Everything Looks Better Ch. 11

Without preamble, Auron's left eye popped open and he rolled it around his socket to examine a starless night sky. He was unharmed, but remained lying on his back, gathering details with his other senses and coming up with very little. The ground shifted grittily underneath him. Sand. There was no sound of the ocean though, only faint music, hard and heavy with a fast beat. Besaid Island? Bikanel Desert? Kilika Beach? Hide and seek, Sin's favorite game, Auron thought. He didn't know if he had enough sanity left to survive another three months of that, but he would have to try because this time Sin had involved Raine.

Sitting upright, Auron shook the beach out of his hair, spit it out through his lips and scrubbed it off his face. A slight brow raise was his only reaction when he realized he wasn't in Bikanel Desert or Kilika Beach. He wasn't even sure if he was in Spira.

He was in Zanarkand, facing the marina.

Apparently lacking lunar influence to bring in the tide, the ocean was suspiciously and unbelievably still, the bay a graveyard of abandoned houseboats and sailing vessels. Behind him, a dry, haunted fog muddied the bright lights of Central Zanarkand. Auron had considered the marina his home, where he felt comfortable retiring to after a long day. But this didn't feel like home. It felt hollow and dead.

There was still one houseboat with power. Raine's. It was lit up like a landing strip, every light on inside, and the windows vibrated from the music. Glancing around the ground, Auron didn't expect to find his katana, but thought he should at least look for it. Something was waiting for him and as much as he wanted to believe it was Raine, singing with a broom as a dance partner, this wasn't the peppy pop music she usually tuned into. If anything, the music was more like....

Impossible.

He boarded the docks empty-handed and followed the familiar path he'd taken a thousand times, the knot of trepidation he felt walking through the boneyard of ghost ships was heightened now that he was unarmed. Climbing the ramp, Auron noticed the front door was open a crack. This was the right houseboat, but there was something off about it. The welcome mat was missing and the sun-bleached deck boards were shabby and faded again. It occurred to Auron it may not be Raine's houseboat, but still Jecht's.

Guarded, Auron pushed on the door. Inside, the music was deafening and his view into the sunken parlor was obstructed by a hedge of cardboard moving boxes.

"Raine?" he called, but the music masked his voice.

After closing the door, he approached the boxes and peered over them. The houseboat was definitely different, returned to its original state, before the sea water damaged the stucco walls and shag carpeting. The old ceiling fan whipped around on high. Mountains of unlabeled moving boxes blocked the windows. Auron descended the stairs and waded through clothes strewn on the floor, kneeling by the stereo in its usual spot on the shelf, below Jecht's trophies, which were dusty, but not broken. Grimly assessing the stereo's knobs and dials, Auron picked the largest button and pushed it. Except for the ringing in his ears, the following silence was flawless.

A sixth sense alerted Auron he wasn't alone in the room. Behind him, Tidus was holding a box of more trophies, rooted in place, looking as alarmed as Auron felt. The trophies jangled together as Tidus dropped the box at his feet and marched across the room.

Quickly standing to brace for the attack, Auron inadvertently knocked over a pile of disk cassettes and they clattered to the floor. After marrying Tidus' sister without permission, Auron knew he earned the assault and he knew Tidus was justified in doing it, but what happened instead made Auron wish it had been as simple as a fight.

Tidus slung his arms around Auron and he had to elevate his chin to avoid colliding with the boy's forehead. Auron's elbows were pinned to his sides as Tidus fiercely squeezed, beating Auron's shoulder blades with his palms in an affectionately masculine embrace. Auron tried to retreat but Tidus hung on and Auron decided the fastest way to end it was to hug back. He felt oddly paternal with his arms around Tidus and after a moment, rested his chin on top of the boy's yellow mop of hair. Tidus sniffed against Auron's collar and the former warrior-monk's face hardened to hold back stinging tears.

That final day in Zanarkand Ruins, before Tidus disappeared with Yunalesca down those paradoxical stairs to nowhere, Auron and Tidus had parted with a sturdy handshake and a nod, after an awkward almost-hug Tidus started to initiate. Auron regretted their weak goodbye. Their amount of time together in the Zanarkand dream rivaled that of any father and son and Tidus deserved better.Aurondeserved better.

Stepping back, Tidus efficiently rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and smiled broadly, delivering a cheerful clap to Auron's shoulder. "Welcome to the family, old man."

Auron's face slacked in disbelief, but Tidus only laughed.

"Having a younger wife must suit you. You look good!"

"As do you," Auron said, eying Tidus' seventeen year old physique. The boy was wearing a pale peach tunic, loose linen pants and plastic sandals. It was strange to see him out of his Blitzball uniform, but he seemed relaxed, like he was on leave. Auron supposed in a way he was.

"Come sit." Tidus eagerly waved Auron into the circular parlor, scooping a heap of laundry off the couch and adding it to another pile at one end to clear off space.

Auron came in gradually, reluctantly.

"Want something to drink?" Tidus walked backwards into the galley, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the refrigerator.

"No. Thanks."

Sinking into the couch, the same one he and Raine had chased a litter of geckos out of once upon a time, Auron noted it was almost new. The houseboat was in the condition it was when Tidus lived there, before Raine had finished renovating it, before it was gutted, before the flood Jecht caused as Sin.

"Moving in?" Auron asked, eye drifting to the boxes that nearly touched the ceiling. Some were dangerously close to the ceiling fan blades. He wondered what was in all of them. Tidus didn't have much for belongings and he knew for a fact Tidus had only brought a backpack of clothes and a regulation-sized Blitzball with him to the real houseboat.

Real houseboat. Auron shook his head to himself. Did he actually just refer to Dream Zanarkand as real?

Tidus opened the refrigerator. "Moving out, actually. This is the last of it."

Last of it? Sweet Yevon, how much had been there before?

Auron leaned sideways to peer into one of the open moving boxes sitting next to him on the couch. As if hastily tossed inside, there was an old armguard, some faded Blitzball magazines and a pile of yellowed family photos. A wad of thick, fibrous construction paper was carelessly folded and wedged against the side of the box. Auron flattened them on the side of his leg and turned them over to look. Children's drawings. Rainbows, trees, suns—and Raine's name autographed at the bottom of each, scrawled in random colors in handwriting advanced for her age. They had probably all been shown to Auron at one time or another and he most likely paged through the amateur artwork with hurried disinterest, but now he considered each one with fresh sentiment. Especially the last one.

It was a family portrait of stick figures. Jecht was first, separated from the rest of his family by a squiggly brown line and surrounded by clouds of every color. The Farplane, when Raine still believed in it. On the right side of the Farplane's barrier, Raine's mother was next with scribbles of brown hair, Tidus and Raine followed with shocks of buttery hair. Last was Auron. His figure of sticks was drawn in brick red, the lower half of his face concealed with a grey box, his collar, and his hair was an inkblot with white sides. He stared at it with a face of stone to keep his reactions in check.

"Whatcha got there?" Tidus asked.

Auron cleared his throat. "Nothing," he said and shoved the pictures under the stack of magazines.

Tidus was scratching the back of his head when he returned with a dark mug filled with some liquid, shoving aside other dirty mugs on the coffee table to make room for the new one. He flopped down on the sectional opposite Auron and propped a flip-flop next to his beverage, relaxing for only a moment before lifting his hips to fidget with something in his pocket. "I have something of yours."

At first Auron peered over with only muted curiosity, until he saw the gold wedding bands lying half-stacked in Tidus' palm. Auron snatched them, studying the rings for authenticity. Raine had thrown them into the gorge the last he saw of them. How did Tidus get them?

"I guess this makes us brothers, huh?"

"It appears so," Auron mumbled, stuffing the rings safely in one of his inside cloak pockets. He couldn't be sure how real they were or if they could be taken from this place when it was time to leave, but he had to try.

"Cool, I always wanted a brother. I just always thought he'd be younger." Tidus grinned cheekily and then shrugged, reconsidering. "I guess Raine was kind of like a brother. She wasn't afraid to play in the dirt with me."

"She looked up to you."

"Maybe until you came along," Tidus laughed.

"Hmph." Not anymore. Glancing back into the box next to him, he found Raine's hand-drawn family portrait staring back at him, the magazines he'd piled on top had disappeared. How did Tidus do that? "Where is she?"

"Safe," Tidus said. But something in Auron's face must have compelled him to add, "I swear."

"You've not shown yourself to her enough," Auron said. "I'm afraid she doesn't believe you're Sin."

He shrugged, insouciant, scratching behind his head again. "So what if she doesn't?"

Auron frowned. "Your sister is naturally skeptical. If she was sure it was you, she would have more motivation to finish the pilgrimage."

"You want me to destroy a few village huts in front of her?" Tidus asked, darkening. "Kill some children while she watches? I'm not my father. I won't influence Raine that way."

"No, you're not your father," Auron said gently.

"Believe me, Auron. She knows it's me now." Picking something off the back of his scalp, Tidus examined his fingernail closely, decided it was nothing and flicked it on the floor. He smiled humorlessly at Auron. "You won't have to worry about her incentive anymore."

Auron didn't reply. He should have been glad, but he couldn't make himself feel it.

"Because she's not going on the pilgrimage."

The swordsman straightened. "What?"

"Why do you think I sent you to Zanarkand?"

"To look after your sister."

Tidus made a face like he was insane. "You honestly thought that?"

"Your father asked me to do the same for you."

"I was 6. Raine was 15. She needed looking after like I needed swimming lessons."

Auron leaned forward, sitting on the edge of the cushion. "Then why did you—"

"I set you up in a city where the temperatures are always tepid with a cute blonde cheerleader who's been in love with you since she was 5 years old. It was a sweet deal and all you thought about was your next pilgrimage. You disappoint me, Auron." Tidus grinned. "I expected a flock of nieces and nephews to spoil by now."

"How?"

"Whaddya mean, 'How?' If I have to tell you that, you really are clueless. You know Raine wants children, don't you?"

"Notmychildren," Auron said. "That's impossible."

Tidus' gaze was level with Auron's. "Anything's possible in the dream world, old man."

Where ever they were, they weren't in Dream Zanarkand anymore, so it was futile to think about. As Auron thought of how to change the subject, he noted how much lower the piles of moving boxes were. Before, they had almost grazed the ceiling. Now, they were below the curtain rods. And had the dune of dirty laundry next to Tidus shrunk?

"The Sinspawn at her wedding..." Auron said distantly.

"I had to stop it. If she couldn't have you, it didn't matter who she married. And Jory was terrible for her."

Auron's brow furrowed. "People could have died."

"No one did," Tidus said and his clear blue eyes widened innocently.

"And when you threw me around Spira like a broken spear for three months?"

Tidus smirked an infuriating smile. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"Fonder?" Auron said through his teeth.

The boy's face fell and his eyebrows came together, puzzled.

"I nearly went mad from the torture and Raine tried to kill herself when I didn't return! She almost died, you little shit!"

Tidus' eyes grew huge, but before he could retort, the houseboat shuddered, followed by a low groan outside. Auron secured himself and Tidus leaped to his dirty clothes, but not before half the mound tumbled over onto the floor. When it passed, Auron stared at Tidus edgily, still expecting a damn good explanation.

"Easy, Auron," Tidus mollified, trying to hold Auron's eye contact but the boy succumbed to the itch at the back of his head, aggressively scraping with his fingernails. This time, a small clump of blonde hair with dark roots came with and Tidus dropped it on the floor with barely a look. "I didn't know that would happen. I wanted to nudge things along. You're not getting any younger, you know."

"Why a Summoner, then?"

"It was the only way to get you to consider your feelings toward her. I knew you'd volunteer to be her final Aeon. I mean, you love her, don't you?"

If anyone else was asking, he probably would have walked away, changed the subject or said something vague and philosophical, but it was Tidus. Raine's brother. The last of her family. At least what was left of him, considering the mass of hair he'd just tossed aside. Auron nodded, miserable strain in his face, realizing this was as close as he would come to a marriage blessing. "She was scarcely an adolescent when you last saw her," Auron said. "How did you know I would—"

Tidus's face tilted sideways and deadened soberly.Are you serious?he seemed to ask. "She's my sister. She's young, she's cute, she's blonde, and she likes you. What else do you need?"

To have her summed up in just a few trite details felt like an insult to both Raine and Auron.

Irritably, Tidus shook his head, scratching again. At least this time he didn't rip out any hair. "I didn't mean it that way. She's my sister, I only want for her to be happy."

"What makes you so certain she'll be happy with me?"

"I'm not. But you've put off the Farplane this long to look after her and that's something our mother couldn't even do. There's no one I'd rather see her with."

"Hmph." Tidus would see them together in the Calm Lands when Raine summoned Auron as her final Aeon.

Despite Tidus' declarations his kid sister would not be journeying to Zanarkand Ruins, the pilgrimage was the only reason Raine and Auron were in Spira. Regardless of Tidus' fairy tale notions, Auron and Raine had reasons for marrying the other that differed from what the vows implied. Raine married Auron so he would take her to Spira and Auron married Raine so Yunalesca would brand him a final Aeon. Thinking back to his engagement to the high-priest's daughter, Auron wondered if he was only suited for marriages of convenience. He loved Raine and he was committed to her, but it was not the sole motive for the union.

"Speaking of my mom. Remember that day in Guadosalam? When we visited the Farplane? Well, everyone but you and Rikku."

"I remember." The Al Behd girl was convinced loved ones in the Farplane were only telepathic images formed by Pyreflies and she wouldn't let Auron forget it while they waited for the others to come back.

"I saw my mother that day. Did I ever tell you that?"

Auron shook his head.

"Well," he said, folding his arms as he slouched more comfortably into the couch, "I asked Yuna about it because I don't think my mom was ever sent, was she?"

Auron clasped his hands together thoughtfully, recalling the funeral when fourteen-year-old Raine had chased him down at the gate and pestered him into sitting with her. She said she had tried to get a Summoner to perform a sending, but they had been too busy in the Farplane with Aeons and unicorns and—what else? That's right. Little green men who hide gold. Sometime between drawing her family picture and her mother's funeral, she had stopped believing in all that. "I don't think so."

"Me neither. Anyway, Yuna told me the reason I could see my mother in the Farplane was because she must have accepted her death before she died."

Right. Broken heart. "Self-sendings are rare," Auron said and left it at that.

"I had no idea things had gotten that bad for her," Tidus said sadly, looking away in recollection.

"She looks healthy in the photos," Auron commented.

"What photos?"

Auron gestured to the box next to him, but it was gone. He stared at the empty cushions in disbelief until another quake rattled the cupboard doors and upset the ceiling fan, causing the room's lighting to sway around in sickening swoops. Tidus alertly sat up to look out the window behind Auron and then spun in his seat to inspect the other window.

"You might not be able to stay much longer," Tidus said.

Wondering how Tidus could tell, Auron thought there might be fewer ships outside now, but he became distracted by the wound on the back of Tidus' head. It was greasy and black and it matted his hair. It was hard to look at and Auron forced himself to avert his eyes and sweep them over the living area. Only a few boxes remained and all the dirty laundry was gone, even the articles scattered on the floor. Auron felt a sinking, queasy sensation when he realized it wasn't his imagination; Tidus' possessions were vanishing.

What photos?

Not possessions. Tidus didn't have many physical belongings. They were more like his...memories.

"Where's Raine?" Auron asked.

Tidus sat forward. "I put her someplace safe."

"Where," Auron insisted.

The boat erupted and Auron was thrown off of the couch, knocking empty mugs on the floor, but managed to catch the one with liquid before it spilled. The beverage looked black, oily, a reflection of color on the surface, like petroleum. It smelled terrible.

Tidus jumped out of his spot, grabbed a broom from behind the refrigerator and rapped the ceiling with the handle. "Not yet, you hear me?!" he shouted. "NOT YET!"

When the room settled, Tidus paused a few moments to see if there would be an aftershock and then put the broom back. Tidus considered the room, as if searching for something misplaced and absently picked at the back of his head, wiped something black on his linen pants.

Auron stood. "I should go."

Tidus looked up sharply and shook his head beseechingly. "No, stay just a few more minutes."

Without enthusiasm, Auron nodded but did a double take at the couch he'd just gotten up from. It had disappeared. In an instant, the whole sectional had gone missing and so did the table with all the mugs, including the one filled with black swill. All that lingered in the room was 3 lone boxes and a few trophies on the shelf.The last of it.

Something cold settled in the pit of Auron's stomach as Tidus was picking at the black wound behind his head.The last of him.

Tidus finally noticed the blackness caking under his nails and glanced sheepishly up at Auron. "This is nothing, okay?"

"Hmph."

"Look, Auron, I gotta tell you something."

"Quickly."

"Right." Tidus folded his arms and leaned on one leg. "I wasn't lying when I said Raine is safe."

"Good."

"But she's not in Spira."

"Where is she?"

"Back in Zanarkand."

"Dream Zanarkand?"

With an apologetic grimace, Tidus nodded.