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Not many people knew it, Tidus suspected, but Riku was a happy drunk. An extremely happy drunk. The type of drunk that would, when discovering one just agrued with arrived back at their hotel room that night, put his arms around their neck and announce in a loud, slurred voice: “I lurve you Tide’, lesch never fight again.” While hiccupping.

“Gross,” Tidus declared, and pushed him away quickly, wiping his hands on the walls. Riku slumped to the floor, giggling. “Man, we need to get you to bed. What the hell was in that stuff?” He picked up the bottle, trying to piece together the washed out label to no avail. So he threw it away – now empty, knowing Riku’s luck it was probably poisoned – and tried to pick Riku up.

“Man, you way a ton.” He complained. Probably all that muscle.

“Ahaha, you were touching my butt,” Riku said. “Now whooshe the fairy.”

Tidus suddenly decided he much preferred the sober Riku to this one, regardless of how many fights his sober actions caused.

“Riku, can you try to get up?” He asked, as if speaking to a five-year-old, trying not to panic.

“Yeah,” Riku said, sounding a bit more like himself, “I’m not that smashed.”

Tidus took him by the shoulder and hauled him up, staggering a bit at the weight and dumping him on the bed.

“Oooh Tide’, what’re we doin’ now?” Riku asked, looking devious.

“Sleeping,” Tidus replied, laying back on the bed with a groan.

“Nahhhh,” Riku said after a pause, hauling himself off the bed, “Sleeping shucks ass.”

“Then why’d you let me push you onto the bed?” Asked Tidus, annoyed, moving to grab his arm again, to be promptly shoved away.

“Duh. I s’hought it was foreplay,” Riku jumped back again as Tidus made another grab for him, then waved his arm in front of the other boy. “You wan’ it, you waaannnt it? Come get it.” And thus Riku ran surprisingly fast backwards to the hotel door for someone as intoxicated as he, staggering around its corner to down the hallway, laughing as Tidus chased after him angrily, swearing.

“Ooh, a milk wagon!” Riku cried as he crashed into a terrified looking Room Service delivery tote, grabbing various bottles from trays and staggering about. “Hahaha, I gotcha milk, I gotcha mii-ilk.” The delivery boy backed away, horror-stricken. “What, don’t cha want your milk? Too bad, ‘s mine now!” He sprinted off again in the opposite direction while Tidus apologized profusely to the scarred delivery boy, begging him not to call security.

“He’s really a great guy normally, no trouble or anything.“ Tidus insisted, sliding a hundred-dollar bill across the main tray, watching as the Wutanese poor man’s eyebrows lifted and he nodded discretely.

“It was a staircase accident.” The Wutanese man agreed in heavily accented common tongue, “Just don’t let your friend past the lift area, or I may have to tell my manager the true story.”

Getting why, Tidus dashed off in the direction Riku went, biting his cheek as he reached a fork in the road, glancing in both directions. To the left, an empty corridor of hotel rooms, to the right an empty corridor of hotel rooms but for a seemingly undisturbed couple with children.

So Tidus took off again to the left and bowed his head, squeezing his eyes shut, praying just praying Riku hadn’t gotten himself into any more trouble.

Of course with his eyes shut he lost awareness with his surroundings and he blinked as he found himself acquainted with a dead end wall.

Oh no. What if Riku actually had turned right, except the family had paid him no attention as he ran past? What if he got to the lobby and security had found him and thrown him out?

Tidus had actually fallen to his knees at the idea, giving into the thought that he was going to become a beaten up street-vandal in a different country with now no cash and no place to sleep when he heard a slurred shriek to the right, and hardly believing it, rushed to the nearest window.

And there Riku was outside, laughing like no tomorrow, walking along a narrow beam that served as the peak of the Wutanese building’s roof, swinging his ‘milk’ – two bottles of cheap alchohol already opened - alongside him.

“Riku!” Tidus yelled, unsure of what to do, seeing as he was nearing the roof end… What he didn’t expect was Riku to turn around at the sound, maniacal grin plastered on his face.

Then seeing the younger boy leaning out the window, Riku leaned forward and waved, with a call of “Hi Tide’!”

Tidus’s heart leapt to his throat as the sudden movement meant Riku lost his balance, his arms waving like windmills, Tidus could just see the older boy falling off the edge and crashing down the steep edges to the roof below, the roof below that, so onto the pavement with a resounding smack.

“Hang on,” Tidus called, while he should’ve know better after the results of the last thing he yelled, “I’m coming!”

“Didn’t know you were sho inta sex talk duuuude.” Ignoring Riku’s nonsense, Tidus scrambled out the window to the side of the roof below, clinging to the slippery roof tiles that he was so afraid would collapse beneath his grip. Suddenly he was much more aware of the darkening sun and the evening wind blowing his hair and jacket about, and it felt as if every moment was passing at double speed, though his cowardliness likely meant the minutes were passing slower than ever, as Riku threw the wine bottles off the roof and against an adjacent wall, cackling madly at the shattering sounds they made.

Tidus was still scrambling up the side of the roof against the wall, his foot slipping on a tile, he clawing for the drainpipe further up the wall that could be only centimeters away from his fingertips.

He got hold of it and his heart started beating again, his sneakers somehow regaining leverage on the tiles, his arms pulling himself up and hauling himself over the ledge, where he panted like he’d just ran a marathon.

Without a care in the world, Riku crawled up to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Gotch rid of tha milk.” He offered.

“That’s wonderful, Riku.” Tidus’s voice was teeming with hysteria.

“Isn’t the sunset preety?” And Tidus looked up. It was pretty, he had to admit, the water distinctly different from the Destiny Island’s own, but the sun burning the same fierce white, all the sight was wrong.

Riku snuffled his face into Tidus’s neck and Tidus crinkled his nose at the smell of his breath.

“Just how did you manage to get up here?”

There was a fire exit in form of ladder on the other side of the roof, and once Riku’d successfully clambered up it – Tidus refused to go first then have to chase the other guy down when he fell down another flight of roof – Tidus skittered up the rungs, all to eager to get away from his near-death experience.

Luckily, Riku hadn’t run off without him this time and Tidus latched onto his arm with little preamble, practically dragging him back to their room in his haste to get back.

They did get back, with much fiddling for room key. This time Riku got to the bed on his own accord and too promptly, fell asleep. He started drooling on the pillow.

Damn, Tidus did not want to try to fall asleep next to that sight of all things. But his only other alternative was sleeping on the floor, and he knew from experience how bad that could get, especially on hard floorboards like these.

So he sat down on the side of the bed and waited until he was sure Riku was asleep, thank god he didn’t snore. Then he shoved the arm draped over where he planned to sleep to the other side of the bed and lied down there, muttering to himself in his head.