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[Fic] KH2/FFX-2, "The Continuous Tides"
Go me, I crossed KH2 over with a canon that it already borrows characters from! Here's hoping it makes sense!
Title: The Continuous Tides
Words: 3,365
Pairing(s): Background Tidus/Yuna and Tidus/Selphie, SoRiKai if you want it
Rating: PG-13
Warning: FFX/X-2 ending spoilers. Maybe some minor ones for KH2.
Summary: Tidus is having strange dreams lately.
The first dream came in a blur; Tidus remembered lights and water, great spheres of it and a city falling up, and a man in red, but not for anything could he have said how they connected to one another. He was unusually slow to wake that morning, stumbling out of bed with an uncharacteristic lack of grace, and even as the memories of it faded, there remained a sense that it was, somehow, important.
But that was stupid. It didn't mean anything, surely? It was probably the crabcakes he'd had before bed messing with his mind. Just a stupid dream.
(-- but Sora had dreams--)
The second one came the next night, and worried him a little - fire and cold in an abandoned temple, monsters and strange people with guns, and a ship, and a name, Sin - he turned that last over and over in his head, wondering how he knew it to be a name and not just a word, and why as a name it made his heart jump and skip with feelings he couldn't categorize.
Dreams were dreams, right? They didn't mean anything. Not for him.
(--but Sora--)
He'd thought the first dream would stand alone - hoped the second would be the end of it - but they came nightly after that, in colors too vivid for fantasy. He fought monsters in his sleep and woke exhausted. He would trudge to breakfast with sore feet, and feel calluses fade from his palms as he ate. The last traces would be gone before he left his house, and he felt free to put it all firmly in the back of his mind and forget it. And that night, he would dream again.
One morning, Wakka leaned in through his window to wake him up, and for a moment all Tidus could do was stare. He had spent the night playing ball in a city at the sea with banners and balloons and it seemed, at first sight, simply wrong to see Wakka so small, so young and smooth-faced.
"Hey, Tidus! We're going to be late for school if you don't get going, man!"
And he wanted to say, School? When did I start school here? And what about you, I thought you were Yuna's guardian--
But he stopped short, his mouth already open, when he realized he didn't know who Yuna was.
"School," he said instead, thickly. "Yeah - gimme a sec, Wakka. I'll be out in five."
He wondered about the girl he'd dreamed about as he tugged on his uniform. By the time he was out the door, he'd forgotten the colors of her eyes.
That night, he dreamed of her again.
-
"Dad - got a second?"
Jecht glanced over his shoulder as he searched through the faculty keyring. "Sure, kiddo. Gotta make it quick, though, the fifth graders'll be swarming in here before too long."
Regardless of the warning, Tidus hesitated for a moment, watching his father select a key and unlock the door to the gym's equipment room. "Do you... know anyone named Auron?"
"Auron?" Jecht sounded honestly puzzled, his voice half echoing as he opened the doors and stepped into the little room. "Can't say as I do..."
"You sure?" Tidus pressed.
"Positive." Jecht wheeled out a cart full of blue-streaked balls and kicked the doors closed behind him. He gave the boy a puzzled look. "Why?"
"I..." There was no way he could tell Jecht about this. The man was too pragmatic, and put little stock in dreams. He'd probably laugh. "I was just wondering. I thought you'd mentioned it, I guess."
"Huh." Jecht leaned on the edge of the cart and frowned thoughtfully. "Well, I roomed with a guy in college named Aaron, I might've told you about him once... Is that what you're thinking of?"
Did Aaron have a red coat? A sword? Was he blind in one eye with an old, knotted scar? Could he fight? Did he drink? Was he a cryptic bastard who'd never tell you anything, waiting for you to ask the right questions when you didn't even know what the right questions were?
"Yeah," Tidus said. "I guess it was. Thanks, Dad."
"Uh-huh." Jecht grinned. "Don't you be late for class now."
"I'm going, I'm going." Tidus shifted his bookbag and headed for the door. He hesitated with his hand on the bar, though. "Dad?"
"Yeah, Tidus?"
"I love you," Tidus said quickly, and pushed out the door.
-
One particularly tiring dream came, thankfully, on a weekend morning. Tidus rolled over, pulling his covers tight to ward against the chill of a frozen lake, and sank back to sleep into the first dream he'd had of his own for weeks.
Selphie sat on the docks, looking out over the sea and the children's island. She kicked her feet back and forth, in time with the knocking of her boat against the moor.
"Do you remember that other boy?" she asked.
"What other boy?" Wakka asked, standing behind her. "It's always been just us four, hasn't it?"
"We used to play with him all the time... I think," Selphie said doubtfully. "But I can't remember his name."
"What was he like?"
Selphie shook her head. "I don't know. I think he disappeared... just like So--"
Tidus threw his covers off violently. Sleeping in was boring anyway. Throwing on his pants, vest, and sandals, he hopped out his window and stalked across the sand.
-
"Hey, Sora!"
Sora stopped, looking back. Kairi and Riku stopped a step later, half turning to see what was going on. "Yeah?"
Staring over Sora's shoulder to the sea, Tidus asked, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" He paused, and then added, "It's important."
Sora looked to Riku and Kairi with an apologetic grin. They smiled back, nodding in understanding. As they walked away, Sora turned back to Tidus. "What's up?"
It was a little uncomfortable to look Sora in the eye these days. He was still the same nice, cheerful guy Tidus remembered (had forgotten - no, stop that), but there was something... something in his face was older now, in a way that time alone couldn't account for. Riku was the same way. They'd both cast away their toy swords and taken up harder blades, and while Riku still made sarcastic cracks and Sora was a huge goof who spent too much money on everyone, they both still had the haunted look of those who knew what it was to kill or be killed. It was something that ran chills up Tidus's back, when he'd once proclaimed that sword fights beat rafts any day. He told himself that was all that made him avoid Sora's eyes.
"You said you... you had weird dreams before the storm, right?"
Sora nodded, crossing his arms. "Mostly about big stained glass windows and Heartless," he said. Then quietly, "You having weird dreams lately?"
It was a relief not to have to say it. Tidus nodded and dragged a hand through his hair. "It's like... like I'm living out someone else's life at night."
The other boy frowned, a sympathetic look creeping over his face. It was the kind of look that wanted to fix everything. "Really?"
"Yeah, but... it feels like it's still me. You know? And it's in some totally different world... but Wakka's there too, but he's way older than he should be--" Tidus exhaled loudly and stared off to the side. "I don't get it."
"Does... anyone try to tell you to do things in the dreams?" Sora asked quietly. "Not, like, bad things, but... weird choices you have to make?"
Tidus rolled his eyes. "No weird choices, but they sure do tell me things. 'Don't talk to the summoner', 'don't get in the way', 'don't tell anyone you're from Zanarkand' - I don't even know what a Zanarkand is--"
"Doesn't sound like my dreams," Sora said, laughing a little. "I think mine were some kind of... training, I guess. Yours sound more like a story."
This is your story. "Yeah, I guess so..."
"So, hey, don't worry." Sora patted Tidus companionably on the shoulder and grinned softly. "I don't think there's gonna be any more storms around here."
Tidus grinned back, feeling a little steadier. "Thanks, Sora."
"Anytime." Sora nodded cheerfully, and then grew a little more serious. "They still might be important, though. If they've got something to say, you should probably listen."
"I'll try," Tidus said skeptically.
"Good luck, okay?" Sora half turned. "I should go catch up with Riku and Kairi. Anything else you wanted to talk about?"
"Nah," Tidus said, then suddenly, "Oh-- wait!"
Sora's shoes scraped on the path as he stopped himself and glanced back over his shoulder.
"While you were gone," Tidus said hurriedly, embarrassed, "did you meet anyone named Yuna?"
"Yuna..." Sora stared skyward for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah! She was one of the faeries in Hollow Bastion-- I mean, Radiant Garden. Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. I told you about them, right? I remember she had these weird eyes, they were different colors..."
Left one blue, right one green. Right? "Thought so. Thanks."
"Wait," Sora said, "Why do you ask? Is she in your--"
"See ya later, Sora!" Tidus said, turning on his heel and waving carelessly as he ran back up the path. "Have fun at the beach!"
-
The dreams had been going on for weeks. Tidus had started to face going to bed with a sort of grim determination, knowing that once he drifted off he would be that other Tidus, the one from Zanarkand. Many of his fears had been alleviated by that talk with Sora, but the assurance that he wasn't about to be swept away to fight for worlds he'd never seen had made way for new questions. He was beginning to wonder, in the minutes before he fell asleep, just which one of them was the real one. He thought about Sora's stories of Heartless and Nobodies, and he fell asleep worrying.
He was in an unfamiliar house. There was a boy talking to him, his eyes covered by a purple hood. There were voices calling from a long, long way away...
"Wait," said the other Tidus, "this is a dream."
"Precisely," said the boy.
"A dream? Are you crazy? I don't have time to be dreaming now!"
"You're wrong," said the boy. "It's not that you're dreaming. You are a dream."
For the first time, he woke early, his heart thudding in his ears. For a long time, he stared up through the pitch darkness, eyes wide.
"What the hell," he said.
-
"I think Sora was right," Tidus said, kicking idly in the water. "There's something important about these dreams. You and me, and Yuna and Rikku, and my dad, and I know Sora said something about meeting an Auron even if my dad doesn't know him - it's got to mean something that we're all in them, in that, that otherworld, somehow it's all connected and I've got to figure out--"
"Tidus," Wakka said wearily, "I'm not sayin' they're not important, but just throw the ball, ya?"
-
Kairi had come asking after him one day, saying he'd been acting oddly and she was worried, Sora had said he'd been having strange dreams but he didn't explain anything else, and really, Tidus, you can talk to us about anything, are you okay?
She'd eventually backed off, after Tidus spent five minutes assuring her that he was fine, just fine, never been better. That night he'd dreamed of racing on giant yellow birds and catching butterflies, and had regretted it.
Riku had said much the same thing as Kairi had, albeit through a thick filter of awkwardness, as they lined up for dodgeball on one side of the gymnasium.
"Sora's worried too," he said.
"Come on, Riku, I'm fine," Tidus said, sighing. "Look, it's bad enough my old man's fussing over me, okay? He's got me on some kind of multivitamin, he says I'm looking pale in the mornings."
"See, that's exactly the kind of thing we're concerned about." Tidus rolled his eyes, but Riku doggedly kept talking. "Look, it's not that we think you'll break, it's just if you want to talk or something..."
"I'm fine, okay?" Tidus kept an eye on the other team as Jecht paced to the center sidelines. "I wouldn't even know where to start, I'd have to write you a novel--"
Jecht blew the whistle to start the game, and the rest of the conversation was swallowed. Riku gave Tidus sidelong glances after class, but didn't say anything else about it.
At least one person on the island had no reason to complain about Tidus's behavior. Selphie was thrilled at how often Tidus asked her out, nowadays, and was starting to wonder aloud when he'd gotten to be so romantic. For her, Tidus just smiled mysteriously.
The truth was that the dreams had made him paranoid of just what he might lose.
-
When the dreams came to an end, it was not quite unexpected. It had become clear that things weren't going to hold together for the other Tidus much longer, and he had been going to bed each night with some apprehension.
He hadn't expected this, though. Of course, if he was honest with himself, he'd had no idea what to expect. There'd been the battle, and the sending, and the last farewells - god, poor Yuna, when Tidus woke up he was going to buy Selphie a milkshake and hold onto her for hours - and then falling from the edge of the airship, and a glimpse of the Farplane --
And then the boy.
Tidus blinked, staring at the boy's shrouded eyes. His feet touched something that felt like ground, and he was suddenly aware that he'd lost the height and athlete's mass that the other Tidus carried. The boy, looking like some kind of barefoot prince with his purple hood and gold ornaments, barely had to crane his neck to meet Tidus's eyes.
"We're sorry," said the boy.
"Sorry for what?" Tidus said, mystified. After a moment, he rallied. "'Cause if it's for giving me all these weird dreams, you'd better be, I have no idea what this is all about--"
"We needed your help."
That brought Tidus up short. "Uh?"
"There was a... request made," the boy said, hesitantly. "She wanted him back. She'd come... so far. And she'd done so much for Spira... for us. We had to do something. It... wasn't fair."
Tidus stood in silence for a moment, letting those words sink in, considering the implications. As he did, his heart quickened.
No. No, that couldn't be it, could it? They couldn't be taking him away--
"What," he asked carefully, "did you need me for?"
"Your dreams."
Tidus's breath whooshed out of him in a sigh of relief. But... "Wait. You gave me dreams because you needed my dreams?"
"That boy was only half real," said the boy - no, the fayth - looking up at Tidus inscrutably. "He tried so hard. And he'd already gotten so far - he made it from the dream world to Spira, and that's more than most could say." The fayth shook his head. "But it wasn't enough."
"So... where did I come into this?"
"We... didn't know how to bring him back. He was with us on the Farplane, but he was like a ghost even there. We couldn't touch him, see him... But she missed him so much. So we looked. We looked for the edges of the world, and past that, and past that... And then we found you. Tidus."
Tidus looked out into the blackness surrounding them. "We're... the same person. Aren't we?"
"Yes. And no." Some faint expression of consternation passed over the fayth's face. "We're not sure. But we found that some things have... echoes, in the sea of worlds. Things that aren't quite the same, but have the same core... The same heart, I guess you'd say."
"Then... Wakka? And all those people Sora met..."
"Echoes," the fayth said. "Though where they started, I don't know. But don't worry. Wakka is Wakka. You're all where you belong."
Tidus nodded, and looked down at the fayth again. "So why did you need my dreams?"
"Because you are Tidus. And you are real. One thing he is, and one thing he isn't."
"So my dreams..." Tidus looked down at himself. "You mean I made him real?"
"Real enough." The fayth was beginning to fade. "You helped us fulfill our promise, Tidus. Thank you. And..." the last words were quiet as a whisper as the fayth disappeared, "we're sorry."
Tidus almost woke up, then. He could feel consciousness creeping back to him, and he could very nearly see the light through his eyelids when it stopped. He wavered, trapped somewhere between dreaming and not, and he realized that he could hear voices arguing.
One of them was his own.
The voices carried on a little longer, and suddenly Tidus came plummeting back into the dream, hitting the 'ground' so hard he reeled.
"Sorry about that," he heard.
Tidus looked up slowly, bit by bit.
He'd never actually gotten to see the other Tidus like this, usually seeing from behind his eyes or just over his shoulder. He was tall, taller even than he'd seemed, and all lean muscle. The face was older too, but that didn't dispel the feeling of looking into a mirror.
He also had awesome clothes.
"Tidus," said Tidus.
The other Tidus grinned and waved. "Hey."
They looked at each other in silence, sizing each other up.
"Look," the other one said, "I know they already gave you the spiel, but I wanted to thank you too."
"Least I could do?" Tidus shrugged. "I didn't really have a say in this... But I guess I'm glad I helped."
His older doppelganger started idly tossing a ball to himself. It was one of the ones from Spira, that looked like the ones they used on Destiny Islands until you got up close and then they looked all weird. "The fayth say I'm not gonna remember this when I wake up," he said. "And I guess you might not either. But I didn't want to not say it." He caught the ball and looked Tidus in the eye. "Thanks to you, I get to see her again."
"Yuna?" Tidus asked quietly.
"Yeah," the other replied softly.
"Good luck," Tidus said, smiling a little, then caught himself and looked off to the side awkwardly. The other one chuckled. "So, uh... while we're here, in case I do remember... do you have, like, any advice for your younger self or something?"
The other's chuckling turned to laughter. "I don't think I've got anything relevant. And I'm not even that much older than you, y'know..."
"Aw, come on. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Don't you have anything for me?"
"You're about to wake up," the other Tidus said, then looked down and shrugged. "Okay. Here. It might help with that game you're working on."
With that, he tossed the ball. Tidus caught it with only a slight fumble and stared at it. "But I'm still just-- wait a second, you know about--"
"You saw my life," the other said jovially, though his voice was starting to fade. "I think there was some backwash. Oh, hey, and take care of Selphie too--"
Tidus woke up before he could protest, his arms wrapped around something solid.
He slowly looked down at it. It sat innocently in his grasp, swirled blue and white.
Slowly, Tidus raised one hand and poked it. It held.
"What the hell," he said again.
He sat up and examined the ball. It was definitely a Spira ball, complete with all the strange bumps. Tidus ran his hand curiously over the surface.
Well, they could always use an extra ball. Maybe the bumps even had a purpose he and Wakka could figure out. As gifts from the dream world went it was okay, he guessed.
At least it wasn't a giant key.
Title: The Continuous Tides
Words: 3,365
Pairing(s): Background Tidus/Yuna and Tidus/Selphie, SoRiKai if you want it
Rating: PG-13
Warning: FFX/X-2 ending spoilers. Maybe some minor ones for KH2.
Summary: Tidus is having strange dreams lately.
The first dream came in a blur; Tidus remembered lights and water, great spheres of it and a city falling up, and a man in red, but not for anything could he have said how they connected to one another. He was unusually slow to wake that morning, stumbling out of bed with an uncharacteristic lack of grace, and even as the memories of it faded, there remained a sense that it was, somehow, important.
But that was stupid. It didn't mean anything, surely? It was probably the crabcakes he'd had before bed messing with his mind. Just a stupid dream.
(-- but Sora had dreams--)
The second one came the next night, and worried him a little - fire and cold in an abandoned temple, monsters and strange people with guns, and a ship, and a name, Sin - he turned that last over and over in his head, wondering how he knew it to be a name and not just a word, and why as a name it made his heart jump and skip with feelings he couldn't categorize.
Dreams were dreams, right? They didn't mean anything. Not for him.
(--but Sora--)
He'd thought the first dream would stand alone - hoped the second would be the end of it - but they came nightly after that, in colors too vivid for fantasy. He fought monsters in his sleep and woke exhausted. He would trudge to breakfast with sore feet, and feel calluses fade from his palms as he ate. The last traces would be gone before he left his house, and he felt free to put it all firmly in the back of his mind and forget it. And that night, he would dream again.
One morning, Wakka leaned in through his window to wake him up, and for a moment all Tidus could do was stare. He had spent the night playing ball in a city at the sea with banners and balloons and it seemed, at first sight, simply wrong to see Wakka so small, so young and smooth-faced.
"Hey, Tidus! We're going to be late for school if you don't get going, man!"
And he wanted to say, School? When did I start school here? And what about you, I thought you were Yuna's guardian--
But he stopped short, his mouth already open, when he realized he didn't know who Yuna was.
"School," he said instead, thickly. "Yeah - gimme a sec, Wakka. I'll be out in five."
He wondered about the girl he'd dreamed about as he tugged on his uniform. By the time he was out the door, he'd forgotten the colors of her eyes.
That night, he dreamed of her again.
-
"Dad - got a second?"
Jecht glanced over his shoulder as he searched through the faculty keyring. "Sure, kiddo. Gotta make it quick, though, the fifth graders'll be swarming in here before too long."
Regardless of the warning, Tidus hesitated for a moment, watching his father select a key and unlock the door to the gym's equipment room. "Do you... know anyone named Auron?"
"Auron?" Jecht sounded honestly puzzled, his voice half echoing as he opened the doors and stepped into the little room. "Can't say as I do..."
"You sure?" Tidus pressed.
"Positive." Jecht wheeled out a cart full of blue-streaked balls and kicked the doors closed behind him. He gave the boy a puzzled look. "Why?"
"I..." There was no way he could tell Jecht about this. The man was too pragmatic, and put little stock in dreams. He'd probably laugh. "I was just wondering. I thought you'd mentioned it, I guess."
"Huh." Jecht leaned on the edge of the cart and frowned thoughtfully. "Well, I roomed with a guy in college named Aaron, I might've told you about him once... Is that what you're thinking of?"
Did Aaron have a red coat? A sword? Was he blind in one eye with an old, knotted scar? Could he fight? Did he drink? Was he a cryptic bastard who'd never tell you anything, waiting for you to ask the right questions when you didn't even know what the right questions were?
"Yeah," Tidus said. "I guess it was. Thanks, Dad."
"Uh-huh." Jecht grinned. "Don't you be late for class now."
"I'm going, I'm going." Tidus shifted his bookbag and headed for the door. He hesitated with his hand on the bar, though. "Dad?"
"Yeah, Tidus?"
"I love you," Tidus said quickly, and pushed out the door.
-
One particularly tiring dream came, thankfully, on a weekend morning. Tidus rolled over, pulling his covers tight to ward against the chill of a frozen lake, and sank back to sleep into the first dream he'd had of his own for weeks.
Selphie sat on the docks, looking out over the sea and the children's island. She kicked her feet back and forth, in time with the knocking of her boat against the moor.
"Do you remember that other boy?" she asked.
"What other boy?" Wakka asked, standing behind her. "It's always been just us four, hasn't it?"
"We used to play with him all the time... I think," Selphie said doubtfully. "But I can't remember his name."
"What was he like?"
Selphie shook her head. "I don't know. I think he disappeared... just like So--"
Tidus threw his covers off violently. Sleeping in was boring anyway. Throwing on his pants, vest, and sandals, he hopped out his window and stalked across the sand.
-
"Hey, Sora!"
Sora stopped, looking back. Kairi and Riku stopped a step later, half turning to see what was going on. "Yeah?"
Staring over Sora's shoulder to the sea, Tidus asked, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" He paused, and then added, "It's important."
Sora looked to Riku and Kairi with an apologetic grin. They smiled back, nodding in understanding. As they walked away, Sora turned back to Tidus. "What's up?"
It was a little uncomfortable to look Sora in the eye these days. He was still the same nice, cheerful guy Tidus remembered (had forgotten - no, stop that), but there was something... something in his face was older now, in a way that time alone couldn't account for. Riku was the same way. They'd both cast away their toy swords and taken up harder blades, and while Riku still made sarcastic cracks and Sora was a huge goof who spent too much money on everyone, they both still had the haunted look of those who knew what it was to kill or be killed. It was something that ran chills up Tidus's back, when he'd once proclaimed that sword fights beat rafts any day. He told himself that was all that made him avoid Sora's eyes.
"You said you... you had weird dreams before the storm, right?"
Sora nodded, crossing his arms. "Mostly about big stained glass windows and Heartless," he said. Then quietly, "You having weird dreams lately?"
It was a relief not to have to say it. Tidus nodded and dragged a hand through his hair. "It's like... like I'm living out someone else's life at night."
The other boy frowned, a sympathetic look creeping over his face. It was the kind of look that wanted to fix everything. "Really?"
"Yeah, but... it feels like it's still me. You know? And it's in some totally different world... but Wakka's there too, but he's way older than he should be--" Tidus exhaled loudly and stared off to the side. "I don't get it."
"Does... anyone try to tell you to do things in the dreams?" Sora asked quietly. "Not, like, bad things, but... weird choices you have to make?"
Tidus rolled his eyes. "No weird choices, but they sure do tell me things. 'Don't talk to the summoner', 'don't get in the way', 'don't tell anyone you're from Zanarkand' - I don't even know what a Zanarkand is--"
"Doesn't sound like my dreams," Sora said, laughing a little. "I think mine were some kind of... training, I guess. Yours sound more like a story."
This is your story. "Yeah, I guess so..."
"So, hey, don't worry." Sora patted Tidus companionably on the shoulder and grinned softly. "I don't think there's gonna be any more storms around here."
Tidus grinned back, feeling a little steadier. "Thanks, Sora."
"Anytime." Sora nodded cheerfully, and then grew a little more serious. "They still might be important, though. If they've got something to say, you should probably listen."
"I'll try," Tidus said skeptically.
"Good luck, okay?" Sora half turned. "I should go catch up with Riku and Kairi. Anything else you wanted to talk about?"
"Nah," Tidus said, then suddenly, "Oh-- wait!"
Sora's shoes scraped on the path as he stopped himself and glanced back over his shoulder.
"While you were gone," Tidus said hurriedly, embarrassed, "did you meet anyone named Yuna?"
"Yuna..." Sora stared skyward for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah! She was one of the faeries in Hollow Bastion-- I mean, Radiant Garden. Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. I told you about them, right? I remember she had these weird eyes, they were different colors..."
Left one blue, right one green. Right? "Thought so. Thanks."
"Wait," Sora said, "Why do you ask? Is she in your--"
"See ya later, Sora!" Tidus said, turning on his heel and waving carelessly as he ran back up the path. "Have fun at the beach!"
-
The dreams had been going on for weeks. Tidus had started to face going to bed with a sort of grim determination, knowing that once he drifted off he would be that other Tidus, the one from Zanarkand. Many of his fears had been alleviated by that talk with Sora, but the assurance that he wasn't about to be swept away to fight for worlds he'd never seen had made way for new questions. He was beginning to wonder, in the minutes before he fell asleep, just which one of them was the real one. He thought about Sora's stories of Heartless and Nobodies, and he fell asleep worrying.
He was in an unfamiliar house. There was a boy talking to him, his eyes covered by a purple hood. There were voices calling from a long, long way away...
"Wait," said the other Tidus, "this is a dream."
"Precisely," said the boy.
"A dream? Are you crazy? I don't have time to be dreaming now!"
"You're wrong," said the boy. "It's not that you're dreaming. You are a dream."
For the first time, he woke early, his heart thudding in his ears. For a long time, he stared up through the pitch darkness, eyes wide.
"What the hell," he said.
-
"I think Sora was right," Tidus said, kicking idly in the water. "There's something important about these dreams. You and me, and Yuna and Rikku, and my dad, and I know Sora said something about meeting an Auron even if my dad doesn't know him - it's got to mean something that we're all in them, in that, that otherworld, somehow it's all connected and I've got to figure out--"
"Tidus," Wakka said wearily, "I'm not sayin' they're not important, but just throw the ball, ya?"
-
Kairi had come asking after him one day, saying he'd been acting oddly and she was worried, Sora had said he'd been having strange dreams but he didn't explain anything else, and really, Tidus, you can talk to us about anything, are you okay?
She'd eventually backed off, after Tidus spent five minutes assuring her that he was fine, just fine, never been better. That night he'd dreamed of racing on giant yellow birds and catching butterflies, and had regretted it.
Riku had said much the same thing as Kairi had, albeit through a thick filter of awkwardness, as they lined up for dodgeball on one side of the gymnasium.
"Sora's worried too," he said.
"Come on, Riku, I'm fine," Tidus said, sighing. "Look, it's bad enough my old man's fussing over me, okay? He's got me on some kind of multivitamin, he says I'm looking pale in the mornings."
"See, that's exactly the kind of thing we're concerned about." Tidus rolled his eyes, but Riku doggedly kept talking. "Look, it's not that we think you'll break, it's just if you want to talk or something..."
"I'm fine, okay?" Tidus kept an eye on the other team as Jecht paced to the center sidelines. "I wouldn't even know where to start, I'd have to write you a novel--"
Jecht blew the whistle to start the game, and the rest of the conversation was swallowed. Riku gave Tidus sidelong glances after class, but didn't say anything else about it.
At least one person on the island had no reason to complain about Tidus's behavior. Selphie was thrilled at how often Tidus asked her out, nowadays, and was starting to wonder aloud when he'd gotten to be so romantic. For her, Tidus just smiled mysteriously.
The truth was that the dreams had made him paranoid of just what he might lose.
-
When the dreams came to an end, it was not quite unexpected. It had become clear that things weren't going to hold together for the other Tidus much longer, and he had been going to bed each night with some apprehension.
He hadn't expected this, though. Of course, if he was honest with himself, he'd had no idea what to expect. There'd been the battle, and the sending, and the last farewells - god, poor Yuna, when Tidus woke up he was going to buy Selphie a milkshake and hold onto her for hours - and then falling from the edge of the airship, and a glimpse of the Farplane --
And then the boy.
Tidus blinked, staring at the boy's shrouded eyes. His feet touched something that felt like ground, and he was suddenly aware that he'd lost the height and athlete's mass that the other Tidus carried. The boy, looking like some kind of barefoot prince with his purple hood and gold ornaments, barely had to crane his neck to meet Tidus's eyes.
"We're sorry," said the boy.
"Sorry for what?" Tidus said, mystified. After a moment, he rallied. "'Cause if it's for giving me all these weird dreams, you'd better be, I have no idea what this is all about--"
"We needed your help."
That brought Tidus up short. "Uh?"
"There was a... request made," the boy said, hesitantly. "She wanted him back. She'd come... so far. And she'd done so much for Spira... for us. We had to do something. It... wasn't fair."
Tidus stood in silence for a moment, letting those words sink in, considering the implications. As he did, his heart quickened.
No. No, that couldn't be it, could it? They couldn't be taking him away--
"What," he asked carefully, "did you need me for?"
"Your dreams."
Tidus's breath whooshed out of him in a sigh of relief. But... "Wait. You gave me dreams because you needed my dreams?"
"That boy was only half real," said the boy - no, the fayth - looking up at Tidus inscrutably. "He tried so hard. And he'd already gotten so far - he made it from the dream world to Spira, and that's more than most could say." The fayth shook his head. "But it wasn't enough."
"So... where did I come into this?"
"We... didn't know how to bring him back. He was with us on the Farplane, but he was like a ghost even there. We couldn't touch him, see him... But she missed him so much. So we looked. We looked for the edges of the world, and past that, and past that... And then we found you. Tidus."
Tidus looked out into the blackness surrounding them. "We're... the same person. Aren't we?"
"Yes. And no." Some faint expression of consternation passed over the fayth's face. "We're not sure. But we found that some things have... echoes, in the sea of worlds. Things that aren't quite the same, but have the same core... The same heart, I guess you'd say."
"Then... Wakka? And all those people Sora met..."
"Echoes," the fayth said. "Though where they started, I don't know. But don't worry. Wakka is Wakka. You're all where you belong."
Tidus nodded, and looked down at the fayth again. "So why did you need my dreams?"
"Because you are Tidus. And you are real. One thing he is, and one thing he isn't."
"So my dreams..." Tidus looked down at himself. "You mean I made him real?"
"Real enough." The fayth was beginning to fade. "You helped us fulfill our promise, Tidus. Thank you. And..." the last words were quiet as a whisper as the fayth disappeared, "we're sorry."
Tidus almost woke up, then. He could feel consciousness creeping back to him, and he could very nearly see the light through his eyelids when it stopped. He wavered, trapped somewhere between dreaming and not, and he realized that he could hear voices arguing.
One of them was his own.
The voices carried on a little longer, and suddenly Tidus came plummeting back into the dream, hitting the 'ground' so hard he reeled.
"Sorry about that," he heard.
Tidus looked up slowly, bit by bit.
He'd never actually gotten to see the other Tidus like this, usually seeing from behind his eyes or just over his shoulder. He was tall, taller even than he'd seemed, and all lean muscle. The face was older too, but that didn't dispel the feeling of looking into a mirror.
He also had awesome clothes.
"Tidus," said Tidus.
The other Tidus grinned and waved. "Hey."
They looked at each other in silence, sizing each other up.
"Look," the other one said, "I know they already gave you the spiel, but I wanted to thank you too."
"Least I could do?" Tidus shrugged. "I didn't really have a say in this... But I guess I'm glad I helped."
His older doppelganger started idly tossing a ball to himself. It was one of the ones from Spira, that looked like the ones they used on Destiny Islands until you got up close and then they looked all weird. "The fayth say I'm not gonna remember this when I wake up," he said. "And I guess you might not either. But I didn't want to not say it." He caught the ball and looked Tidus in the eye. "Thanks to you, I get to see her again."
"Yuna?" Tidus asked quietly.
"Yeah," the other replied softly.
"Good luck," Tidus said, smiling a little, then caught himself and looked off to the side awkwardly. The other one chuckled. "So, uh... while we're here, in case I do remember... do you have, like, any advice for your younger self or something?"
The other's chuckling turned to laughter. "I don't think I've got anything relevant. And I'm not even that much older than you, y'know..."
"Aw, come on. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Don't you have anything for me?"
"You're about to wake up," the other Tidus said, then looked down and shrugged. "Okay. Here. It might help with that game you're working on."
With that, he tossed the ball. Tidus caught it with only a slight fumble and stared at it. "But I'm still just-- wait a second, you know about--"
"You saw my life," the other said jovially, though his voice was starting to fade. "I think there was some backwash. Oh, hey, and take care of Selphie too--"
Tidus woke up before he could protest, his arms wrapped around something solid.
He slowly looked down at it. It sat innocently in his grasp, swirled blue and white.
Slowly, Tidus raised one hand and poked it. It held.
"What the hell," he said again.
He sat up and examined the ball. It was definitely a Spira ball, complete with all the strange bumps. Tidus ran his hand curiously over the surface.
Well, they could always use an extra ball. Maybe the bumps even had a purpose he and Wakka could figure out. As gifts from the dream world went it was okay, he guessed.
At least it wasn't a giant key.
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Seriously. It's like watching a little side-story of KH that the creators didn't get to put in.
MUCH LOVE. <3
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Eeee, I'm glad you think that! ♥ I was sort of writing it to fit in with both canons, so. :D
♥♥♥♥♥
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This is great XD
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And then of course Jecht would be impressed and wanting to know where he learned it and it would be all kinds of ironic meta. XD
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I really kind of like this concept of Echoes, and it makes the most sense. (It's too difficult otherwise to make the FF game connections, which I already struggle with. XD)
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I was happy how this worked out. Nice and smooth, and it fits just fine with either canon. :3 Glad you liked it! ♥
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Thanks. :3 It really can, and I find it's the easiest explanation. XD However, it's had the side effect of giving me a plotbunny where Sora ends up in Balamb, for really no other narrative reason than to break his heart when he meets these people he recognizes that have no clue who he is. D: (Never mind the details of how that happens, even though I'm thinking the FF worlds would be nearly impossible for anyone not a fayth or other uber-powerful being to get to.)
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Man, I haven't even gotten to Time Compression yet. XD *replaying 8 because she never finished it* *shhh*
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;-;
;-;
zomg. ♥
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