Manly Request Week: Brotherly (FFX, for xahra99)

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Title: Brotherly
Fandom: FFX
Characters/Pairings included: Tidus
Rating: Silly! Er, G?
Warnings: Tidus/hairgel OTP?

Summary: Tidus hopes Zanarkand and Spira have at least one thing in common other than Sin.

For xahra99. Written for Manly Request Week.

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He’d sensed a brotherly spirit in Wakka from the moment he’d met the man: friendly, cheerful, not overly suspicious, and kind enough to help a stranger out. It was a real stroke of luck that he’d run into Wakka before he’d run into the mysterious, cranky Lulu. Wakka was a blitzer – he knew what was important and what wasn’t.

He’d also known the second he’d had problems that Wakka was the kind of guy he could go to with them. Even if the problems were, say, pretty small. Superficial, even. He’d known Wakka could help him – because, obviously, Wakka needed hair gel too!

He’d approached the blitzer early in the morning, having made do (a temporary ‘do) with some warm water he’d found by the bed and praying that Yuna wouldn’t see him. Wakka had been out by the ocean, doing some strange stretching-like activity that looked half like blitzball and half like some strange religious devotion.

“Hey, brudda.” Wakka turned, smiling, that same easy smile he’d first greeted Tidus with.

“Hey.” Tidus was a little nervous; he rubbed the back of his neck, eyeing the way Wakka’s hair peaked off his head. Even through the calisthenics, it barely moved, just bobbing slightly as Wakka stretched. This backwards not-Zanarkand island still had to have some form of hair support!

“What’s goin’ on?” Wakka was staring at him now, standing still. “I got somethin’ in my hair, or somethin’?”

“Maybe.” Tidus chuckled, embarrassed. “Actually, I’m …um, I’m looking for something like … hair gel?”

“Huh?” Wakka gave him another one of those you hit your head or somethin’ looks. “Hair … gel?”

“Oh, you know,” Tidus said, feeling incredibly stupid now, “stuff, you put it in your hair, it makes it stand up, and look nice, and smell good, and girls want to touch it because it’s all soft?” He gestured to his own hair, pulling it upwards roughly in a peak not unlike Wakka’s. “Hair gel.”

Wakka burst out laughing. “Ya, okay. When you said gel, you got me thinkin’ of those fiends you see on the path through the island, the ones that look like blobs of stuff? An’ Lulu always has to kill ‘em with a spell?” He laughed again. “It’s hair treatment. I got some. Looks like you need it.”

“Shut up,” Tidus muttered, following Wakka back to the hut.

The other man continued to laugh, but it was good-natured. “I didn’t know that part about the girls likin’ it an’ all.” He elbowed Tidus chummily. “You lookin’ to impress all the ladies, then, or just one, ya?”

A million answers rolled through Tidus’s head, some more appropriate than the others; but he didn’t think either Yuna or I just like to look nice would work on Wakka. Eventually, he went with something that sounded safe. “It’s like, my trademark look, kind of. And if we want people to recognize me, I figured I should look like me!”

Wakka chuckled again, pawing through the various boxes lying on a shelf in the corner of his hut. “Here ya go. I’m gonna go finish my routine, and then maybe we can blitz around a little before we leave, hey?”

Tidus nodded. “That’d be great!”

He watched as Wakka exited the tent, secretly relieved that the man had left him alone to his own devices. He was actually quite picky about his hair. He opened the box before him.

And almost gagged.

At first glance, it did actually remind him of one of the gelatinous monsters they’d spotted on the island trail. It was some strange color in between brown and green that had obviously seen better days. It wasn’t transparent at all; rather, it was almost thick, and lumpy. It looked kind of like …mud.

Tidus winced. In fact, it looked exactly like mud.

He dipped a finger into it tentatively, stirring around a few of the larger lumps – oh, and it was grainy too, apparently, almost like someone had spilled sand into the box. Tidus sampled a small amount on the tip of his finger and sniffed it warily. At least it didn’t smell quite like it looked. It mostly smelled of water, a kind of rain-like scent. Very light. He was relieved.

Tentatively, he crouched in front of the low mirror, and dabbed a little onto his hair, running his hands through it directly after.

He waited. That one piece of his bangs was standing out from his head in his familiar blitzer style.

He dunked his whole hand in the box, wincing slightly as it came out mud-covered, but dutifully rubbed his hands together and proceeded to run the hair treatment through his entire ‘do.

Outside, Wakka finally stopped laughing. After they’d blitzed a bit he’d give Tidus his real hair treatment. He was only hoping that Lulu would walk in as Tidus primped himself with her facial scrub.