Twenty-Nine
- Final Fantasy X/Suikoden III, Geddoe and Auron AU
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Auron had asked about the man he was supposed to meet, but his contact had only sniggered and told him "You'll know him when you see him. Trust me." and then refused to say anything else, only grinned that infuriating grin. Auron had considered roughing the man up a little, but his loose summerweight suit was linen, and pearl-gray, and new, and the t-shirt under it was white silk, and Auron didn't feel like getting blood on either before it was absolutely necessary. So instead he stared at his contact levelly until the man stopped grinning and then he left.

And now he was standing in front of a grungy bar much like a million other grungy bars on a thousand different worlds, trying to ignore the noise of the machina--or whatever--roaring up and down the wide roadway behind him. Despite the fact that it was after midnight he still wore his shades to help conceal the ruin of his right eye, and when he stopped to light a cigarette he pushed his thin ponytail off his shoulder to fall down his back. "You ready?" he asked the boy, who'd chosen a dark blue satin shirt and then ripped both the sleeves off with a certain glee. At least he hadn't done the same to the baggy black pants.

The boy nodded and pushed his gloved fingers through his tawny two-tone hair, and Auron squared his shoulders and pushed through the doors, into the bar.

The noise and the smoke hit him like a physical blow. The place was packed, and noisy, and filthy, and about two words away from the third brawl of the evening, and despite himself Auron found himself almost wanting to smile. He'd traveled with Jecht; he understood places like this. Places like this were where things became larger than life, magnified by cheap beer goggles, and Auron had a certain amount of experience with 'larger than life'.

He slid through the crowd, which made way for him without noticing him, the boy behind him. First things first. Find the bar, get a drink, blend in. Then look for the man he'd been sent here to find.

Pushing into the crowd he got a beer for himself (and scowled at the boy when the boy tried to do the same), and then turned around, and discovered that it wouldn't be necessary to look for him after all.

Sitting a few stools down was a man of about his age, shaggy black hair falling to his shoulders, and his suit was equally loose but the linen of it was black, as was the silk t-shirt under it, but the thing that caught Auron's eye and made him suddenly understand it all was the discreet black silk patch covering the man's right eye, almost hidden under the fall of his hair.

The barstool next to the man in black was conveniently empty, despite the press of the crowd. Auron did not quite smile and moved to take it, the boy trailing sullenly in his wake.

Three eyes turned to study him. The man in black eyed Auron incuriously, even as he took a deep drag on the cigarette he was smoking; the spiky-haired young man standing at his shoulder studied Auron with some avidity, then glanced up at the boy, behind him. The boy and the young man immediately both assumed exaggeratedly casual poses, the boy crossing his muscular bare arms over his chest and smirking, the young man fiddling lazily with the cuffs of his boxy red silk shirt before reaching up to touch the gold earring that hung from one ear, a small charm shaped like a feather. Auron and the man in black both ignored the sudden attack of macho posturing, most assuredly too old for that shit.

"Believe you have something for me," Auron eventually said, tilting his sunglasses down so that the man could see the scar that carved through his own right eye. The man's visible eye widened, just slightly.

"I might," he said then, and the corner of his lips twitched in something not unlike a grin. "What's the magic word?"

At that Auron did allow himself to smile, if only slightly, and only for a second, and ground out his cigarette. "Blue fruit."

"Ahh." The man in black also stubbed out his cigarette and looked away, studying them both in the mirror over the bar. Auron did the same, and something in the  back of his mind approved of this man. "Think I do have something for you. Name's Geddoe--"

"Now!" bellowed a voice over the din, and every face in the bar turned towards them, a sudden crackling anticipation in the air. Reflexes kicked in and they were both moving--moving fast--before the echoes of that word could die away. Auron and Geddoe found themselves back to back in a clear section of the floor, as easily as if they'd rehearsed it a thousand times, the boy and the young man naturally completing the square, the four of them facing outwards inside the ring of their opponents. Must have been half a hundred. Auron had had better odds. Of course, he'd also had worse odds, and this time, he had come well prepared.

Auron's hands leaped into his jacket and whipped out twin guns, large and black and deadly, and the boy flexed his fingers inside the metal rings of his gloves and grinned winningly at the crowd. The young man had produced an honest-to-Yevon fighting staff from out of nowhere, a slender red thing that matched his shirt, and it danced in his fingers fast enough to leave a trail of red in the air behind it. And then there was a rasp, a startlingly familiar sound, and Auron threw a glance over his shoulder to discover Geddoe wielding a short, plain, and extremely serviceable sword.

"You always bring a knife to a gun fight?" he tossed off over his shoulder, the muzzles of his guns tracking the two closest opponents, flicking back and forth fast as thought.

And Geddoe grinned and squeezed his other hand shut, and something crackled. "Yeah," he said. "Good thing it's not all I brought--" and then his fist stabbed forward and lightning lanced from his knuckles to lay four men flat just like that, and then Auron's guns were barking and bucking in his hands, and the boy was whooping as he dove into a knot of brawlers and laid them all flat in seconds, metal-shod feet and hands exploding against unprotected flesh, and from somewhere Auron could hear the crackle and hiss of fire...

"It's always like this," he heard Geddoe say over the yelling, half in resignation and half in wry relish.

And Auron allowed himself half a smile and shoved a new clip into one of his guns and said, "It always is."