Midnight Watch

[shinon]

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Characters: Lloyd, Genis, Zelos
Word count: ~2200
Warnings: Zelos.
Notes: Ha ha ha I haven't written Zelos in eight years and I haven't written Lloyd or Genis ever. But I was just thinking, since Zelos is the resident selling-everybody-out-to-everybody-else guy, wouldn't he have to randomly disappear more often than we're actually shown in-game?

The constellations of Tethe'alla were still unfamiliar. They'd been here for weeks, but it still came as a shock every time he looked up at the night sky. He'd asked Sheena and Presea about the stars and gotten strange answers - unpronounceable Mizuho names from Sheena, while according to Presea, all the constellations were different sizes of bear. Even the one he thought looked like a cat was just "Long-tailed Bear."

He guessed he could ask Regal or Zelos, but that would just be weird.

It was him and Genis on watch tonight, and though he knew it was an important job, it was getting kind of boring. No. Really boring. He was getting tired of looking at all these weird stars he didn't understand. Sure, there were a lot of people out there who wanted to hurt Colette - or, for that matter, Genis and the Professor - but those people needed sleep, too, didn't they? How many times had they ever really been attacked at night? Not since leaving Sylvarant, he was sure. People in the flourishing world probably wouldn't try to kill you until they'd had eight hours of sleep and a nice breakfast.

Of course he'd protect his friends. He'd do anything for them. He'd left everything behind to save Colette, and he'd do it all again in a heartbeat. She was actually sleeping tonight - he'd checked. She hadn't been able to do that for so long. If he had his way, she would never have to sacrifice anything again.

None of which changed the fact that guard duty was really, really boring.

"Hey, Genis. Wake up."

Genis stirred across the fire. "I wasn't sleeping," he said indignantly.

"Yeah, you were."

"Well, you must have dozed off five times already."

Was it really that many? He'd lost track. "Liar."

Genis got up. "I'll make more coffee." He opened his bag and started rummaging through it. Then he paused.
"We're not... telling anyone, right?"

"Of course not," said Lloyd. "We'll just check and make sure everyone's okay. No harm done, right?"

"Right..." Genis put the water on to boil, but he didn't sound entirely convinced.

"Hey, don't worry about it. We've got the team back together, and we know how to save both worlds. It's only natural to relax a little. Besides" - he patted the hilt of one sword - "if anyone attacked us, I'd wake up in an instant and take the bastard down."

He couldn't see his friend's face very clearly in the low flicker of the firelight, but somehow he could feel that Genis was staring at him skeptically. "What?" he snapped, feeling weirdly embarrassed. "I've gotten a lot stronger, you know."

"It's not that," said Genis. "Do you have any idea how much effort it takes to wake you up?"

"Uh..."

"Lloyd, we can't let our guard down for an instant! Cruxis isn't going to just let us run around freely. You're all wanted for saving me and Raine, and the Papal Knights probably still want to kill us! And can we really even trust -"

"Genis. Let's go look in on everyone, okay? By then, the coffee will be ready, so we won't go back to sleep. We won't make this mistake anymore."

Genis hesitated.

"I'm sure everyone's safe. Come on, I'll show you." He walked a short way out of the fire's cone of light, and after a moment, he heard Genis's footsteps following him.

The first sleeping bag was Colette's. She always slept pretty close to the fire now that she could feel temperatures again. She'd gotten cold easily when they were kids, and it seemed like that had come back. He stared down at her, wondering how someone who looked so fragile could be so -

Genis cleared his throat.

"See? Colette's fine," Lloyd said hurriedly, and stepped around her to continue the survey. "And there's Sheena and the Professor. Presea..." He scanned the ground, letting his eyes adjust to the lower light. "Presea's over there." Genis hurried over to check on her more closely. Lloyd rolled his eyes and resumed the patrol. He found Regal at the very edge of the camp, so far away that the heat of the fire barely reached him at all. "And that just leaves Zelos."

They both looked over at the Tethe'allan Chosen's gaudy personal tent.

"He's fine, right?" said Lloyd. "He got mad when I tried to go in there without asking."

"I bet he just didn't want you to see how much hair product he uses." Genis gave a resigned sigh. "We should probably make sure he's in there." He'd never liked Zelos. The guy did make a lousy first impression, but Lloyd wished Genis would give him more of a chance.

Well, he wished that half the time. The other half of the time, he saw Genis's point.

Lloyd walked over and rustled the tent flap. No response. He cast a guilty glance back at Colette, not wanting to wake her, then leaned in closer and whispered, "Hey, Zelos, are you in there?"

Genis snorted. "You'll never wake him up if you're that quiet."

"He'll make fun of us if he knows what we're doing. Probably call us ignorant hicks or something."

"We did screw up..."

Lloyd sighed. "Well, there's no need to wake him up, is there? You watch everyone else. I'll just go in and make sure." Without waiting for Genis's answer, he ducked into Zelos's tent.

Somehow it wasn't as fancy on the inside as he'd expected. The walls had a little insulation, and all the fabric was high quality, but it really just looked like a tent. There was his sword and shield, there was some weird piece of Tethe'allan machinery, and there was his sleeping bag. It was a little fluffier than everyone else's, but nothing very lavish.

And it was empty.

He turned and started to call something to Genis, but Genis spoke first: "Lloyd, there's something out there!"

Something happened to Zelos. Cursing himself for his stupidity, Lloyd plunged back out into the camp and drew his swords. "Where?"

Genis pointed. "That way." He readied his kendama, then shot a look up at Lloyd. "Zelos...?"

"No sign of him. Dammit."

"If someone kidnapped him, they made a really bad choice of hostages."

"If something happened, it's our fault." There were slow, measured footsteps in the dark. Lloyd turned his back on the fire so his night vision could adjust. "Can you sense their mana?"

There was a pause. Finally Genis said, "It feels like a human... mostly."

Mostly? Well, it didn't matter. As long as it was some kind of person, you could talk to them and find out what they wanted. "Who's there? Show yourself!"

More footsteps, a muffled laugh.

"We know you're out there!" said Genis. "And I'll burn you to a crisp if you don't surrender right away!"

"I'll wake up all the others, too," said Lloyd, "so don't think you're gonna get away with anything here." He moved toward Presea first. She'd be up and swinging immediately, and then he'd get the Professor.

"Hey, come on, that's not necessary," said a voice in the darkness. "Let them have their beauty rest. I'd suggest you get some too, but all the sleep in the world wouldn't help you guys compete with me."

"Zelos," Genis said flatly.

"Yep!" Zelos strode up out of the shadows and stood grinning at the both of them. "And look at our ever-vigilant guards, huh?" He moved as if to pull off one of his gloves and looked at Lloyd. "Hey, Bud, you need my fingerprints while you're at it? You just can't be too careful these days."

"You ass," said Genis.

Lloyd held up a hand. "It's fine. We were just worried about you."

"Oh, you were? That's so sweet of you. Really." In the darkness it was hard to tell if he was genuinely surprised or just mocking them. Then again, it was also hard to tell that about Zelos in broad daylight. "Well, I'm sorry for scaring you like that." Yep. Mocking them. "But it's cool, the great Chosen One can look after himself, see? Not a scratch on me."

"But where the hell were you?" Genis snapped.

"Is it really that hard to imagine?"

"Well... yeah," said Lloyd.

"That's adorable. Talk about your lack of worldly wisdom." Zelos strolled over and propped an arm on Lloyd's shoulder. "Listen, Lloyd, I know it's different in Sylvarant, but around here the title of Chosen comes with certain privileges."

"Privileges like turning us all into wanted traitors?" said Genis.

Zelos leaned around behind Lloyd's back to look at him. "Shut up, twerp. That's just because the Pope's jealous of my natural masculine beauty. Anyway" - he shifted back to Lloyd, his tone warming up again immediately - "you've met some of my hunnies before, right? I was just paying them a little visit. If you're jealous, you could come along sometime. I'm sure I could talk one or two into overlooking your horrible fashion sense for the night."

Lloyd was just trying to imagine what in the world Zelos could be talking about - what you did with large groups of girls at night, and why it mattered what you looked like - when Genis interrupted. "You can't really be thinking about it, Lloyd. You have responsibilities here! And so do you, Zelos, even if you think you can just ignore them -"

"Hey. Relax, half-pint." His arm tightened around Lloyd's shoulders. "I'll just take him some night when neither of us is on guard duty, okay? What do you say, Bud?"

Lloyd had a sense that something was going on over his head here, and that he might never know what it was. "I - I don't know..."

"Come on, I'm doing you a favor here. I'm offering to start your education in the ways of Man."

Lloyd blinked. "What? I thought I was doing pretty good at being a man. I mean, I know how to fight, and make crafts, and look out for my friends..." It sounded weirdly unconvincing, put like that. It never had before.

There was a long pause, and then Zelos said "Wow" in a tone of sarcastic amazement.

"Hello?" said Genis, who only seemed to be getting angrier the longer this went on. "All of this is completely beside the point! We can't have people sneaking in and out of our camp at night!"

Oh, right. That was what this conversation was supposed to be about. Lloyd shook himself. "Genis is right, Zelos. Everyone has to stick together, or there's no point even having guards."

"Okay. So get rid of the guards. You run with a pretty tough group here, you know. Everyone can take care of themselves."

Lloyd shook his head. "But they shouldn't have to. We're all friends, and that means we help each other out. It would be really sad if everyone had to be on guard for themselves all the time."

"Sad, huh?"

"Well, yeah! If we couldn't trust each other, if we didn't know everyone else would help us and care about us, that would be even lonelier than having no one around at all."

Zelos said nothing.

"Hey," said Lloyd. "We're your friends, too, got it?"

"What he means is you have to stop sneaking around," said Genis.

Well, no, that wasn't exactly what he meant. "I'm just saying it's not safe if no one knows where you are."

"Whoa there, Lloyd. I didn't know you were such an old mother hen. What's next? You gonna institute the buddy system?"

"Shut up. I just -" He just didn't want to lose anyone again, like he'd almost lost Colette. Everyone on the team was important, no matter how long he'd known them. They fought together, traveled together, and worked together to change the world - there was no questioning a bond like that.

"It's fine." Zelos grinned. "You love me. I get it. So, out of respect for your feelings, I'll try to tone down the skulking a little, okay? My hunnies will be devastated, but hey. Anything for my best buddy here."

"You've got to be joking," Genis said disgustedly. "We have to get back to guard duty, Lloyd. This is a waste of time." He stalked back over to the fire.

"Spiky little brat, isn't he?"

"He's still not really used to you. And you did say some kinda ugly things about half-elves."

Zelos frowned, but the expression disappeared only a moment later. "Huh. Whatever." He turned and made for his tent.

"Zelos."

"Yo."

"Do you always make fun of people for caring about you?"

There was a long silence. Zelos didn't move.

"Hey -"

"You know, Lloyd, you're pretty sharp sometimes. Well, good night," he said, and with an elaborate fake yawn, disappeared beneath the tent flap.

Lloyd looked at the stars a while longer, but still none of them made any sense.