Note - This little drabble took me about what, 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete, plus 35 minutes to brush up on the dialogue, structure and pacing? See how I missed out on grammar there? Yeaaah, I'm not sure it's all that polished in this fic.

Hopefully I got the general characterization right. Poor Hope only has one line. Enjoy and review!

-

Tell It To The Magazines

-

''I-I swear, it was somewhere around here, I know I didn't drop it, it must ha-''

Lightning, who was already way ahead of the situation, briskly brushed past Vanille and marched into the hallway, roughly kicking open the door of three rather startled inhabitants.

Vanille meekly followed her companion, praying that somehow she would have inherited the reserved kind of demeanour, did she have to blurt out that she was missing an item? Sure, asking Lightning about it saved her the burden of being upset, and the woman was always successful in resolving most issues faced within their journey. Lack of supplies, toilet paper, the Case Of The Missing Chocobo. Yeah, Lightning check-listed it all with an all-that flourish. Maybe though, this was somewhat a waste of time.

A brief showdown of eye-contact was exchanged between the four. Two pairs angry, two other quizzical, and the rest pissing their pants. This type of thing happened almost every two bloody days, so frequent it would would raise no qualms if it was added to the schedule. Sazh sighed inwardly and soothed his startled chocobo into reassurance, stealing questionable glances from Snow to Hope.

''I have no time for bullshit,'' she seethed softly towards the trio, ''we are already 35 minutes behind schedule, tired and experiencing a shortage of supplies. We don't need another unnecessary conundrum to occupy our minds, so I wish for this problem to be dealt with swiftly and briefly.''

Formal lingo, Sazh thinks, far too pretentious for anyone's sake, especially Lightning's. There was always something wonderful about her soft-spoken tone, it made his heart melt. He hated it when she got all uppity.

''Now, does anyone know where Vanille's perfume has gone?''

Sazh, Snow and Hope swap looks again, this time with a partial sense of relief. Thank the Lord another day is spent with balls still intact. That is if Lightning would rather harbour her anger for a little while, just for the wicked intention of unpredictability. Vanille lost a lot of things. Her rod, (thankfully retrieved), her tribal necklaces, and all too often her common sense. This was no different, if not the most mild case of her Lost Things scenarios. They'd all carry out a hasty search, announce the bad news, commence with the hugging and patting, and happily move on.

''We haven't seen it, I never knew she had it in the first place, did you just buy it?'' Hope asked.

''Yeah, I just bought it two days ago,'' Vanille squeaked, stepping into the room. ''It was especially imported from Pulse, home-made from my tribe so...''

''It has that personal value, huh?'' Sazh added, nodding understandably. ''Alright, we'll just look around for it and if it's not there both of us will go back together and buy another.''

''Wait, imported from Pulse?'' Snow asks.

''So we'll start,'' Lightning muses, watching Vanille nod enthusiastically to Sazh's solution. ''Our room is already looking nasty from the raid, we'll start with Sn-''

''Woah!'' Snow exclaimed, shoving his forearm towards Lightning, who was already in the pursuit of diving under his bed.

''Move!'' She barked.

''There's isn't nothing to see, what would three, err, two grown men want with perfume?''

''Let me through you overgrown broad, I could never trust you with such a situation. Remember the doughnut?''

''I paid for that!'' He cried, trying to retain his balance as she shoved him towards the wardrobe. ''I don't have it, and why sta-''

He paused, suddenly remembering something. ''Oh no, Light, no. No, no, n-''

''Hiding something?'' She hisses, forming a grin that chilled him to his very core.

''No, it's ju-''

''Would you like to take another step forward?''

He gave up, watching with bated breath with the rest of the group as she tore from sheet to sheet, fumbled roughly through the contents of his coat and pillow, and massaged the mattress with open palms for any odd lumps, no luck. All was to go fine until she tipped the mattress over and paused at the contents.

Lightning sighs.

Vanille managed to silence her giggle, pinching Hope to do so as well. Sazh pursed his lips and gave Snow a subtle look of disdain as he flushed a scarlet red.

''Those aren't mine,'' he managed to say, in a squeak that shook the walls. ''I confiscated them from Maqui, during the...''

''Save it,'' mutters Lightning, smacking the magazines to his chest. She turns to Vanille. ''Just buy another bottle of that damn scent, I'm sure you've got some gil to spare. Right now we'll try to get something to eat, are you all packed?''

They all nod vigorously, with the exception of Snow still wallowing in the corner with awkward unease, heart thudding from the long silence that ensues...

''STEP ON IT!!''

Vanille and Hope jump to her vicious commands, followed by Sazh who was so hasty to leave the hotel room in such a mess, he leaves dodging the wrath of his comrade's boot. Snow was left with her presence.

She shuts the door.

Lord of mercy, she's got the gunblade with her.

-