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Tidus scoffs loudly. "And him coming in thinking we were making out?" Flirting, making out, whatever - the memory is enough to get Tidus punching the air, even half-kicking up a leg to remember that whole embarrassing event. "That guy! What's memorable about that? He always has the worst timing - and when he made us go through all the candy we grabbed during Della's spooky party. It was free candy! That anyone could take!"

Has this now become a Complain About The Old Man Roland session? Yes, it sure has, Tidus apparent offence to these events being stifled by the humour in his retelling, the grin on his face.

At least he remembers something to turn his head to Inigo, remind him, face no less cheery: "Me and Taiki taught you swimming there."

See? So many good memories.

Inigo won't object to this Complain About The Old Man Roland session when it's entirely accurate criticism. Just leave it to Roland to let his mind carry him away entirely while just seeing the two of them hanging out in the hot springs together..

But it's the latter part of what Tidus says that gets Inigo to turn his head towards the other, staring for a moment, his eyes a little wider than a moment before.

.. he slowly starts to smile, though. Especially when he turns his head to look up at the ceiling-turned-sky again.

"I liked that part." There's something soft about the way he admits it, like it really is a fond memory he treasures in his heart.

"But it doesn't even matter that we were on an island for that. As long as I'm with you guys, I like being anywhere. Even when we're trying to herd strange animals in the middle of the jungle, or bickering over food on floating islands."

"Sure," Tidus can agree with that sentiment, "but it's nice when the world isn't falling down around us."

Despite the negatives that came with the one island, it technically wasn't a mission - just a grievance, to everyone who had to suffer it what it shared, forced. The parts that Tidus isn't focusing on, head tilted back, eyes on the ceiling too. Thoughts of 'ifs' just in his focus, but none he wants to voice out loud.

If they could be anywhere they wanted--

If they could be normal for a while--

If they could be whoever they wanted to be.

He lets his eyes close, rocking his head a little, a sigh quietly exhaled.

'I wonder how Spira's doing,' is what he wants to say, but instead goes for a subject safer.

"Think we should keep bothering the train again? Now that it's answering us."

There's a hum from Inigo's side. It's most likely a hum of agreement, though it's at first hard to tell without any words elaborating on it. His eyes are momentarily closed too, the smile on his face fading just a little bit.

"Anything in particular you want to focus on right now?" It usually works a little better when they send in multiple messages about one particular thing, right..? Though even that is no guarantee with how weird the train can be about their requests. "Or do we just throw everything at it at once?"

"First things first," Tidus says, then falls into a silence where he now has to think. For some people that comes first, but not this guy.

"We tell it..." Dot dot dot... "...it sucks."

Also not what this guy is doing: taking his day off as seriously as the subject might give the impression of. But he does grunt, as if relenting to unspoken rejections to his suggestion.

"Okay, okay, uh... ask it more about how we end up here? Where our bodies end up? We're not actually in the void or something, right?"

Right? He does squint at the ceiling, his brain in no state to be thinking - especially when it comes to science mumbo jumbo.

If Inigo thinks that the usage of the word bodies in combination with Tidus's.. let's call it 'unique state of existence' is awkward at all, he doesn't show it. Instead he just seems to think for a moment with his eyes closed like that, slowly breathing in and out.

"Sure. Though the answer to that might end up being so complicated that we'll have to ask Senku to take care of it."

You know, because they sure aren't the big brained boys over here. Inigo's a mature enough guy to admit that!

A big brained answer, huh... if there's a threat of that-

"...Should we have the memoris on us to take pictures of the screen, in that case? I'm not gonna write anything down before it leaves."

Especially under that threat. It'll be gone before the time Tidus's had time to whip open his notebook, most likely.

"Are you sure that will work?"

Not that Inigo hasn't seen before what the Memoris is capable of, it's just--

"I saw a movie here on the train where someone kept taking pictures of things, but then when he looks at the pictures, the stuff he wanted to take a picture of didn't show up on them!" Inigo sounds weirdly excited as he explains it, even sitting up with energy, like he thinks he's managed to unlock some knowledge about modern technology without anyone having to tell him.

.. without realising that maybe horror movies aren't exactly always rooted in reality.

"Huh? ...was it a good movie?"

Sure, he could point out how real life isn't the same as movies, but that sounds like an interesting plot piece for a movie. Let's take a second from train plots to talk about movie plots, Tidus watching Inigo as he waits.

"Huh?" Look at these intelligent boys, just echoing 'huh' back and forth at each other.

It's just that Inigo didn't see that question of all possible questions coming after what he just said! Which means he has to reign in his brain for a moment, trying to figure out the answer to Tidus's question, rather than continuing to think on the track he was heading down.

"Well, it got kind of scary. A ghost eventually started showing up on the pictures, and then they started playing all this scary music, and I didn't stay to watch more."

Dealing with a zombie apocalypse? Sure. But he will not submit himself to a movie trying to make him nervous, thanks! He's perfectly capable of causing that all on his own!

Well guess who's looking disappointed now. He's tempted to ask Inigo if he caught the name of the movie, but does Inigo know that most movies have names? Ugh- Tidus gives up on the thought (but not the disappointed expression).

"Well, even if that happens somewhere, it doesn't with the train ICPs - that's how I got the picture of your mom for you. So we'll be able to get the text too."

Easy, no problem. Why would the ICP screens mess up now when they didn't last time?

Because it's Halloween now, Tidus! It's the spooooky month.

Not that Inigo knows that. Or would ever know that. Hence why he just slowly nods. Surely Tidus knows more about the way the Memoris works than Inigo does.. or even more than the all-knowing movies do, perhaps!

".. sure, let's ask it that then."

With the Memoris ready.

Though Inigo pauses for a second, and then adds: "But right now I'm still too comfortable to move."

They can do it later, right?

There's a plan. A lazy plan of action, in that talking and having the memoris out isn't a lot of work. But also work Tidus isn't raring to do either, so the moment he thinks about Inigo's problem of comfort is only that, and more for Tidus deciding something.

Which is to shuffle onto his side facing Inigo, an arm extending out.

"Then lay back down so I can use you for a pillow."

A hugging pillow. Listen to how semi-grumpy he sounds that he even needs to ask! If you're going to be lazy too, then let him cuddle against you.

Tidus doesn't have to ask more than once. All he has to do is use the word 'pillow' and Inigo is in. Please, usually he has to be the one to beg Tidus for cuddles. If he's getting them here and now so easily, he's not going to complain about anything. Not about him being the pillow, not about the tone Tidus says it with.

Instead he just does lay back down virtually instantly, touching his own chest with his fingertips for a moment, like he's putting it on display.

"Are you saying you want to rest your head on my manly broad chest?"

(Keep on dreaming about the specific qualities of your chest, Inigo.)

"You wish." The arm curls around that chest though, from one end to the other, tucking in where it can. Tidus then, ever so picky and particular as he can be, bosses at Inigo - "Scoot up" - to get his back to his chest.

Like a pillow he can grab and hold onto. ...or more like a plush toy than pillow, maybe - a job for Inigo Junior - but nevermind the details. Who needs fluff or toys when you can have a guy who likes cuddling to play the part instead?

"This sucks as a beach."

Grumble mumble complain complain.

That's why there's absolutely no objections to any of this. Because Inigo has finally won his position back from Inigo Junior. This is what he wanted all along - to be the plush toy in this hug equation, no matter their positioning.

So Tidus is free to boss Inigo around as much as he wants. Inigo tries to move along while making himself comfortable as well, practically curling up against Tidus while he's being held like that.

Then, once he's sure he's comfortable, he just hums with a smile on his face. Like he's thinking, but obviously the kind of thought where a joke inevitably follows.

"I don't know. This is the beach with the best beach guys I've met so far."

"Oh? Poor Taiki!"

Tidus sing-songs the name almost, a laugh in his throat. Nevermind that Taiki isn't what you would describe as a beach guy, but-! "After he taught you swimming - bet it'd be a lot better with him in here."

Which he speaks like truth, but at the same time, Tidus knows it wouldn't be exactly the same. Is that for reasons of nerves, though? Of embarrassment, being this comfortable with another guy, the brush of sexuality that doesn't come up when they're with Taiki. But he isn't going to dismiss or throw the guy out - and the reality of a real beach surrounding them.

"Second best," Tidus offers. "And then Gyueran's beach iiis...somewhere way back."

With far too many fiends.

"Aw, come on."

Inigo smiles as he says it though, no part of that 'aw' genuinely upset. He's not going to get all fussy for Gyueran's sake, okay. Not even if it offers him good seafood.

"I bet that place is much nicer when it's not absolutely crawling with monstrous sealife. Maybe we'll end up being sent back there one time for a vacation when the world isn't busy ending over there, and it'll turn out to be a really great beach." It's only a possibility though - and a very unlikely one at that. What are the chances of that actually happening? Inigo has been on this train for about a year now, and how many vacations has he had? Only about three, and they only lasted for a few days at best.

".. though I will admit to not being the best beach judge, since I've never even been to the beach back in Ylisse."

"Okay, okay," Tidus concedes, for Gyueran's benefit. "It's hard to think about that beach without remembering anything crawling around it 24/7. The train let us stay for a lil' while after that mission, but I couldn't enjoy the water at all - I thought crabs were gonna come out and pinch at me all the time!"

Not fun. But he did enjoy the kids, getting to teach them ball games. Wonders about them, now and then...

He hums, a thought that drifts away.

"Wonder what the beaches are where you are like? You can get really rocky beaches... never been around many of them." He pauses. "You should ask Roland about the beaches where he's from though, right? That's where you're heading. Not a very beachy situation," or in one where you'd want to enjoy the beach.

Inigo, too, wonders what the beaches are like back in Ylisse. He's seen a few different ones now thanks to traveling all over the place with the train, and yet it still doesn't make him sure of what they would look like back there. What would make them similar, what would make them different.

But he's paused in the thought by the extra part the other guy adds on.

"Do you really think Roland knows what a beach looks like in his world?"

Inigo feels like it would be a small miracle if he had ever been to one. It's not as if Inigo's own father had time to just lounge around on the beach back home, and Roland must have been a workaholic even before the guy ever became president.

".. I guess maybe he saw one before on a screen."

(Look, Inigo doesn't know how to differentiate all these weird screen-y technology things, so he's just going to say 'on a screen'. Pick a screen, any screen, it works.)

"Maybe." Listen to these people, not looking outside and having an ocean waiting for them nearby. But it's not so bizarre to Tidus by now, a world so far from water. Fortunately, 'a screen' works to his ears, putting on a believable picture. "I bet he knows where the ocean is, anyway. You can know that kind of stuff - 'information at your fingertips'." Oooo, how advanced.

"I know there's a view of the sea near the Kingdom he ended up. Evermore? I saw it in the book I got of it."

That book that he forgot up to this book that he ever ordered. But hey, he totally flipped through it once!

".. do you think he ever went to the beach there?"

Probably not, since from what it sounds like everytime they do force some facts about himself out of Roland, he's been pretty much throwing himself into constant work there too, ever since he showed up in that odd other world..

But there's a shot. He was traveling with other people, after all. They met Tani, no matter how briefly, and she did seem like the fun type. Maybe the type who would drag Roland out there.

But who knows.

Inigo shifts a little, tilting his head so his smile is visible to Tidus, even from their cuddling positions.

"Maybe he's just lacked people in his life who call him an old man and drag him around, regardless of his own protests." Yes, he's mostly refering to Tidus. Not that Inigo hasn't done the same for Roland to an extent, but Inigo truly believes no one can match the other guy when it comes to excitedly dragging people around and getting them into stuff.

"You don't know! The prince-king guy there was pretty young too. Between him and Tani? I bet they went to the beach once!"

There's a chuckle in the belief, a nudge that follows from Tidus's arm onto Inigo; the bump of a foot against the back of Inigo's leg, just because he can. Two guys in a resting position, but maybe one not entirely looking to stay still at this moment.

"I'm not the only one who knows how to have fun. A kingdom has to be busy though, so I don't imagine it was a lot. But they moved around the place - maybe they got to go on a boat."

He then hums, tilting his head into the pillows.

"Mmm... going on a boat would be nice."

That's very much like Tidus. Mention a boat, and he's immediately dreaming away about it. Even when it's he himself who's mentioning the boat in the first place, apparently!

But Inigo understands why. He gets the appeal. Tidus grew up on a boat, after all. It's like home to him.

He hums, the sound vibrating in his chest and against Tidus's skin. "What's the first thing you'd want to do if we went on a boat?"

Oh. This subject might be a good one by the way he squeezes his arm around Inigo, closing himself in.

"Are we controlling the boat?" Trick question, he decides the answer. "I'd want us to ride out in the middle of nowhere! Or...just some ways out." That's also good. "Then...we can go swimming, or hang out on the deck! Listen to the waves, some music... and just... hang out!"

Simple, easy. Enjoy themselves with the sound of the waves and sea. Move and go wherever they like - do whatever they like. Who needs to do anything on a boat if they don't want to? That was the pleasure of being in Zanarkand, on his houseboat.

And, also a plus: "You can get to anywhere from a boat too. Pretty cool, huh? You wanna go another side of an island - then just do it!"

Magical.

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