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‘Hey. Kinda creepy, but I’m just grabbing lunch with Fuu. Saw you in the coffee shop, can we come in and say hi?’
We watched together as Squall picked his phone up from the table beside his elbow and a smile curved his pretty mouth up. Then he lifted his head, glancing about through the window, looking for us. Took him a moment or so to see us across the street outside but when he finally did spot us, I lifted my hand in a wave.
To my surprise, rather than responding via text, he ran a hand through his hair and… my phone began to ring. Of course, it was him, and I picked up quickly. “Hey again,” I said, pushing back any voices of paranoia. For fucks sake brain, would he be smiling if he was pissed off?
Wait. Don’t answer that.
I could hear the typical hustle and bustle of the coffee shop in the background behind him, then that cool, soft voice spoke in it’s easy purr. “Hi. For future reference, spotting someone you went on a date with last night and saying hi is not creepy. Unless the date went badly, for one or both of the parties. Do you think our date went badly, Seifer?”
“It was amazing and you know it.”
“Mmmm,” Squall pretty much purred all over again. It was almost enough to make my toes curl. “It was very good. On the other hand, creepy might fit me asking if I can tag along with you since this place is getting way too loud for me. Assuming you guys were going somewhere else anyway.”
I dragged my gaze from him with reluctance, somehow managing to turn my attention to my right hand woman. “Squall requires evac and rations somewhere quieter. You good with him joining us for lunch?”
She gave me the thumbs up to confirm. “Rendezvous at the Swan?” she suggested, rocking on her heels just a little. She was practically rubbing her hands together in evil glee, getting to observe her matchmaking experiments in the field. In the flesh! I could almost hear the evil machinations she was coming up with. “It’s usually pretty quiet in there at lunch time.”
“Come and join us before you give in to temptation and start mass casting silence, baby,” I said, looking back up at Squall in the window. He’d been camped in a small corner of the cafe, on a tiny table with a laptop in front of him. It had been pure chance that I’d caught sight of him, I’d only been glancing in to see how ridiculous the queue was. Then I’d happened to lay eyes on him as I’d turned back to look at the street ahead. Nothing new there, to be honest - he’d always been able to grab my attention like no one else ever had. People could have been tap dancing naked in the back of the store and I’d still never have noticed as long as Squall was right there. “We’ll wait for you out here.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” he promised and hung up the phone. He didn’t take long, just shoving his laptop, and whatever else he had into a messenger style bag. With that complete, he slipped out of the cafe, people already clamouring to claim the now abandoned table, so I figured he must have been more than happy at the chance to escape.
Squall shouldered the bag as he joined us on the pavement, giving Fujin a small smile and a brief “hey” in greeting. He ran his fingers through his hair with both hands and gave a little huff of a sigh. “Their coffee is really good, but not good enough to deal with the lunch time rush.”
He flashed that smile at me again, and his hand found mine briefly, squeezing my fingers. I didn’t know how to react - this was the first time we had been around anyone since our first date nearly two weeks before. I certainly never imagined he’d be okay with touching me in public, let alone in front of someone he knew. Or that he had to work with in future. Even if we had made out like teenagers the previous night.
I saw Fuu glance down at our hands, and she smiled briefly. “We were thinking of going to the Swan so we can sit down,” she told Squall, her voice the softer tones she could fall back on when she wasn’t forcing the volume to make people listen. “”Have you been there, yet?”
“Haven’t ventured very far afield so far,” Squall shook his head and gave her a sheepish little shrug. “Just some basic recon.”
To be honest, I suspected that meant he’d found one or two coffee shops he linked and then stopped exploring. Not that I could talk, really. I’d been just as bad when I’d first moved to the city. If it hadn’t been for Rai and Fuu, I don’t know if I’d have stayed sane. “How long have you been here?” I asked, out of curiosity.
He tipped his head a little, thinking it over. “Ah… eight weeks tomorrow.”
I was surprised. I mean, it made sense that he hadn’t explored much if he’d only been here a couple of months, but it also meant that Fuu had arranged our blind date when he’d been in the city for only six weeks. Damn, one of them moved fast and I wasn’t sure which it was. “If you need recommendations, we can help,” I offered.
He smiled again, his knuckles brushing lightly but deliberately against mine. “Thank you. I’ll have to take you up on that,” he said then turned his attention to Fuu. “Your office is near here, right?”
She nodded and motioned for us to follow as she made her way down the street. The Swan was a great little pub, but it sat quietly on a back alley. Perfect for us because it was usually quiet in the day, and in the evenings it was far more likely to be filled with locals and frequent visitors than the more touristy places on the main streets. “It is pretty close. Seifer’s place is too.”
Squall glanced back at me, an eyebrow arching curiously. “Yeah,” I confirmed. “The other end of the street to Fuu’s building.”
“The greyish building with the really dark tinted windows,” Fuu added.
“Interesting. I didn’t realise you were so close,” Squall smiled at me.
“Well, neither did I until you had me pick you up for the duel,” I shrugged. “We have a floor of the shared building to ourselves. Handy for the city.”
“I promise I won’t stalk you, now I know where you work and all,” Squall bumped against me gently. I wanted to put my arm around his shoulders but it felt weird . Like we were too new for that kind of thing. At least with Fuu around. I might have tried it if we’d been on our own.
“Stalk me all you want as long as you bring cake,” I grinned at him. We turned down a familiar alleyway, narrow and peppered with hanging baskets just beginning to burst into bright flares of colourful flowers, and old wooden barrels cut in half and decorated with plants. They sat either side of the narrower, cobbled passageway that led to our destination. It was part of the older reaches of the city centre, still fairly near Squall’s newly converted apartment. When we were just a few steps from the street, the daily traffic and clamour became distant and dampened, and I swear I saw Squall’s shoulders sink a little as he relaxed. He didn’t do great with loud places still. Good to know.
“That’s all it takes, hm?” Squall tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I’ll remember that.”
“When the cake is that good, yes.”
“It was even better than the patisserie,” Fujin added.
Squall actually flushed a little with embarrassment. Well, that was interesting. So he could still get flustered easily. He’d never really liked all that much attention back when we were kids at Garden and it didn’t look like that much had changed at least. I wondered how that translated to the writing stuff or whether his blushing was reserved just for people he knew well enough to give a shit about. “Thanks. Don’t really get to bake much so that’s nice to hear.”
“You can definitely bake for us anytime you like, and we’ll be happy to keep praising you,” Fujin offered.
“I might take you up on that.”
“And maybe when you guys are ready, we could have a double date,” she added, as we reached the old wooden door of the pub. Fujin grabbed the long brass door pull and opened it before either of us could get ahead of her to do it. I grabbed the door over the top of her head and held it, letting her duck under my arm and into the entrance. Squall followed suit, brushing against me deliberately. I caught his little glance and teasing smile. “Maybe we could cook something together, Squall? Raijin will want to give you the shovel talk anyway.”
“Rai does not need to give Squall the shovel talk,” I sighed. Squall was following her to the table, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Thank Hyne he was just bemused at the idea of a shovel talk. Having duelled him, I wasn’t sure there was anyone who could intimidate him physically, at least not while he had his hyperjunction or his guardian force to hand. “Rai does not need to give anyone the shovel talk.”
“Aw, let him. You know he likes to feel intimidating sometimes,” Fuu grabbed menus and slid into a booth. It was true, my other best friend was the very epitome of the gentle giant but did like to feign menace sometimes. Anyone who knew him more than five minutes would be able to see right through him though.
Squall waited for me to sit down before he scooted in after me, carefully tucking his bag under the table as he made himself comfortable. “What do you think?” he asked me when he’d settled himself in. “Are we ready for a double date, with or without shovels?”
I looked at him, those stormcloud eyes so steady on me. After my little confession of weirdness when we’d duelled I still wasn’t sure how to feel about all of it. Squall was remarkably gentle with me really. He didn’t push or cajole. He just… let me be. He let me relax around him as though nothing bad had ever happened between us, as though I wasn’t fucked up in the head. I still couldn’t figure out what I’d done to deserve that. “I think so,” I said aloud, surprising myself a little.
He smiled, his fingers sliding over mine where they rested on the cracked leather seat between us, giving me an almost teenage thrill at such gentle little contact. I turned my hand to loosely hold his between us.
“So…” Fuu prompted, passing us menus.
“Isn’t it his birthday in a few weeks? On a Sunday, right?” I asked.
“Yes,” she gave her short sharp nod of confirmation. “Then?”
“Why not my place then? We can do movies and food and whatever and I’ll drop you back home when it’s all over, Squall.”
“Good with me. No better excuse for cake than a birthday,” he shrugged and started looking over the options for lunch one handed. His other hand never left mine, his thumb restlessly rubbing over my knuckles. I found it oddly reassuring. Calming even.
When he finally set the menu down, Fuu scooted out of the booth again. “What do you want to eat? I’ll go put our order in.”
I picked out my usual when we came here for lunch, a BLT and a coffee. Squall went for a barbecue chicken melt and a coffee too. Barbecue, the runner up indicator for Galbadians just a few steps behind hot sauce. See, some of his genetics were telling tales, even if they’d missed a trick on the hot sauce thing. “Let me get you some cash.”
Fuu held up a hand as Squall started to reach into his back pocket for his wallet. “My treat. You can get it next time… pretty sure this isn’t going to be our last shared lunch,” she smiled again, and turned to head for the bar with a little flick of her silver-white hair, pleased with how her experiment was going.
“She does that a lot, doesn’t she?” Squall said, leaning a little closer to me. I wasn’t sure if that was just so he could keep his voice soft or just to get a little closer contact with me.
“Hm?”
“Takes control,” he squeezed my hand gently. “You sure you’re good with the double date thing?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. I mean… it’s a few weeks away but I wouldn’t blame you if it was too soon.”
“A meal with friends sounds good to me, Seifer. If you’re willing to share them with me - I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding,” I squeezed his hand. No, he wasn’t. He was making me happy. All of it was making me happier, bit by bit. Being able to duel with him again, being close to him and his calming coolness seemed to soothe something in my soul that had been torn to pieces years before. Or years ahead. His touch was something I’d needed for more than half my life without ever knowing it. “Or if you are, please intrude more.”
Fuu returned quickly, slipping into the booth with us again and breaking the little spell that had been hanging in the air between Squall and myself. Still, he held on to my hand, cool fingers comforting against my own. “All good?” Squall asked.
“Mm, shouldn’t be long. They’ll bring the drinks over too.”
“Good.”
“So…,” she began, eyeing Squall critically. “I don’t see any new headwounds.”
“No, ‘cause he kicks my ass now,” I huffed. Well, I was a bigger man now, I could admit that. I also knew I’d be working my ass off until we were at least a better match in that regard. I wanted to impress Squall.
“And Seifer drove us out to where we sparred, so I didn’t want to give him a concussion.”
“We mostly fight for fun,” I said, which we all knew was probably a blatant lie. Squall and I fought because of many reasons, and fun was somewhere on the list. After some more practice, it’d be moving up the list, at least.
“Is your garden big enough to duel in? Or that empty space down the lane?”
“Are you feeling voyeuristic, Fuu?”
“Well, it’s been a long time since we saw you spar. Let alone train with someone.”
“Well… maybe.”
“I can be adventurous if you want to try it with an audience,” Squall gave me a wicked little smirk. He had to stop doing that - it was a good thing I was sitting down.
“We are still talking about duelling, right?”
“I hope so. I’m not going that far to prove myself against the shovel talk otherwise.”
Before we could venture further down that rabbit hole, the waitress bought over our sandwiches and drinks. She recognised the two of us since we had been frequenting the place for years and knew both my and Fuu’s usual orders. With her thanked and on her way, the three of us tucked in.
“So did you just submit a book to the place Fuu works?”
Squall finished chewing his bite and wiped his mouth with a napkin before he spoke. He’d had to let me go when the waitress had arrived, unfortunately. “Actually the Estharian arm of the same publisher referred me over to the Galbadian one to talk about publishing some stuff I already have out there, over here.”
“I got an invite to a phone meeting with a Mr Arroux - that’s his pseudonym. We started the meeting, he introduced himself…”
“And this very familiar voice says “Don’t you lie to me, Squall Leonhart” - took me a minute or so to place her since she wasn’t forcing it,” he almost grinned as he took a sip of coffee. While he laughed and smiled, I don’t think I’d seen him actually grin yet. He was still a little restrained. Still Squall, under all of the things that made him even more beautiful and whole.
“Well you didn’t talk much back at Garden,” I started, wondering how she’d recognised him.
Fuu rolled her eye much like Squall used to when we were kids. “We talked. Probably more than you two talked anyway.”
“When?”
“Usually when we were waiting for you to turn up to drag me out to a duel. Sometimes in the infirmary,” Squall shrugged. Well, kinda made sense, really, Fuu and Rai had been the other members of the disciplinary committee and even before that they’d been my almost constant companions - at least when Squall wasn’t around. And I’d had my head firmly up my own ass at the time so I wouldn’t have noticed Squall talking to them - I’d have been far more worried about him interacting with other people to be jealous of my friends talking to him.
“I never realised,” I admitted.
“He said he was moving to Galbadia shortly, I said he should come out and see me in the office sometime, so we could catch up in person.”
“I’d already put a down payment on the apartment even before I found out how close it was to the offices. Seemed almost too convenient.”
“Seems like fate,” I said softly.
Squall nudged his knee against mine under the table. “Thankfully on our side at last. At least so far.”
“So… when you finally did meet up, why mention me?”
“He asked how you were doing. I said you were okay. Still getting over a lover and all, but doing better.”
I wasn’t sure if I liked Squall having a bit of insider info like that. “Oh.”
“And I said “me too”. By the end of our meeting, she was setting us up on a blind date. Well, blind for you. I knew exactly what I was getting into.”
Wait. Squall was getting over someone too?