wakka poked his head through the doorway and motioned for Seymour to follow. "Now be quiet."
They walked as silently as possible into the dark room. As his eyes adjusted, Seymour discerned the shapes of Rikku and Lulu asleep in their respective beds. Wakka ducked into the bathroom and emerged with a can of shaving cream.
"What is that for?" Seymour asked.
Wakka grinned broadly. "We're gonna put this shaving cream in their hands, so when they wake up, it'll be all over their faces!"
How was the shaving cream supposed to not smear on the sheets beforehand? Seymour wondered absently. He rolled his eyes at the idiocy of the prank. "Ingenious."
Wakka shook up the can and headed over to Rikku, who lay with her arms and legs sprawled out over the length of the bed. Her mouth hung open and she snored slightly. Wakka lifted one of her wrists and pried her clenched fingers open. "Hey Seymour, you wanna try this? Get revenge, ya?"
It could be a trick, Seymour thought. At the same time, dread visions of Rikku waking up, seeing him, and putting a spin on the incident filled his head. "No, you go ahead," he said hastily.
"Suit yourself." Wakka rummaged through a pile at his feet. "You can take care of these, then."
He tossed two things to Seymour. The half-Guado caught them and discovered that he held a black corset and a lime green bra. He dropped them as though they were spiders.
Wakka chuckled. "You gotta be less uptight. They're just clothes, brudda. Like socks or something."
"Socks are used for different purposes," Seymour muttered to himself. He picked up the garments with his fingertips. "What am I to do with these?"
"You soak 'em in cold water and put 'em in the minbar freezer," Wakka explained as he squirted a blob of shaving cream into Rikku's hand. "Haven't you done this before?"
"I cannot say that have."
"Whoa, you're missing out!" Wakka moved on to Lulu, who slept huddled so far over on one side of the bed that she was on the verge of falling off. "Y'know, maybe if you'd had more fun, you wouldn't be all evil and spooky-like."
Seymour ran cold water over Lulu's corset, ensuring that it was thoroughly soaked. "I doubt that more experience freezing the undergarments of others would have any bearing on who I am today." He started on Rikku's bra. "You know," he mused, not paying attention to what he said, "you could fill the cups of this with shaving cream if you wanted to."
"Seymour, you're a genius!" Wakka exclaimed. "I can't believe I never thought of that! That's great!"
After making certain that Lulu held two fistfuls of shaving cream, Wakka gleefully joined Seymour at the sink and began filling the bra. Seymour silently vowed that he would never think out loud again. He also was beginning to think that extended periods of time with Wakka had negative effects on his brain function.
Wakka placed the two undergarments in the freezer, careful not to upset the shaving cream. They snuck back into their own room. Within minutes Wakka's loud, phlegmy snores joined Auron's grinding teeth in a cacophony that made it impossible for Seymour to get to sleep. He considered returning next door, finding Calhoun's controller, and pushing the sleep button. It then occurred to him that he could have searched for and stolen Calhoun while he helped Wakka accomplish his ludicrous mission. Seymour cursed his stupidity. Well, he would not waste another opportunity. He got up and began sneaking back to the girls' room.
Seymour was almost at his door when he heard the adjoining door creak open. Lulu and Rikku tiptoed inside. The former wore a black nightgown that Seymour recognized as one of the things Rikku had brought for him to wear the day she'd taken his clothes. Rikku herself wore lime green shorts and a tank top. She also still had on the violet glow necklaces from the karaoke place, which were beginning to lose some of their brightness.
"Seymour, what're you doing up?" Rikku asked.
Damn! The controller was in her pocket. "Bathroom," Seymour lied. "Why are you in here?"
"Pranking Wakka and Auron," she replied. "We were gonna get you, too; but since you're up, do you want to help us?"
"What are you planning on?"
"We're sticking Wakka on the roof," Lulu said.
"And we're making Auron pretty." Rikku held up a bag of cosmetics.
Seymour was a bit impressed. This was much more productive than what Wakka had come up with. Which reminded him—
"Shouldn't you have shaving cream on your faces?"
The girls laughed. "We're used to the shaving cream," Lulu said. "Wakka and Tidus do it whenever we're at an inn or a travel agency."
Rikku rolled her eyes. "And the dumbest thing is that they don't even do it right. You're supposed to tickle the person's face while they're asleep, so they swat their face right away."
"I had wondered about that," said Seymour. "It is a well-know trick, then?"
"The oldest trick in the book," said Rikku. "And they follow it up with the second-oldest, the lame bra-freezing thing."
"We've been hiding our real clothes for months now," Lulu told him. "We leave the same decoys out every night. It's really a bit sad that they haven't noticed by now."
Rikku pulled a chair up to the edge of Auron's bed and started applying lipstick to the sleeping guardian's mouth. "Hey Lulu, should I use the purple eye shadow or the bright blue?"
"Hmm...what color lipstick are you using?" Lulu asked.
"Red-Light District."
"I'd go with the bright blue, then. Will you hand me the white paint? I want to put Kabuki makeup on Wakka."
"Here." Rikku tossed Lulu a compact. "Seymour, why don't you start painting Auron's nails?"
Seymour decided that Lulu and Rikku were a force to be reckoned with and, under the circumstances, it would be much safer for him to cooperate with them. He sat down on the floor next to Rikku's chair. She passed him a bottle of hot pink polish and nudged one of Auron's arms within his reach. Seymour shook up the bottle and started carefully painting Auron's nails.
"You know, Seymour," Rikku said after a moment, "you're about the last person I figured would ever stick anything in my bra."
"Excuse me?" Seymour's voice cracked. He felt his face reddening.
"You know, the shaving cream thing," Rikku continued offhandedly. "Geez, get your mind out of the gutter."
"You meant for that to sound questionable and you know it," he snapped.
"Of course." Rikku laughed. "You should've seen your face! You were beet red!"
They sat in silence for a few minutes, transforming Auron into a twisted drag queen. Rikku finished working on his face and put away her cosmetics. She plunked down next to Seymour. "What are they, anyway?"
"What are what?"
"The things on your face," she replied. "Are they veins or tattoos?"
Seymour had never thought about it before. "I really cannot say. I have had them since I can remember."
Rikku reached over and touched them. She frowned. "Hmm. They're not bumpy like veins usually are when they're that dark. But getting tattoos there would hurt, and having them that close to your eyes would be dangerous." She began tracing the thin blue lines with her fingertip.
Seymour swatted her hand away. "Stop that. It feels odd and it tickles."
Rikku's eyes lit up, and Seymour knew that he had just made a very grave blunder. "You're ticklish, eh?" she asked with a mischievous grin.
"You keep away from me," he warned. He moved backwards to distance himself from her.
Rikku followed, wiggling her fingers. "I'm gonna getcha!"
"For the love of Yevon, you're nearly an adult!" he cried. "This is unseemly!"
"What are you talking about? You're never too old for tickle fights!"
Seymour had run out of floor and was backed against the wall. "Lulu!" he called in despair. "Make her stop!"
"Rikku." Lulu employed the same stern tone that Auron often used. "Stop it. It's...disturbing."
"Why?" Rikku asked, and for once her innocence didn't appeared feigned.
"You mean you honestly don't—oh, forget it. You can guess on your own. In the meantime, behave and be quiet, children. You'll wake everyone up."
"Who are you calling a child?" Seymour wanted to know. "I believe I am older than you are."
Lulu gave him a look. "You want me to sic her on you?" She pointed at Rikku.
"No, ma'am," Seymour said meekly with only a hint of sarcasm.
"Good. Rikku, may I have the red lipstick, please?" Rikku ran to the cosmetics bag and tossed the lipstick tube to Lulu. "Thank you. This ought to do it..." Lulu coated Wakka's mouth with the absurdly red stuff. "There! Finished. Now we can take him on the roof. Seymour, get his feet. Rikku, open the doors."
Lulu picked up the utterly unconscious Wakka underneath the arms. Seymour grabbed him around the ankles and they lifted him off the bed. Rikku darted ahead of them and held the door open for them. Despite knocking him against the doorframe on the way out, Wakka didn't stir.
Lulu rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Honestly, he could sleep through Sin." She nodded to the right. "The stairwell's this way."
Rikku opened the stairwell door and took great care to shut it silently after her. On the first flight of stairs alone, they accidentally conked Wakka's head against the steps five times.
"I am beginning to see the reason for his thick-wittedness," Seymour observed. Rikku giggled.
"Now, now," Lulu rebuked them. "Wakka is a good blitzball player and a dedicated guardian."
"I never said he wasn't," Seymour explained. "I only said that his mental slowness might be due to massive head trauma. How much longer must we carry him?"
"That isn't much better," Lulu grumbled. "And in answer to your question, we have two more flights of stairs to go. I suppose I must thank you for helping, Seymour. This is much easier than it would be with only Yuna, Rikku, and me. We managed to leave Tidus in a cloister once at the Djose Temple, but we dropped him quite a few times on the way."
"I am happy to assist," Seymour said truthfully. If it led to discomfort or embarrassment for Wakka, he would gladly help anytime. "Now, what else have you done to Tidus?"
They regaled him the rest of the way with tales of their exploits, which included tying him to a lightning rod at the Thunder Plains; "accidentally" becoming separated from him in the Temple of Bevelle; having him dragged behind a raging chocobo; and convincing him that Bombs really wanted to be hit lightly multiple times, and that if he hit them just the right way, they would give him candy. Seymour laughed at all of this, and was further amused and impressed to find that these were only a few of the things the girls had inflicted upon the ditzy little blond boy. Having deposited Wakka safely on the roof, they bid each other goodnight and went off to their rooms. Seymour fell soundly asleep with blissful visions of Tidus torture dancing in his head.
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(A/N) Yeah, I'm kinda mean to Wakka and Tidus. But Seymour's been getting his comeuppance all along, Auron's become the resident grump, and Kimahri's not even there. So I figure they're overdue for some mockery.
Speaking of Auron, he's going to wreak his vengeance upon them all very shortly. Stay tuned!
Thanks once again to all readers, and especially reviewers, who inspire me to spin around in joyful circles until thouroughly dizzy. And congratulations to Shido, who actually bothered to track down old King Lycomedes, who did absolute diddly but had some interesting houseguests. Heheheheh...the mighty warrior Achilles, cross-dressing because his mommy told him to. Ah, ancient Greek legends, the original fanfics.