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Q: “So what do you think of this lingerie?”
S: “It’d look better in a pile on the floor.”
S: “When are you coming over?”
Q: “I’ll let you know.”
/\
Seifer scowled at the exchange, which was the last word he’d gotten from Quistis for two days. TWO. WHOLE. DAYS. It cemented his suspicion that she was mad, but why? Hell if he knew, but he didn’t want to ask in case it turned out to be one of those “you should have knoooown” situations. Anyway, he didn’t beg. If Quistis was going to be in a snit about something practically invisible, it wasn’t Seifer’s problem.
Except Quistis had looked absolutely stunning in that lingerie, a gloriously enticing web of straps and mesh that Seifer constantly spaced out thinking about. He’d never, ever seen Qusitis wear anything like that and he wanted to see it in person with a nearly obsessive desire. No matter how good the technology on their special Estharian cameraphones, there was no substitute for the spark of a real in- person interaction. You couldn't get a picture naked!
(He almost felt bad about using a present from Laguna for such impure purposes especially because their friends and the old guys had an intercontinental group chat, but then Seifer reasoned that nobody had told him NOT to use the phone that way, and anyway, Quistis was the one sending racy messages so there.)
The picture made Seifer swear and sweat, knowing he couldn't actually touch the woman of his desires while she practically taunted him in pixels. From the the coy little smile she’d had in that sexy pic she’d sent him, Quistis had known he was going to react exactly like this too. Was she messing with him by being so quiet? Did she want him to come to her, all wrought up about what he’d seen? It was a possibility... But then she surely would have followed up with more pictures, right? So the only conclusion Seifer could come to was that Quistis was mad for some reason and thought he was to blame. Because he knew she was still around the Garden and he knew she definitely wasn’t seeing anyone else, so…
He kept rereading the exchange and coming up with no answers until finally he had to admit he had no idea what the hell had happened and wasn’t willing to simply let things go. Quistis wasn’t just some floozy or one night stand; she was a friend above all else and he didn’t want to lose her even if they never had sex again. Yet he didn’t want to chase her off by whining or looking like a total idiot, so he instead went to someone who he knew could provide some insight without judgment.
“Yo Raij, you got a sec?” Seifer asked his old friend, who was fortunately alone when Seifer found him in the weight room. Nobody was supposed to bench press without a spotter, but Seifer could tell at a glance that Raijin was conditioning rather than trying to gain and the day Raijin couldn’t handle a hundred pounds was the day Raijin bought a rocking chair and stayed in it.
“Yeah man, what’s up?” Raijin didn’t even break stride to speak.
Seifer sat on the next bench over. “I got this girl I’m trying to get with, but I think she’s pissed at me.”
Raijin laughed and glanced at him. “Yeah? What’d you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t ‘uh-huh’ me, I actually don’t know. She sent me a lingerie pic and then hasn’t said anything since. The fuck?”
Raijin’s brows raised. “That was it? She just sent you a pic and disappeared?”
“Yeah!”
“You didn’t say anything back?”
“I did, but—”
“What’d you say?”
Seifer shifted on the bench, unaccountably embarrassed. “I told her the lingerie’d look better on the floor.”
“And?”
“And then asked when she was coming over.” He gathered steam and exhorted, “And then she said ‘I’ll let you know’ and that was IT. What the fuck, man?”
Raijin frowned. Then he went back to his lifts, saying, “I got nothin’, ya know? Maybe you should ask Fujin.”
“Gods! No!” Seifer shuddered. “That’s like talking to Dr. Kadowaki about sex.”
“We all talked to Dr. Kadowaki about sex.”
“About the biology! Not the actual stuff.”
Raijin managed to shrug while bench-pressing slightly less than half Seifer’s weight. “I think you need a girl’s perspective, man.”
“Ugh. You’re gay, isn’t that similar?”
“No,” said Raijin, unamused. He looked over at Seifer as the blond grumpily folded his arms and muttered under his breath. “Come on, she’s not gonna shove splinters under your nails.”
“I don’t want to ask Fujin. Or girls in general.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s going to be something incredibly obvious to them and I don’t feel like feeling stupid today.”
“Aww, I’m okay with feeling stupid around you too,” said Raijin, which made Seifer snarl wordlessly. “Alright. You want a guess?”
“Why not.”
“I think your girl’s pissed because you came on too strong.”
Seifer’s mouth twisted. Considering that Quistis seemed to make it her goal to get him to come on her, inside her, and with her as often as possible, he didn’t think ‘strength’ was the issue. But he couldn’t say any of that to Raijin, so he just kept his mouth shut as Raijin kept speculating.
“You took it for granted you were going to fuck and she got mad about it. Nobody likes someone thinking they’re easy, ya know?”
Seifer opened his mouth and then shut it, because… That was absolutely not something he’d considered. And which made total unfortunate sense. Neither of them had a lot of free time, but Quistis was even busier because she helped out everybody whenever they asked, no matter how annoying the thing was. But she always made time for him, which Seifer understood and appreciated. It was the biggest way that Seifer knew she actually liked him no matter how much crap they gave each other.
“Shit,” he grunted.
“That’s it, huh?”
“Yeah, feels like it.” Seifer was quiet for a while, mulling over his thoughts as Raijin, apparently finished with his warmup, slid off the bench and began to add more weight. “Alright, how do I fix it?”
“ ‘Sorry’ always works.”
“Ugh.” Seifer stood up. “Good talk anyway.”
“Let me know how it goes,” said Raijin, hefting a couple of thirty-pound discs and waving one at Seifer like it was a fan. He was so obnoxiously effortless about everything. It made Seifer want to chew glass sometimes, but never for long. It wasn’t like Raijin was being happy at him and anyway, Raijin’s happiness came from an incredibly squishy heart. It made Seifer both shudder and bristle at the idea of it getting bruised or worse, broken someday. If Raijin had been in Seifer’s shoes, he’d be a wreck at the moment.
“Or smart enough not to get in trouble in the first place.”
/\
S: “You good to talk?”
Q: “About what?”
S: “About the picture and stuff.”
S: “You’re mad at me, right?”
Q: “No.”
Q: “I’m resigned. And annoyed. But not mad.”
Q: “I knew what I was getting into.”
S: “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
S: “You know what, never mind.”
S: “I have been thinking about nothing else except how goddamned sexy you are. I should have said so when you sent me that pic.”
S: “I’m not taking you for granted.”
/\
In the privacy of his room and lying on his bed to be as relaxed as possible, Seifer waited for a reply that kept flicking in and out of existence in the form of a ’typing’ indicator. But no message came. With an internal sigh he threw down his trump card.
/\
S: “I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”
/\
Which it was, but writing it out and saying it aloud were two very different things. But it was obviously the right thing to say because Quistis replied back almost instantly.
/\
Q: “Thank you.”
Q: “I mean it.”
Q: “I was really embarrassed when I put that on and I was hoping for something more…”
Q: “I don’t know.”
S: “Yeah.”
S: “Okay. I get it now.”
S: “But you know how sexy you are, right? I mean, DAMN.”
Q: “I don’t feel that way.”
/\
Seifer stared at the phone for a while after that. His confusion only grew as a flurry of texts sped over his phone.
/\
Q: “It’s just the way I look. It’s not anything special.”
Q: “But people keep pushing their fantasies on me and it makes me so uncomfortable. I don’t like being looked at like that.”
Q: “That’s how I know you like me.”
Q: “You still want me even though nobody knows about us. So I know you’re not into me as some sort of status thing.”
Q: “Unless you actually are, in which case, don’t tell me.”
/\
“Bleeding eyes and skins,” Seifer swore aloud as he typed the same and then a little more.
/\
S: “I would never ever EVER say something that incredibly fucked up to you.”
S: “And I’d never feel it, either.”
S: “I want you because you’re YOU and you put up with me even when I’m being a solid jackass.”
S: “Who the fuck dated you for status?”
S: “I’ll set them on fire, fucking watch me.”
Q: “It was a long time ago. Don’t worry about it.”
Q: “You’re so cute when you’re homicidal.”
S: “FUCK YOU I’M NOT CUTE”
Q: “You are. But only to me.”
/\
Seifer didn’t know how to feel about that, but Quistis was clearly feeling good enough to tease him again and that was alright. He hated the word 'cute', which to him had always smacked of weakness and stupidity. But this was Quistis, who knew he was neither stupid nor weak nor immediately needing to be written off if he screwed up once, and for that he could put up with a little ‘cute’.
/\
S: “So are we good?”
Q: “Yes.”
Q: “I’m glad you reached out.”
Q: “I was worried that I’d made you angry by being quiet."
S: “I wasn’t angry.”
S: “I was confused.”
S: “Can you just talk to me next time instead of giving me the cold shoulder?”
S: “And the lonely boner?”
/\
This was the real test. Seifer held his breath as he waited for Quistis’s next reply. Had he just kicked off another shitstorm or were they actually getting somewhere?
“Somewhere… Where? Where do I want this to go? I don’t want it to go anywhere, really… And definitely not ‘away’. But what’s she thinking?”
/\
Q: “You just had to say something about your dick, didn’t you?”
/\
“Fuck me,” Seifer hissed in consternation. But then brightened up as an image appeared on his phone and oh, it was glorious! It was Quistis in that same sizzling hot lingerie, posing so prettily that he could only think of how wonderful it would be to run his hands over her barely-dressed body. How he would work her up to the same sweet heavy heat that was pumping through his veins now, cracking his chest open with a sudden swell of feeling that was more than plain lust.
/\
Q: “Does this help?”
S: “You really are the sexiest woman alive.”
Q: “Are you sure it’s not just the lingerie?”
S: “Lingerie’s just fabric. You’re what I’m looking at.”
S: “You don’t need the lingerie to be sexy to me.”
/\
The ’typing’ notification flickered again but Seifer didn’t much notice. He gazed adoringly at the picture, which he now realized had been taken the same day as the other one—same dressing room, same lights. Oh well. He didn’t care. He’d had girls he’d dated flash him before, but this was different. It felt more serious and way hotter, like Quistis was posing for his very own issue of The Girl Next Door and he liked it in unspeakable, indescribable ways. The first picture had short-circuited his brain so much that he couldn’t think of anything except that stupid one-liner, but now he couldn’t think of anything at all. Maybe he could talk her into an actual photoshoot with him using his own cameraphone, of course…
/\
Q: “So… I shouldn’t keep it on, then?”
S: “uh”
S: “This feels like a trap.”
Q: “Oh, you really are cute.”
Q: “Do you want to see me naked or not?”
S: “ALWAYS”
Q: “Then what are you waiting for? Get to my room, now."
/\
Seifer vaulted off his bed and went for the window; by unspoken agreement, he and Quistis didn’t stroll down to hall to visit each other when just any old person could see and speculate. Outside the dorms, the massive evening shadow of the Garden made it even easier to slip stealthily between the wall and the decorative bushes to get to Quistis’s room, which was at the end of the SeeD hallway. It was also a corner room, so it had double the windows and all of them were cracked, a clear invitation that she was expecting him though her room was dark and silent. Seifer swung the nearest window open and climbed in, but paused for a second in the sill when he saw Quistis sitting on her bed, smiling at him…
And wearing a giant sweatshirt.
“What the hell?” He asked before noticing that she seemed to be wearing just the giant sweatshirt; moonlight didn’t gleam off pants fabric like that and Quistis didn’t wear tights to bed.
“I got cold,” she said, still sounding happy. Her statement of never feeling sexy flitted through Seifer’s mind again and once again refused to stick, because how could she say that and then look at him like this, all warm and inviting with her confident knowledge of exactly what she was doing to him? She didn’t give those heavy-lidded looks to anyone else, especially not with that breathless little smile. Seifer climbed down out of the window, his cheeks hurting from hiding the huge grin that always came over him when he and Quistis were just about to do something fun. He didn’t want to seem easy.
“You got cold in the five minutes it took me to get here?”
“There’s a breeze coming through my windows. Speaking of which, latch them before you come over here.”
Seifer obliged. It wasn’t like they wanted certain noises to go wafting out into the night, even though it wasn’t uncommon to hear such noises from other parts of the dorm depending on the people or couples involved. But it was considered to be rude to not take preventative measures. When he turned around, Quistis was burrowing under her multiple blankets.
“Hey!”
“What? Get over here and warm me up.”
It occurred to Seifer that maybe she was exactly as self-conscious as she’d said and that she only felt sexy when he was feeling her up. That both pleased and annoyed him and after a breath more, the annoyance won out. So he folded his arms and leaned against the corner of her room until she poked her head out of the blankets.
“What are you doing?” Quistis asked, her frown light but unmistakable.
“I ain’t going over there until you show me what’s under that shirt.”
Quistis blinked at him. Then her look turned coy. “I’d rather you came over here and took it off me.”
“Well, I’d rather if you took it off for me because that’s hot as hell and basically what you did for the lingerie photos anyway.”
Her blush had to be nuclear if he could see it from across the room and in the reddish light from the setting sun. "That was different."
"Yeah, I wasn't there with you." Heat entered his voice as Seifer mused, "I would have liked to be. You should take me with you next time you try on sexy little things."
"That'd be pretty obvious, don't you think?" Her words were pert, but Quistis was practically stammering. Seifer smirked; it wasn't often he got to see her really flustered.
"I wouldn't care. I'd be too high on getting to see you all..." He searched for the right word, something that accurately conveyed how significant he instinctively knew being with her in a dressing room would be. It wasn't just the privacy, the thrill of the taboo, or that the lingerie that would quickly end up on the floor. It was... He ended up gesturing vaguely at the air between them, saying, "It would be a lot of fun."
"That's why we hang out. That's why we do what we do. There's so little time for us to actually have fun and you're the one I want to have it with."
Quistis gazed at him long enough for Seifer to feel an inexplicable blush rising. Then she slid out of the blankets, sat on the edge of her bed, and grasped the bottom of her baggy sweatshirt. She met his eyes for only a second before looking away.
"Come on, don't be like that," Seifer cajoled.
"Well don't stand in the corner like a pervert then."
He was almost offended by that but then again, he was doing exactly what she was accusing him of. So he went to her desk and spun her chair around to sit and face her, only a few feet between them. She was practically glowing with embarrassment now but there was enough of a smile hovering over her lips that Seifer wasn't worried about ticking her off.
So he pushed a little further by saying, "Well?"
“Hmph.” She actually pouted at him. “You're impatient."
Seifer looked at Quistis's legs, so long and lean and shapely, and his gaze traveled the path his hands usually took when he got them under her skirt, moving boldly with a reckless possessiveness born of disbelief: if he didn't make the most of her presence, she would leave. As though his gaze had weight, Quistis shivered and tensed, gripping the edge of her sweatshirt. The motion lifted the edge of the baggy sweatshirt just slightly, revealing nothing but the possibility of more. Seifer’s pulse beat faster with a simmering excitement.
“Can you blame me?” Seifer asked, deliberately meeting her eyes. “You sent me that sexy pic and then made me wait without an end. You made me wonder if I was ever going to see you ever again.”
She winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Hey, it worked out, right? But yeah, waiting more isn’t one of my priorities.”
“Then take this off me.”
Seifer smirked. “I gotta make you suffer a little.” Then he remembered they were making up and solicitously added, “If you’re up for it.”
She glared at him a little before the tension turned once again to embarrassment. “Alright, well… Don’t be mean.”
“Why would I be mean?” He asked rhetorically. But Quistis was now looking positively wretched with self-consciousness that struck Seifer as totally unfair. She was beautiful. And bold and smart and just more at nineteen than most people would be in their entire lives. And she was embarrassed about her body in front of someone who wanted nothing more than to touch her?
“Because I look ridiculous.”
“No you don’t.”
“No, I mean…” She hunched away from him. “I didn’t buy that lingerie.”
That surprised Seifer into brief speechlessness, but in the time it took for his voice to catch up, he understood why. She’d been offended and upset by his reaction, so of course hadn’t bought the thing that had elicited it.
“I bought something else,” she said, which made him light up again. “But it’s… Different.”
“Different how?”
“It’s…”
Quistis bit her lip. She looked like she was about to cry. Seifer wondered if he should back off before Quistis seized the edge of her sweatshirt, yanked it up and off and…
And...
“What the hell?!” Seifer exploded, flabbergasted, and Quistis laughed so hard that it echoed faintly in the room. She was wearing something skimpy alright, but it was an utter travesty of fuzzy little feathers and longer, stiffer ones pointing at strange angles. Rather than highlight her beautiful curves, the fluffy puffy outfit hid everything of interest in a shapeless haze of acid yellow. The color was what made something click in Seifer’s head.
“Is that a slutty chocobo costume?” He demanded, aghast, as Quistis cheekily pulled up a feathery hood that must have been hiding underneath her hair. As a wonky crest of dyed feathers popped up over her head, he shook his head in horror and kept shaking it as Quistis broke into another peal of laughter. She posed, hands on hips and shoulders cocked coquettishly.
“Am I sexy?”
“Hell no, it just inverted. What the fuck?”
Quistis laughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes. Seifer huffed, feeling inordinately cheated and yet… Relieved. Laughing was good! Laughing meant everything was back to normal, or at least he thought so until Quistis reached behind her back and the damn thing lit up in flashing red, blue, and green. She fanned her hands by her face like a chocobo’s cheek crests.
“Kweh-kweh!”
“Why are you doing this to me?” He groaned, dragging his hands over his face. “Was it Selphie? Did Selphie put you up to this?”
“No, I actually got the idea from you."
"Bullshit!"
“Oh come on, you didn't think you could tell me that story about getting covered in chocobo pheromones on a mission--"
"By ACCIDENT!"
She laughed. "Still! It stuck in my mind. And you were laughing when you told me, so I didn't think you'd be that offended."
Seifer grumbled, but she was exactly right. It was definitely a mixed blessing that they were growing comfortable enough to tease each other but on the other hand they were treading close to actual RELATIONSHIP status and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. The brief silence in their current arrangement had been harrowing enough but an actual breakup with real feelings, well...
“Hold up, what about all that junk about not feeling sexy and whatever? Were you jerking my chain?”
Quistis sobered. “No. I really was hurt when you sent that message. It felt like you didn’t think I could be sexy, only useful.” As Seifer stared, horrified that he’d been misunderstood that badly, Quistis chuckled and said, “But then once I had some time to think about it, I decided it would be more fun to mess with you. I almost bought the slutty Pupu costume, but I thought I could put this one on faster.”
Seifer shook his head, unnerved. Quistis at last took pity on him with a fond smile and shut the lights off. Once his eyes stopped being assaulted by the neon-like lights, Seifer could see the bits of Quistis that were actually uncovered; her arms, her legs, her stomach, most of her chest. Horrible costume notwithstanding, she was still incredibly beautiful and ultimately, still wearing skimpy clothes made to be removed quickly. It was great! He should be happy! But the chocobo-faced hood was staring him down and Seifer couldn’t not look at the off-centered and off-kilter eyes that were goggling at him in the near-dark. It was like they were judging him somehow, by some standard he couldn’t fathom. And the longer he stared, the more alive they seemed. He could almost hear ghostly chocobo clucking...
“Alright, I promise I’m done horrifying you,” said Quistis, amused. “Now come over here and help me get this thing to its ultimate form.”
Seifer sputtered, “You want me to help you put more of that thing on?”
“No,” she said patiently. “I mean I want you to help me achieve its best look, which is in a pile on the floor.”
Seifer blinked and then broke into a wide grin as he surged off the chair and for the maddening, delightful light of his life—thankfully no longer in literal lights, though the gleam from her eyes was more than enough to satisfy him. And fortunately for both of them, he occupied his mouth enough for the next few hours to avoid putting his foot in it again.