Archive of Our Own

After our impromptu lunch with Fujin, things proceeded almost alarmingly normally. Squall and I went on one, sometimes two dates a week, most of them pretty regular stuff. Maybe even too regular or normal - stuff like dinner, movies, even a couple of live shows even though he wasn’t big on loud stuff. He could handle it as long as he didn’t have to do it for a couple of nights running. He could handle it even better as long as he got plenty of time to adjust somewhere quiet afterwards.

Thankfully, adjusting usually meant a little quality time on his couch since he lived at the edge of the city centre and was in walking distance of most of the big venues for live stuff. So we’d walk back with our ears still ringing from the music, and sometimes he’d slip his hand into mine. I liked that. The way his fingers would tangle with mine almost sneakily. The feeling of his hand in mine soothed something inside me that I didn’t realise needed it until he touched me.

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that I didn’t deserve it. Didn’t mean I was going to give it up any time soon though.

We hadn’t worked our way up to anything more than making out and a little petting just yet, but I wasn’t looking to push. I was finding him inch by inch in every date we had together and slowly the voices of doubt in the back of my head eased off and I got to enjoy more and more of the time we spent in each other’s company instead of analysing every moment. I kind of felt like a teenager again, though, just looking forward to spending as much time as possible making out with my boyfriend on his couch.

Saturdays though, Saturdays were much more us. I wasn’t sure if those were dates or not, but they still felt like it to me. So every Saturday, I’d pick him up, we’d head out to a good, quiet spot and hit enc-non. Then we’d spar or duel until both of us were exhausted.

After the first couple of weeks, Squall started bringing something of a picnic lunch along for us to eat. I offered to give him money for some or all of it and he just gave me A Look. So instead I’d either pick up coffee and breakfast on the way if we were doing an early start, or grab dinner on the way back if we started later, whichever worked at the time.

Anyway, as April faded behind us and May started to stretch out, the weather slowly improved. Days were drier at least, and slowly getting warmer. I started to feel like I was finally gaining a little ground on him, like maybe I was starting to be worthy of calling myself his rival again. When it came to gunblades at least. He gave me pointers and careful critique, and both of us were surprised when I actually listened. I took his ideas on board and we even started to try stuff out before trying it in sparring matches - for once.

Then usually we’d collapse on a picnic blanket under the shade of a tree - or on colder days, in the back seat of my car - while we drank coffee from a flask and ate whatever heavenly delights he’d bought along this time. If I was very lucky, he’d sometimes tell me a little about the places where he’d picked up those little tips and techniques along the way, his head tipped just a little, his eyes gazing into the distance through the haze of memory.

If he’d been anyone else, I swear half the stories would have sounded like bullshit. However, this was Squall, and even if he was a writer or whatever now, I honestly didn’t think he was lying.

Even if I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the idea of someone who used a sword that was more like a slab of metal practically his own height than any blade I was familiar with.

So yeah, the weather got better. Spring was in full swing, those early warm days when the sun stretched out into later and later hours happily lingering on but hinting of the heat that the summer would bring with it’s impending arrival. We still had rain fairly regularly - it was the nature of the area that I’d settled in unfortunately - but mostly our training days were pleasant.

In fact, we’d had a really great week of weather when I checked the forecast to see the storm warnings. The painfully cheerful weather girl was on the broadcast when I switched on the television, gesturing wildly at a map mid broadcast to demonstrate the incoming high winds and rain, but she also mentioned that it wasn’t expected to hit the Whitlake area until late evening. We’d be back well before it got too bad, especially since I was supposed to be picking Squall up at six thirty am, but I still thought I’d mention it to Squall when I picked him up.

Of course, I forgot all about it when he opened the passenger side door of my car, still damp from the shower and greeted me with a good morning kiss.

I’ll be honest. If he made a habit of kissing me like that, I’d never have a need for coffee. I’d never want to get out of bed either, but I wouldn’t need coffee at least. He smiled his million gill smile and settled into his seat, putting his belt on. “Morning.”

“A very good one too,” I smiled and we headed off.

It was a gorgeous morning. Jewel blue skies and a pleasantly warm sunlight. He still felt leagues ahead of me as we duelled but here and there I seemed to gain ground on him. The asshole still managed to disarm me though, and claimed another kiss as his prize. Damn, I liked training a hell of a lot more with these rewards. Though I did wonder what would happen when I eventually beat him. Did I get another kiss, or would I try for something more?

We moved to more gentle sparring until we took a break for lunch. Already the pretty blue skies of morning were growing darker and greyer. The wind was starting to pick up too and that was finally enough to remind me. I mentioned it in passing as he was pouring coffee from a flask. “Shit, I forgot there was a storm coming in.”

He paused, offering me the travel mug with my drink in. “Should we head back?”

“Do you want to? The wind’s picking up a little,” I shrugged at him. I didn’t mind pushing it a little more. I mean, it didn’t mean we had to say goodbye for the day if we did go back after all. I just would have liked to keep training a little longer, but I left it to his choice.

He looked out of the window of the car at the skies. “Let’s give it an hour or so and reassess,” he smiled at me when he looked back.

“Sure, and thanks,” I said, adding sugar and cream to the coffee. He wrinkled his nose of course, since he didn’t like to sully his coffee with such mortal things, but he never complained. Hell, he didn’t even really tease me about it either - and even if he didn’t drink his coffee with it, he’d had both waiting for me every time we’d had coffee at his place or on one of our training jaunts.

He noticed a lot of things like that. He was far too thoughtful for my own good.

Lunch was, as always, amazing. Squall had made a loaf with the sandwich ingredients baked right into the middle of it so everything just felt perfectly balanced. On the side we had a caprese salad, and dessert was fresh fruit and homemade chocolate chip cookies. I still couldn’t quite believe that it was all real. That he’d made it, and was so talented over something that had never been covered in SeeD training.

Nor could I believe how nice it felt to have him rest his head on my shoulder, close his eyes and just breath. “Mmm…” he hummed, close enough to my ear that I felt like it was tacit permission to run my fingers through his silk soft hair, which I did happily. “Those cookies came out pretty good.”

“They really did, I might have to sneak another one.”

“You can take the rest home,” he said, resting his hand on my arm. His fingers were still cool from the Shiva junction being active, little shivery spots of chill on the heat of my skin. Every time he junctioned her I wanted to wrap my arms around him to keep him warm after it, even if he was already in jeans and a long sleeved teeshirt. That was his preferred outfit from what I’d seen, at least so far. Always long sleeves, at least. Though he did have some leather pants still, and they had been out on a date with us to a concert, he didn’t use them for training these days. “I have a few left at my place for myself.”

“You always give me something to take home. Are you trying to feed me up?” I teased.

“Not entirely, but I like seeing your reaction any time you taste my cooking. Even if it is something as simple as a cookie.”

“You are an amazing cook and I rarely get any home made cookies. Or cake, for that matter. My cooking is far more limited,” I turned my head to kiss his hair lightly. That in turn made him lift his head to smile at me. Hyne, his smile. Every time he did that I swear my heart skipped a beat. “I really should take you somewhere fancy to say thanks for all this.”

“You don’t have to - I like doing it,” his hand slid lightly down my arm to catch my hand again, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. The more we’d dated, the more he’d touched me. I knew he didn’t exactly relish it himself, he shook hands and everything else that was expected of normal people, but he avoided people touching him even in crowds wherever he could. Still, somehow I was allowed to do it - hell, even welcomed to do it. Any time we walked together, his hand would slide into mine, or he’d take my arm gently. Just a few days earlier he’d coaxed my arm around his shoulders when we were at the movies. “It’s... satisfying to see you so happy. And since you like my food, I get to see it a lot.”

“We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?” I asked. I half meant what he was saying, and I was half talking about the touching. The fondness. The way I was welcomed into his life in ways I’d never dreamed possible.

“From lists and whatevers?” he chuckled softly, lifting his head enough to press a light kiss to my chin. Just a little intimacy that made me smile. “A lifetime and more. I’m very glad we found each other again, I think I needed this.”

I wasn’t sure if I was worried that he also needed me, or relieved. I suppose a little of both, given how fucked up my head was and how much I wanted something better for him. He definitely deserved better, but now I wasn’t going to let him go without a good fight.

With lunch done, we stretched again and got back to the training. Our blades sang against each other, just a loose spar to ease back into the faster, harder fighting that we preferred. However, we couldn’t have been at it for more than an hour when Squall held up a hand to signal a break. I pulled the strike I’d been going for and shouldered my blade, briefly lifting my head in a ‘what’s up’ motion.

Squall turned away from me, lifting his head to look at something I couldn’t see. The wind was already far worse than it had been, and strong enough that both of us were getting staggered a half step by an occasional gust here and there. Made training a little more wild, gave us something else to deal with besides each other. “The rain’s coming,” he called over the roar of the wind, “Car?”

“Shit, yeah,” I set Hyperion back in her hypersheath and grabbed his wrist just as he did the same with Lionheart. “Run!”

The first fat drops of rain that were always practically laser guided to find the microscopically small space between the collar of your jacket and the back of your neck were falling before we got five steps. It wasn’t all that far to the car but still the rain hit so hard and so fast that by the time we could throw ourselves into the seats and slam the doors after us, our hair was dripping wet.

“So much for the timing on the weather forecast,” I said, rubbing my hands over my face. Damn, that had been sudden.

“At least they were right overall. Raincheck on the rest of our training?”

“Quite literally,” I said, starting the engine and switching the heater on. Of course it would blow cold until the engine warmed up but hell, at least it would keep the windows from fogging too much. I had much better ideas for what we should do to fog the windows up another time, too. “You ready to head back?”

“Guess so,” he shrugged. “Shame, we made good progress today.”

“Glad you thought so too. I mean, we could stay and get entirely soaked through doing more dramatic bullshit training but maybe not.”

“We’re getting too old for that crap,” Squall waved a hand dismissively and nudged me gently. “Come back to mine and we can wait out the storm instead.”

I would have argued, but to be honest, I was thinking the same thing about being too old for that crap. That was the kind of thing that angst ridden teenagers needed to do on mountain tops, cover up all that unresolved sexual tension and all that. Not two guys approaching middle age. Didn’t mean I couldn’t tease Squall about it either. “You make it sound like we’ll need cocoa, slippers and an early night.”

“I don’t think I own slippers, but cocoa sounds good right now. The early night sounds even better,” he shot me a flirty look and I cleared my throat. Oh Hyne. Yes, it did sound good. Far too good.

“Back to yours it is then,” I replied when I was almost sure I wouldn’t squeak as I spoke.

So we got on the road. The rain seemed to come in waves, driven by the wind. Almost nothing one moment, then it was as though someone had thrown a bucket of water at the windscreen. The road back to the city was a fairly quiet one with some nasty twists and turns here and there, and on a few of the more exposed stretches I felt the wind practically punch the car to the side. Thankfully my car was one of the few luxuries I’d still afforded myself while building my business back up - looked good for the guy who owned the place to drive something large and powerful. It was a heavy car. More comfortable than my bed if I was honest. I had no worries at all about getting us home safe in spite of the wind.

And then, when we were maybe a quarter of the way into the journey home, something stupid happened just to prove me wrong.

I’d been taking it easy, not wanting to push when the roads were so crappy and the visibility was kind of fucked. There was a blind corner, and an already dodgy turn was made worse by the fact that an overhanging tree branch had given up the ghost in the storm and was mostly blocking the opposite lane. I slowed a little to take it, but apparently not enough.

My heart leapt into my throat as another car rounded the corner, entirely on the wrong side of the road, entirely too fast, heading straight for us.

I didn’t think. I just reacted.

The silver blue of a protect spell hit me like a breath of cool air.

I swerved and I swear the other fucker missed us by a matter of inches as we ran straight off the road onto a muddy verge, sliding through the wet grass and soil.There was a bang and the car lurched violently to one side, threatening to pitch over before we slammed back down onto all four wheels with a painful jerk.

“Shit,” I hissed, slamming the button to isolate the fuel stone supply to the engine and it sputtered into silence, just the soft ticking of an engine already starting to cool and my heart pounding in my ears lingered behind it. “Shit shit shit… Squall?”

“I’m okay,” he said far too quickly. Lying. I scrambled for my seatbelt and a scan spell at the same time, throwing the latter at him and cursing adventurously under my breath as I waited the precious seconds for the information to be fed back to me. He had one hand to his head and the other white knuckle tight on the side of his car seat. He growled at me, the first time I think he’d even shown the slightest hint of anger at me, hell, maybe in general, since we’d first met in the pub garden back at the start of April. “I said I’m fine.”

For the most part, he was telling the truth. The scan popped up a report of concussion, and a very minor ding in health - I hadn’t cast scan on him since we’d been at garden and seeing his vitals pop up brought back a few shudder worthy memories as I interpreted the data it provided. It also provided information on why he was so much better than I was on the field, his stats on the report were beyond belief, especially for a man who’d supposedly retired years before. Hyne no wonder I’d struggled. “Why the fuck did you cast the protect on me instead of yourself, dumbass?”

“Because I like you, asshole!” Squall spat back and hissed through his teeth, looking at me as though I’d asked the most stupid question in the world. When he focused on me it was an almost far too familiar glare for that one moment, then his expression softened. Even with that hand still clutching at his own head, he looked worried. He shouldn’t have worried about me. “You okay?”

“Me? You’re the one with a fucking concussion,” I might have gotten almost shrill at the end there as panic and adrenline stuttered across my nerves, but I was bought back to reality by a tiny trickle of blood edging its way from beneath the press of his hand. “Fuck, baby, you’re bleeding too. Let me cast a regen.”

“Whatever, Seifer,” he huffed a little and grabbed my arm. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine for fuck’s sake,” I growled right back at him and pulled the spell, the green-blue light forming in the palm of my hand for a heartbeat before I willed it to it’s target. Felt weird casting on him after all these years - I hadn’t had cause in our training to try it yet and suddenly doing it twice in quick succession somehow made me feel gross. “For someone who just got run off the road and nearly killed his boyfriend.”

“You did not nearly kill me,” Squall eased his hand away from his head slowly with a wince and looked at his palm before wiping the blood away on his jeans. “That would have been the asshole in the other car, if anything, and we’re all in one piece. I’ll get out and check th…”

“You will stay here and I will check the car. Just get ready to get out in case it’s not safe,” I ordered, opening the door.

Another gust of wind practically ripped it out of my hand and blew the door wide open. I stepped out into the cold air and surveyed the damage. I also surveyed the fact that the asshole who’d apparently nearly killed the two of us had not stopped, nor returned to see if we were okay. Hyne if I ever caught up with him I was going to have words with him. Those words would likely be “Flare” and “Firaga”. Maybe a few “Pain” spells to go along with it.

I paced carefully around the car and peered under it. I wanted to make sure no lines had been cut that were going to turn the thing into a ticking time bomb, but thankfully while everything looked muddy, nothing was leaking aside from some brake fluid. However, even with the best will in the world, we were not going to make it home - given that the front driver’s side tyre was currently at an angle that would be excellent if utilised in skygazing, but not so much for actually driving. We’d slammed into a low little rock ridge in the mud and that had effectively stopped our slide. It had also effectively broken the suspension, and nearly caused us to roll but I could at least say it had managed to keep mostly on all four tyres.

Fuck.

Fucking Fuck.

The rain was still lashing down, wind tearing at the trees like a giant invisible monster that had a major problem with foliage was clawing at them, so our best option was to stay inside, keep safe and dry. With the fuelstone isolated, and nothing leaking, we were safer than anywhere else nearby in a storm like this. I got back into the driver’s seat to turn in the sitrep to Squall. “Okay, looks like everything’s okay and I already isolated the fuel when we stopped, so you should be safe inside, but we’re stuck here.”

“Stuck how?” Squall asked, sitting up and worried.

“Stuck as in unless you have a GF that does car repairs, we’re stuck until I can get someone to pick us up or tow the car out stuck,” I tipped my head in the direction of the problem wheel. “Suspension busted. Might be more under the car but I can’t see. Nothing’s leaking at least, except brake fluid.”

“Fuck.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I rubbed a hand over my face and sighed. While this was something I really did not need to deal with, at least Squall was safe. Mostly safe. Just had a concussion. Fuck. “Lemme check with my recovery service and see how long they’ll take to come grab us - if it’s gonna take a while I can call Fuu to at least pick you up or something.”

“I’m not leaving you out here alone,” Squall said. I knew it was his serious voice even if I was already fumbling with my phone trying to find the number so I wasn’t looking at him. When he was being serious he got this… edge to his words, a tone I could almost feel. Like the adamantine of his blade.

“Squall…” I sighed. We’d not argued at all yet, hell, he hadn’t even snapped at me before he’d gotten a concussion today. Unlike the old days, I wasn’t eager to go back to shouting and fighting with him. It felt too tainted, too wrong to do that now.

“Seifer.”

“I don’t want to argue with you.”

“And that shows just how much we’ve grown up, so don’t argue,” Squall said, slightly smugly. His hand rested on my arm lightly. “I’m staying with you.”

I didn’t want to send him home with anyone else anyway. I wanted to keep him close, especially since I’d really fucked up and he’d gotten hurt on my watch. Hyne if I ever caught the asshole that had made me swerve like that, what was left of him would be so fine the geezards would think it was a smoothie. “Fine, asshole,” I sighed.

“That was the easiest that’s ever been.”

“Just because I let you win this time, don’t think it’s gonna happen again,” I said, leaning across to give him a quick kiss. Kissing instead of arguing was definitely new and I liked it a hell of a lot better. Not least because as I pulled back he followed me a little to linger in that kiss for just a heartbeat or two more. It was good to know he never wanted to stop either.

“Mmm, sure,” Squall said with a smile. The kind of smile that said he knew exactly where he had me. Wrapped around his little finger.

“Let me call my recovery service, see how long they’ll take to come get us,” I said, already digging out the number before I could get distracted again with his kisses. His kisses were very distracting, after all. When he kissed me it was like the world stopped, like the sound faded away and like nothing else mattered at all. So I had to get things done before he entirely distracted me for the evening.

Of course as soon as the phone started ringing I got put in a queue. Great.

“Pop the boot,” Squall said, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t interrupt me - not that he had to, since I was listening to a pan pipe version of a dated music track that seemed to only be thirty seconds long, since they kept interrupting it. “I’ll go grab the picnic blanket and some water.”

“You can’t get out your side,” I said, covering the phone even though there was no one on the other end yet. “There’s a ridge running that side of the car, covers the bottom of the door so you won’t be able to open it. And the windows are electric.”

“You have a back seat,” Squall flashed me a smirk and then started turning in place to go over the two front seats between the headrests. He paused briefly to kiss me on the temple. “Not all of us have shoulders so wide we have to go through some doorways sidewards.”

And somehow he slid right over the damn seats and landed lithely on the back seat as my heart briefly returned to my throat for an encore visit. “You have a concussion dumbass, be careful!”

I caught sight of his eyes in the rear view mirror. Those intense stormcloud eyes, the eyes I’d never been able to forget. When we locked eyes, it took everything to drag my attention elsewhere. You know, car crashes, crazy sorceresses from the future, that kind of everything. “I’ve had worse, Seifer.”

“Yeah but I wasn’t dating you then so I didn’t get a say. I am now, so be careful now.”

“Fine, whatever,” he patted me on the shoulder over the seats and ventured out into the cold air. “I’ll just be a second.”

At least I assumed he said second since half the word was lost on the roar of the wind outside.

He didn’t see me watching, but I caught sight of him having to steady himself on the side of the car when he slipped out. He was trying to give me a damn heart attack. And the voice repeating that my call was very important to them every thirty seconds in my ear was going to drive me nuts. They could compete, see who achieved their goal first.

I still had the feeling it was going to be the pan pipes that kept resetting after every time they told me how important my call was.

I popped the boot just as Squall reached it and to my surprise I had a chirpy woman talking in my ear.

By the time Squall had made it back into the back seat I was already being assured that while I was very important to them, given the storm they wouldn’t actually be able to pick me up for several hours. I wasn’t exactly a priority - maybe if I’d told them Squall was injured I would have been further up the list. That would have made me injured too, so we’d have gone even further up the list. Win win, but we’d have to go to the hospital and I could see how that would be awkward.

So instead I gave them the car coordinates and said to recover it the next day when things had calmed down, I’d get back home another way. She tried to protest but when I told her how far off the road I was, and the condition of the car, she eventually agreed.

I rang off, and looked at Squall. “No deal?” he asked, leaning up between the two seats to watch me. His hair was damp and messy from being outside, and his cheeks still flushed.He was still as pale as he’d ever been when we were kids, so it was far more noticeable than it probably should have been otherwise. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair to straighten it again.

I had it bad, I know.

“Best estimates, we were looking at like nine or ten before they could come get us. And that’s if the storm lets up,” I shrugged. Either way, that was a minimum of six hours away now - not a great plan.

Squall tipped his head as though he were listening to something in the distance. “The storm’s going to last longer than that.”

“...Shiva tell you that?” I asked. I knew he was junctioned, I could see the ice in his eyes and of course, he’d cast on me when I’d swerved. The dumbass.

“Not Shiva,” he shook his head. “Another GF. Valigarmanda.”

“Never heard of that one.”

“I found a handful of GFs since I left Garden,” he smiled faintly. “Some of them stuck with me for a while. Val likes to stretch their legs now and then, and they were enjoying the weather. ”

“Part of that travelling?”

“Yeah. Checked out some rumours when I was wandering around, sometimes I got lucky. Val was out in a cave in Centra - they’re lightning, fire and ice, so they kinda get on with Shiva anyway. ”

I watched him,the far away look in his eyes as he remembered events I’d never really understand or know the whole of. Once I’d known every inch of his life and I’d fucked all of that up so badly. Now I had the chance to make it better, to do better. To make new memories with him that were just ours all over again. I was the luckiest asshole under the sun. “You always did have Diablos’ luck.”

“He often thought so too,” Squall smiled. “So now what?”

“I guess I’ll see if Fuu can pick us up and crawl into the back seat with you until she arrives.”

“Good plan.” Squall gave me the nod of approval. “Warn her that it’s pretty damn muddy outside too. We churned up the turf a lot, and it’ll only get worse the more it rains.”

I tried to call Fuu first, but the phone just rang out. With a sigh, I settled for texting her instead that we’d had an accident and we could do with a ride if she was okay with it. I just hoped she wasn’t too distracted to notice my messages eventually at least. I’d give it fifteen minutes and try her again. Maybe I should have tried calling her before I’d told the recovery service not to bother until the next day.

“Got room enough for me back there?” I asked when the message was sent.

“Always. Get your ass back here,” Squall scooted over on the seat to make room for yours truly.

“And the rest of me too,” I grinned at him and braced myself before I opened the door again. It was bucketing down, sheets of rain tumbling from a sky so grey it looked like a late winter evening instead of an early spring afternoon. I slammed that door behind me, and opened the one in back to climb back in - I was welcomed instantly into Squall’s arms. He wrapped the blanket around me and dragged me into a slow, hungry kiss the moment I had the door closed again, and I found myself kissing back.

“I love the way you kiss me,” he purred. That gentle voice grew a little deeper, and just a little softer. Soft enough that even if someone had been in the front seat, they wouldn’t have heard it. The tone he kept for private stuff - the stuff meant for just me and my lion.

“I thought you kissed me?” I teased.

“I did? I should do it again then,” he smirked, and did just that.

Damn he felt good. Felt right. I was happy to find a comfortable position that let me just kiss him for a while. Let me slide my fingers into his soft hair, already half loose from the pony tail. Let me taste his mouth. I could ease the little elastic tie out of his hair, comb my fingers through it as I kissed him and hold him so close I could feel his heart beating against my chest through the thin shirts we were both wearing.

I broke the kiss to look him in the eye. “You are amazing.”

“I’m just Squall,” he said with a shrug. “But I wouldn’t mind being amazing for you.”

“Kind of a mouthful to moan, I guess. Squall would work much better.”

He chuckled softly and smiled at me. “Yeah. Yours works best though - Seiferrrrr,” he rolled the last letter of my name in a way that made me want to see what else I could do to make him purr like that. I had one or two ideas and was just about to investigate when my phone rang again.

If we hadn’t been making out in a crashed car in the middle of a field, I might have ignored it. I nearly did.

“What do you mean you’ve crashed the car?” Fuu asked before I could even say hello.

“Dumbass in an Anacondaur came around a bend on the wrong side of the road and I gave Squall a concussion,” I said cheerfully. And Squall elbowed me in the ribs. “Oof. Squall says it was the other guy’s fault so don’t kill me.”

“Hyne,” I could practically hear the facepalm. “Fine, where?”

I gave her the coordinates, and another elbow in the ribs ensured I remembered to add on what Squall told me about the mud as well. He had me well trained. I gave his long hair a tug just to prove I wasn’t entirely defenseless.

I could hear her tapping away at a keyboard, looking up our location, I guessed. While he waited, Squall curled against my side again, head right back on my shoulder as he shared my warmth and our blanket. It meant he’d be able to hear the call too, I guess, since I didn’t have her on speaker - maybe I should have put it on speaker. “It’ll take me about an hour to get to you, will you still be there?”

“Yeah, the storm turned our other ride option to a pumpkin,” and I’d kinda turned it down. Thankfully I could always rely on Fuu and Rai in a pinch, even now. Some things never changed. “No one has your balls.”

“Whatever,” she said, in a fairly good impersonation of Squall, although even he wasn’t quite as softly spoken as she was. “Sure you’re safe for now?”

“Yeah, unless someone else decides to take the corner like a moron, we’re good,” I glanced out of the window, through the driving rain to the road. It was far enough away that I wasn’t too worried. To spot us someone would have to be searching for my dark grey car in a field of rain. With no lights, since I’d turned them off to preserve the battery in case we needed it, too. As long as no one flung their car for distance, we should be perfectly fine.

“Keep your phone on in case I need to call you again,” she said. I heard car keys and footsteps. She was already on her way. I couldn’t ask for a better right hand woman.

“Will do.”

“Stay warm and dry. It’s a lousy afternoon out there.”

“You too. Drive safe, Fuu.”

She rang off and all we were left with was the howl of the wind outside and the constant rattle of raindrops on the windows and roof. Squall sighed softly and offered me one of the water bottles. “An hour isn’t so bad.”

“No, I guess not. Better than waiting til nine, or whenever,” I brushed my fingers lightly over his cheek before I took the bottle from him. He was back to being pale again already, but I was more worried about the head on shoulder thing now. Was he doing that because he had a headache? Maybe because he was dizzy? I still expected him to cover up how he was feeling and doing from me, even after all these years. Now he wouldn’t want me to worry, back then things had been different. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. When I gave him a critical look, he added hesitantly “Maybe a little dizzy. Had worse.”

“Hell you had worse from me. Doesn’t make it okay.”

He twisted the cap off his bottle of water and took a sip, still staying as close as he could to me. Now the adrenaline was fading, I think both of us were feeling the cold a little more. Didn’t help that we were both damp from being outside however briefly. Thankfully the blanket made up for it, and he had Shiva to ward away the worst of it. “I just don’t want you to worry about me.”

“Squall, you’re about eighteen years too late for that.”

“...you worried about me?” Squall asked, surprised. “After the war?”

“Yeah, of course I did. I mean…,” I sighed. What did I mean? I worried that Cid never went back - because of course I kinda heard things over the years. Squall hadn’t exactly been entirely out of the media for at least a few years after the close of the war either. I remember how tired he looked in some of those candid shots. I remember the glare and the hard set of his jaw coming across just as clearly in the paparazzi photographs as they had in real life. “You had the weight of the world on your shoulders - and I knew they’d use you up as much as they could before they let you get away.”

Squall frowned faintly, tucking the bottle he’d been using into one of the cup holders and curling back under the blanket with me. He didn’t meet my eyes for a moment, fussing at the Griever ring on his right hand. One of his newer tells, one of the ones I’d just started to learn. He found it hard to look me in the eye when he was starting to feel a little on edge. “...You always were better at spotting that stuff than me. Took me years to realise.”

“Was that why you left?”

“There were a lot of reasons, honestly,” he gave a little half shrug and lifted his head to look me in the eye again. “But yes, that was definitely a part of it.”

“You don’t like talking about Garden much.”

“Feels like it was another lifetime,” he smiled. “Like it was a costume I had to put on for a while… and sometimes I feel like I still have part of the costume on.”

I settled my arm around his shoulders, holding him close without holding him too tight. I didn’t want him to feel trapped - I figured he needed to be comfortable to talk about something that obviously made him uncomfortable. “Is that definitely SeeD and not… y’know?”

“Time Kompression?” Squall gave words to the fear I couldn’t speak. Every time I tried I swear I could hear her screaming in the back of my mind from centuries ahead and a couple of decades behind. “No, it’s just… after being inside that environment for so long, it’s etched into my soul. 41269.”

It hadn’t been so long for me, nor quite so arduous, but I know what he meant. That was his ID number from when he was a student, something I also had etched into my soul even if it had been eighteen years or so, I could still remember mine as well. “41227.”

He laughed softly, shaking his head. His soft brown hair was damp and it fell in front of his eyes when he did it, so I tucked it back behind his ear before he could. “I guess that’s part of why it’s so easy to be with you. You understand where I’m coming from.”

“Yeah,” I smiled, fondly. “Can’t say I totally get it, you were in a lot longer than me, but… shared experiences and all that.

“It does lighten the load,doesn't it? Lets me skip over unpacking half of my issues since you have them too.”

I had to laugh at that. “Yeah. You understand why I’m a neat freak.”

Squall chuckled too. “My ex thought I’d alphabetise our kitchen cupboards if she left me alone for too long.”

Squall hadn’t told me much about his prior relationships. Of course, I knew about Rin since when I’d left Balamb for good she’d still been at Balamb Garden with him, and I knew he was supposedly getting over someone when Fuu had set him up on that half blind date with me - but that was all. I had to admit, curiosity was getting the better of me. “This the one you told Fujin you were still getting over?”

He paused a beat before nodding slowly. “Yeah, that was Inanna. It’s been… well, a little over a year at this point since we split up.”

“You want to tell me about her?”

Squall’s hand found mine, tangling our fingers together under the blanket again. I could feel the callouses from his blade, marks worn into his skin by years of use and practice. I loved his hands. How they sought out mine as often as possible, how he liked to touch me all the time, as though he were reminding himself as much as me that he was around. “Have we reached the stage in the relationship where we share war stories?”

“I admit, I’ve been curious ever since you mentioned it at the bar a few weeks back,” I said, squeezing his hand gently.

“Ah, then maybe we should get it out of the way,” Squall shrugged. He had a wistful little smile at least, so I didn’t feel quite so bad about asking. He took a slow, steadying breath. “I thought she was the one… She was funny, intelligent, she made me feel whole in a way I don’t think I ever had before…”

Kind of the way he was making me feel more and more. Not like he was a missing piece of my life, not like he completed it, like he made me whole. Better than I ever had been. Like it was almost meant to be, the two of us together.

He looked away again, through the window at the grey day we’d left outside. “She wanted kids though.”

“You didn’t?”

“At first I wasn’t sure. But I wanted her and so we tried. And the more we tried, the more I got used to the idea…,” Squall sighed heavily and shook his head. His grip on my hand tightened just enough that it almost hurt, but only for a moment before he steadied himself mentally again. “Anyway, long story short, we went to see a specialist when nothing worked, and it turns out I… probably can’t. Really low sperm count..”

“Shit. I’m sorry…,” I pressed a light kiss to his temple and tightened my arm around him as though I could ward away everything. “Did they know why?”

“Not really. Or at least, not for sure. They thought it might be something to do with all the shit we went through in Garden and SeeD, and maybe a prolonged period with refraining from magic, junctioning, and potions might help but that was going to take time and was just a maybe,” he sighed. The deepest sigh I thought I’d heard from him since we’d been kids. But he looked up at me again, eyes bright silver-blue, no hint of a tear, but I could still see his pain. “I was even willing to give up Shiva and the other GFs, magic, everything for a while to get her what she wanted, but I suggested we look into adoption in the meantime because the doctors thought it could take years for my body to recover after so long, if that was even the root cause.”

I didn’t have to ask the question, because I knew he wouldn’t be here and in my arms otherwise, but I went ahead anyway. I thought that maybe it’d help somehow, me prompting him even a little. “And she wasn’t up for the adoption.”

“No. She said ‘but adopted kids are always weird’...,” Squall huffed like he was angry about even having to repeat it. Even if he wasn’t actually an orphan, he’d been one of us, after all. How many kids at Garden had been abandoned or orphaned kids over the years he’d been a student, let alone in charge of the place. “Stuff like ‘they’re only really your kids if you give birth to them’.”

“Well that lets out half the population,” I said, a lot more calmly than I felt.

“Mm. Right. So I think I spent a week in this haze as I slowly went over what she’d said over and over in my head. Realising she wasn’t as perfect as I’d thought.”

“She didn’t know you were raised in an orphanage?”

He gave a humourless chuckle. “No. She never met any of the others either aside from Rin, and as far as she knew I had my dad, my uncles and my sister. The backstory on me in Esthar’s a little… fairytale. Long lost son returned to his father, the President, stuff like that. And I never really saw the need to fix it - besides. I was trying to be Leon and make all that work anyway. Not to mention the fact I didn’t really like talking about Garden and the war with civilians. You don’t count, you weren’t always civilian.”

“Good to know,” I joked. “So what happened?”

“I couldn’t take it anymore - I told her she should be with someone who could make her happy, and I moved out,” Squall shrugged again. “Spent about six months at the palace working things out in my head and eventually moved out here.”

“At least you found out before you married her, I guess?”

“Mm, but not before I bought the engagement ring,” he gave me a wry smile. “At least you can return those… you look like a loser doing it, but you can do it.”

“Ouch,” I winced in sympathy. I’d never gotten that far in a relationship myself, but I understood how it must have hurt. He didn’t talk like he missed her, he talked like he still hurt over all of it. Even if he seemed to have it all together, this was still an open wound for him on some level.

Squall kissed me softly. One of his soft, sweet, lingering kisses. I almost got swept up in it again, feeling his touch, his perfection. I almost regretted asking any of this in the first place when he broke the kiss to murmur “Your turn.”

It took a few breaths to manage to grind out my first question. “Has Fuu told you anything about Lucas?”

“All she told me was that you were still hurting.”

That was an understatement. I rubbed a hand over my face and sighed. The worst part was I didn’t really hate Lucas, deep down. I hated myself for getting mixed up in the whole thing despite multiple people warning me about the fucking asshole. “He messed with my head more than… than her and I didn’t think that was possible for someone normal, y’know?”

Squall looked at me for a moment before he shifted his position so he could slip one of his legs over mine, turning as best he could to half sprawl against me. He was trying to give me as much physical contact as possible in the back seat of a car anyway. Damn, I should have asked this when we had a couch to stretch out on instead. I appreciated the effort though, and I wrapped both of my arms around him to hold him as close as I could. He knew exactly who I meant, unfortunately. “I’ve learnt not to underestimate anyone if they’re determined to be a dick.”

“Hey, my ex isn’t a dick. For one thing, I like dicks. Lucas was just a flaming bag of crap because really, how do you deal with a flaming bag of crap without making the situation worse?”

Squall chuckled softly and nuzzled against my shoulder. “Blizzaga.”

“I can see that I’m going to have to keep you good if he ever does show his face around you.”

Squall just smiled wickedly. I got a shiver I wasn’t expecting at the prospect. I’d always had people who wanted to protect me, Fuu and Rai, but that was different. You looked out for your friends, especially when you’d spent time with them on the battlefield. I’d never had a boyfriend or lover who’d been so protective of me before, even if it was a joke. Lucas would have sold me for a song if he’d had the opportunity, and my relationships before him had been mostly flings and short lived things. I’d never had anyone like Squall.

I wasn’t sure there was anyone like Squall.

“We met at my previous job before I started the business. Started dating and all that, just normal at first and I let my guard down. And then it started.. And it started small.. He knew about the war. About me and what I’d done. And he started off with these sly little digs and I didn’t even notice how much it was messing with my head until long after it was all over. It just got worse and worse and I was still fucked up after everything so I just… let him do it.”

“I’ve seen the type before,” Squall said.

“...not against you, right?” I asked, although I couldn’t see Squall taking any of that shit lying down. Or standing up. Or in any way that didn’t involve Shiva getting extremely pissed, extremely quickly, quite frankly.

“No. One of Rin’s boyfriends not long after we broke up.”

“You fixed him up?”

“I made sure he saw the error of his ways and gave Rin a pep talk. And pointed out how ridiculous it was that I had to give her a pep talk, especially since this was only a couple of years after the war and I wasn’t a real boy yet.”

“Kinda wish you’d been around when I was stuck with that asshole,” I admitted. Fuu and Rai had tried. Multiple times. So had other people who I’d worked with back then, and other friends besides, but of course, I’d known better. Part of me couldn’t help thinking even now that I kind of deserved his bullshit, and it had been even worse back then. Maybe hearing it from Squall would have helped somehow, given me a much needed shift in perspective somehow. He’d always gotten to me in ways that no one else ever could.

“So do I, Seifer.”

I shook my head and sighed again. “So yeah he was out, but he never quite got over himself and worked out how to live with it. People who worked with us didn’t even know we were dating even though there were no company policies against it. Even when they'd seen us kiss or when they saw us on a date."

“Pretty sure that’s unhealthy.”

“No kidding. And I made the mistake of making him a part of my company… my partner, when I set everything up - he was a far better salesman than I ever was so he handled that side while I handled the rest of it. We were together a few years with him backing me more and more into a corner I didn’t even realise was there until it was too late.”

“Blizzaga looking more and more likely.”

I chuckled and bumped Squall gently. I appreciated the joke and the minor distraction - hell, I think I needed it. Deep down, I knew it probably wasn’t a joke, Squall was sweet and soft spoken and gentle with me, but under all of it there was that same sharp edge of Adamantine. You could take the Merc out of Garden but he still had his junctions and the laser guided focus underneath it all. I didn’t want to see what would come of a meeting between my current boyfriend and my ex-asshat. Well, I kinda did but I knew it was probably ill advised. “Anyway, I started noticing weird stuff on receipts from business trips - bigger meals and more drinks than usual, sometimes hotel rooms in places he used to drive back from before, little stuff I couldn’t explain. Then I got my proof when I went in to the office late one night to fix something for one of the customers... He was cheating on me. Apparently I had enough dignity left to get pissed off about that at least…”

“You caught him cheating on you at the office?” Squall sounded utterly incredulous. I was kind of glad he thought it was as ridiculous as I did - quite frankly I think the guy was trying to get himself caught and gotten rid of. Not for breaking up reasons, but something worse.

“The one time in my life I get to fire a prospective client and a boyfriend at once. Not something I care to repeat really.”

“Thankfully I don’t cheat or work for you, so we’re good on both counts.”

I did feel a little relief at the confirmation that he didn’t cheat. I was more than a little paranoid about that, and I couldn’t even say why. After all the ways that Lucas had fucked with my head over the time we’d been together, that was the thing that had somehow hurt the most. Stuck with me the most. “Even if you were, I’m sure you’d not be dumb enough to do it somewhere that’d be so easy to get caught in either. Still it started a mess of legal shit and I ended up having to pay him off to make him go away, the equivalent of a good chunk of the business. Had to remortgage the house and take on a bunch of crappy little projects I wouldn’t have done otherwise to stabilise all the money he messed up but in a way, I was kind of glad.”

“Oh?”

I gave a humourless little chuckle. The memory of all of his bullshit made my hands curl into fists and an old anger flare up inside of me. I wanted that anger, kept it close to my heart because even if I deserved everything I got, I knew deep down I didn’t have to take it again. I had a chance to fight it off. “Well he burned his bridges on trying to get back with me because I was so pissed off with him by the time everything was looking up again that when he tried I nearly decked him. If it hadn’t been for Amber - one of my devs - calling for the building security and getting him trespassed out of the building, I probably would have.”

“He thought he’d gotten a tight enough hold on you that he could take all the money and come back for another round,” Squall stared at me like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, and shook his head. “Wow. I’m not sure if that takes balls or just blind stupidity and arrogance.”

“I know which one my money is on.”

“Did he have any redeeming qualities at all?” Squall asked.

“...you know if you’d asked back then I think I’d have had a list as long as my arm. Now… I can’t think of a damn one. I don’t even know who he really was, he spent so much time lying to me and fucking with me.”

“You deserve better, Seifer.”

“Well… That’s why I’ve got you now, right?”

Squall smiled and kissed me softly. He was still as close as he could physically get, one hand resting lightly on my chest as his lips found mine. I couldn’t quite agree entirely that I deserved him, but I could sure as hell say one thing - I wasn’t letting him go if I could help it. He was the best, like comparing gold to Lucas’ tin foil. “Right.”

“I like it when you do that.”

“So do I,” he gave me that wicked little smile again, running his fingers lightly through my hair. He sat up a little more, to make it easier to kiss me, still sticking as close as he could manage comfortably. “He’s not going to be around anymore, is he?”

I shook my head. “Nah. He’s off being a thorn in someone else’s side elsewhere. Haven’t seen him since I threatened to cave his head in,” I shrugged. If there was one thing that Lucas didn’t fuck around with, it was his personal safety. The asshole could dish it out, but he certainly couldn’t take it. He’d never tried to physically fuck with me - only mentally. Unfortunately that was - as an entire war had proved - somewhere my defenses were a little lacking.

“Almost a shame.”

“Yeah,” I knew that tone. What it meant. Squall wanted to exact a little revenge. Someone else had much the same tone when it came to that ass. “Fuu said the same.”

“You doing any better now?”

“Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes… I start wondering how much of it was true.”

“Seifer…”

I held up a hand to silence him, and to my surprise he actually paused. Had to make the most of the moment, I guess. “No, I fucked up. A lot. I know I did shit I can never make up for because of her and I think I’m always going to be wondering about it because of him.”

He looked at me for a long time before he finally spoke. “Have you ever thought of trying therapy?”

“What?”

“Seriously. It might help you sort out some of it at least. Might help you… get a handle on stuff.”

“I… I dunno. Kinda worried they’d call me crazy.”

He laughed one of those short, sharp derisive laughs.“Hey if they didn’t call me crazy, I don’t think they’d call you it,”

I was floored all over again. He hadn’t looked away, he wasn’t avoiding, he was openly talking about that? Damn, maybe he really was serious. “You did therapy?”

“Mm, weekly, for about six months when I first left Garden,” Squall sat up a little, all the better to keep eye contact with me. The light, what little was left of it on such a wet, grey day, still made him look like a dream. His hands never left me though, one resting in place on my chest, the other on my shoulder. There were scant few inches between us, but he still couldn’t resist touching me. “ I spent some time in Esthar trying to adjust… had a lot of issues to unpack.”

“Damn.”

He tipped his head, arching one perfect eyebrow. Something I vaguely remembered Rinoa doing at me, all those years before when I’d been trying at least to be straight. Made sense that he’d picked up a few of her mannerisms here and there - the two of them were still bonded on a level I couldn’t understand anymore. Really, Squall had been everything I’d ever wanted to be at some point or other in his life. Now I just wanted him. “You didn’t think I learnt to talk this much without a lot of outside help, did you?”

I couldn’t help a smile. “I was wondering, I admit.”

“It’s not all from that, but it made things easier. I had my dad too, of course, and the rest of the family, and really I think they all helped in their own way,” he pulled that thick chain from under his shirt and lifted the Griever charm so I could see it properly for the first time in the watery afternoon light. The silver surface wasn’t quite as bright and smooth as I remembered it when it had sat on a white v-neck teeshirt, one long scratch marring the surface in particular, along with several other less prominent ones. He wasn’t showing it to me - more examining it himself, and he seemed to almost ground himself by looking at it. “I spent a long time being other things. SeeD Commander, Headmaster, The Lion of Balamb, a merc. When it was all done I was just… hollow. Empty. Even worse than I was when you knew me back at Garden. They all helped me figure out how to be Squall, instead of those things.”

I touched his hand lightly, brushing my thumb over that scratch. He lifted his head to look at me, all hints of a smile gone for a moment, and a painful echo back to the young man I remembered sometimes in my nightmares. “You okay?” I asked softly.

He snapped back to the present, looking a little surprised. He rubbed a hand over his face and shook it off quickly, his sheepish smile lingering. “Yeah… yeah, sorry. Just realised I hadn’t talked to anyone about my break up with Inanna or the fertility stuff before.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” I said. Honestly I was still kind of amazed by that. The fact that somehow, after everything I’d fucked up so badly and after everything I’d done to him to make it worse through the war, Squall trusted me. Liked me. Wanted me. And for the life of me I still couldn’t understand why. He could have had anyone he liked, and here he was sitting in a car in a field with me.Touching and kissing me.

“You don’t have to thank me for that. Or are you still not convinced we’re dating?” he asked, teasing.

“I believe we’re dating now, doesn’t mean you have to entirely trust me yet.”

“I’ve known you all my life, Seifer. And if I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have duelled with you. Let alone spent this much time kissing you.”

“I guess that makes sense. I mean, trust does make for better kisses. And kisses would make for good assassination bait,” I said miming a little stabbing motion.

He caught my wrist and tugged me tight against him this time, kissing me again deeply. “Oh already had someone try that. Works better if you do it in the back though.”

There were several things I wanted to do to him from behind, in front and even to the side, and although thrusting featured heavily in all of them, I wasn’t planning on anything that would hurt him. “Sometimes I think I must seem very dull to you after all of your… I dunno, is adventures the right word?”

“Seifer,” Squall said tightly, his eyes locked on mine. “You were and are many things to me, but dull has never been on that list.”

“Is that why you asked Fujin about me when you met up with her again?”

“After everything we went through at the orphanage and Garden, I’d have asked about you anyway, even before all of that. I cared about you, Seifer. Probably more than I ever realised back then.”

I wanted to say ‘I cared about you too. That’s part of why she got her claws so deep into me,’ but I didn’t dare breathe it - I didn’t dare say it aloud and make it real. I didn’t want Time Compression to seep back into my soul even for a moment. “So you agreed to a date with me just on that?”

Squall shrugged and smiled so wide it was almost a grin. Even after everything, all the changes, he never really grinned. There was still something there, some restraint. A little reluctance even. While he was so much more open, a full person instead of a shadow, he still wasn’t what I might have foolishly once thought normal. He wasn’t like everyone else - and I didn’t think he ever would be. “Well, I think someone once told me you never really get over your first crush. Maybe I was fulfilling an old fantasy at long last.”

“Shit, you too?”

He laughed. “Yes. I’ll admit it helped when she showed me a picture of you at Yule last year and you were still just as handsome as I remembered,” he cupped my cheek and kissed me again. “More so, even.”

“Are you flattering me, Leonhart?” I joked, wrapping my arm tighter around him.

“More seducing slowly, I think,” he mused. “Kinda like a duel. Getting you to let your guard down a little more every time we’re together.”

“I like that a lot more than I probably should.”

“Same,” he smiled.

We both started when the beam from a torch strafed the car, cutting through the heavy rain. I’d almost forgotten the weather, it’d just faded into the background while we’d been talking. Still the wind was raging outside, lashing more and more water at the windows. The watery light was still fading, still ebbing away slowly and that bright beam of the torch seemed to cut through it like a knife.

“I hope that’s Fuu,” Squall said softly, one hand slowly moving to the hyperjunction on his hip to confirm it was there. Just in case. I mean, it probably was Fujin, but both of us were still a little paranoid. Never knew who was out here in the middle of nowhere. “I’m far too old to be in a horror movie about getting murdered while making out with my boyfriend in the back seat of his car.”

“If it is a murderer, I’ll tell him to come back in twenty minutes, so we can go back to making out a while first, instead of talking like adults.”

“I’m game,” Squall smiled. “But a stop spell would probably be a better plan.”

“How am I going to make out with you if I have you stopped?”

Squall gave me a look, but I could see the corner of his mouth twitching as he tried not to smile. Kinda defeated the purpose, but hell, I won. “Seifer.”

The wind that had been whipping around the car slowed to a gentle breeze as the familiar figure of one of my oldest and dearest friends approached across the muddy stretch of land we’d left in our wake after the car had left the road. She was wearing a long raincoat, boots, jeans and, of course, exercising a little of her control over her preferred element. The wind would never dare piss her off. “It’s okay, it’s Fuu.”

“I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that this is over so soon.”

“Relieved, since we can continue this on my couch.”

“We can?”

“Yeah,” I gestured to the side of his head that had caught the glass in our less than graceful descent from the roadway. “Concussion - you shouldn’t be alone tonight and if you were dizzy earlier, going up those stairs in your place is going to be hell.”

“Well I wish I could say that was the most convoluted way someone had tried to get me into bed, but I’d be lying,” Squall pushed me gently towards the door. “C’mon, Fuu’s waiting.”

“I wasn’t… I really didn’t mean anything except staying over.”

Squall patted my shoulder reassuringly. “It’s okay, I’m kidding.”

“That’s a relief. Especially since you’re armed,” I opened the door and stepped out into the rain with a shudder. Damn weather forecasts. Damn rain. I liked the rain fine, when I didn’t have to go out in it. Unfortunately, I regularly had to go out in it.

Fuu eyed Squall with a smirk when he followed me. “Like old times.”

Squall touched his head where he’d hit the window. His hair was a little sticky with blood. I’d chosen to use Regen so it wouldn’t add to any shock he had, let his body recover a little more slowly, so it’d bled more than it should have really. Scalp wounds were always a bastard for that kind of thing. His chocolate brown hair was darker in the spot over where the skin had broken and there was a little smear of blood just under his hairline. “Hey, at least I didn’t faint this time?” he shrugged.

“Let’s get you out of this rain,” she motioned to follow her. “Just in case you do.”

I took the opportunity to grab Squall’s picnic bag out of the boot, locked the car up again, and followed them. For about a ten foot circle around Fuu in every direction, the roar of the wind slowed to the gentlest of spring breezes that barely even stirred Squall’s long hair. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do much about the rain, though, so we hurried as best we could through the thick, slurping mud stretched between us and the road.

No other lights strafed us as we made her way to the little blue Elvoret she drove - maybe everyone else was sensible enough to stay home and out of the damn rain. Hell, if we hadn’t been so caught up in training, maybe we’d have been sensible too, and not wound up in the middle of a field. Anyway, she’d parked a little way along the road where there was more verge and less of an embankment to climb to get back to the roadway. As the two of us piled damply into the back seat of her car, Squall said “Should we do something about that branch before we leave?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Fuu said, starting the engine. The two of us buckled up in the back seat and Squall’s hand slipped into mine again between us, thumb stroking my knuckles as always. As we passed the branch, Fuu opened the window and cast an Aeroga to blow it off the road, and it landed in the mud just off the tarmac.

Squall gave her a light round of applause, clapping his hand against the damp leg of his jeans so he wouldn’t have to let me go.

“Hard to curtsey when you’re driving,” she said, smugly.

Fuu took us to my place, promising to come get him in the morning and take me to pick up a rental.

I handled calling my insurance, reporting the near miss and abandoned car to the security forces just in case, and everything else I could think of to take care of stuff while he showered - I also stayed just outside the bathroom door because I was worried he’d pass out or something. He was still dizzy when we’d gotten back to my place so I wanted to be around in case. It just made me more determined that bringing him to my house was the right decision since his apartment was up several flights of stairs, and all he needed to climb to get into my place was a total of two steps onto the porch and another into the house itself.

Not long after I was done with all the calls I needed to make about the car, he opened the door and I resisted all urge to nab him and carry him to bed. But only just.

I’d loaned him some sweats to sleep in for the night and they hung on him kinda loosely. I’d always been bigger built than he had, but when we’d finished growing that had gotten kind of more prominent. He wasn’t a big guy, he was just solid muscle, even this long after leaving Garden. I’d seen evidence of that in the way his handling of the blade had changed - when we were teenagers, he’d used both hands to haul the heavier Revolver around, now he handled Lionheart as easily with either hand, or both when he wanted the extra power behind his strikes. It was half the reason he was such a pain in the ass to fight - he switched style so easily and quickly that half the time I couldn’t plan where to attack, hell even defending half the time was a mad scramble to save myself and I loved it so much. I didn’t remember the last time I’d felt so alive before we’d started dueling again.

“Take me to your coffee,” he said, holding out a hand to me.

“Tempted to carry you there,” I replied, settling instead for taking his hand and leading him carefully to the kitchen. I’d never really bothered to do much with the kitchen - it was plain and furnished as little as I could get away with. One corner of it was given over to a table, but the walls and tiles were just plain white, with plain pine cabinets and not much else in the way of decoration. It was fairly sizable, but it’d never felt like a particularly me part of the house. Neither myself or my previous boyfriend had been much into cooking at all, and bringing someone who actually enjoyed it as much as Squall seemed to into it felt kinda weird.

“I’m not quite as dizzy now. Kind of have a headache though, so probably a good thing you kidnapped me for the night.”

“Should I call a cab? Take you to the hospital?”

“Seifer, I’m fine,” Squall said, leaning against the counter and looking around. He was curious about my place, I’d noticed that from the minute he’d gotten onto my porch, taking all of it in slowly. I’d already admitted to being a neat freak earlier, so he was prewarned in some capacity - I wasn’t exactly a minimalist, but I was pretty close to it. “The storm is bad enough that they won’t come out anyway.”

“Point. Sadly neither will the pizza guy.”

“Mind if I take a look at your supplies?” Squall inclined his head in the direction of my fridge.

“Knock yo….” I trailed off, realising just how stupid that was to say after what had happened. Let’s not make this worse, Seifer, even if he for some reason doesn’t think it’s your fault. “Feel free. I’ll make coffee.”

Squall looked through my fridge, and rifled my pantry while I did my duty. Thankfully I’d only been to the store the day before, so I had plenty to choose from, just a kind of limited selection since I obviously only bought stuff that I was comfortable preparing and to be honest, that wasn’t a lot. Simple stuff, easy stuff, things I could make for dinner without too much fussing. I did have a decent amount of fresh stuff, at least, since I had a former SeeD kicking my ass once a week and I had to keep up with him. I at least had to maintain standards. Really I’d been eating better since that first training session, getting back into old habits I’d let slip in the last few years. “Anything you don’t want me to use?”

“Shouldn’t you be sitting down?” I asked, fetching the cream for my coffee and slipping by him.

“You’re fussing again,” he shot me a smug look and pulled a mixing bowl out of one of the cabinets. I swear I didn’t remember buying things like that, they just spawned randomly in kitchen cupboards. I mean, did anyone actually buy plastic tubs? Or did they just sneak in in the night and nest in out of the way spots, lurking until they could fall on your head and lose a lid?

I kissed Squall’s temple and handed him a mug of coffee. “I’m allowed.”

He smiled at that, wrapping both hands around the mug to take a sip. “Boyfriend privilege?”

“Mmhm. So suck it up.”

“Fine. I’ll sit and you can prepare some vegetables,” He said, handing me a couple of carrots.

“I asked for that, didn’t I?”

Squall just smirked at me, and pulled the rest of the vegetables he wanted me to chop out of the fridge

He poured stuff from various bottles into a bowl before replacing them back into their spots, and sat down at the table to whisk it together before he added two chicken breasts to the strangely dark liquid. I dutifully got to prepping whatever he asked me to, and when that was done I bought stuff to him. He spread it all out on one of the baking sheets I had, deliberately leaving space - for the chicken I guess.

“Just out of curiosity, what are you making?”

“We’re making balsamic glazed chicken and roast vegetables. As best I can since you don’t have any basil.”

“I think this might be the healthiest thing I’ve ever eaten after training with you,” I joked. Saturdays were the one day I really allowed myself to eat junk, since I was burning off a lot of calories training with him. Whichever meal we didn’t share in the day, I’d usually replace with fast food or delivery, since I felt like it didn’t matter so much. Why be good when you wouldn’t be able to feel your legs by the end of the day?

He smiled. “Next time you kidnap me after training, we can get pizza. Or I could make it, I guess.”

“You have to start letting me buy ingredients or something if we’re going to start eating here too.”

“I’ll give you... “ Squall smirked and ran his hand over his hair dramatically. Much like some blond asshole used to back at Garden a lifetime ago. “A list.”

“Tell me, Squall, are you still ticklish?”

He brandished a fork at me. “You will not be finding out. I’m armed.”

I held up the knife I’d been using to chop things. “Looks like we make a good team though.”

“We do,” he smiled, but took the knife from me and crossed to the sink to wash his hands. The cutlery went into the dish washer for the moment, and he came back to finish his coffee. “I like that. Us being a team.”

“So do I. So… What now?”

“Half an hour for chicken to marinade,” he said, gesturing at the bowl and the other components of our dinner. “Then into the oven for another half hour or so, once it’s preheated.”

I hadn’t realised there was so little else to the meal he was making. That was the kind of cooking I could get into, in all honesty. Less to clean up that way too. Even when I did bother to cook, I felt like I ended up with so many things to clean that I felt like I’d cooked for two dozen instead of just me. Even with a dishwasher it always felt like such a chore. “That is… surprisingly easy.”

“Well, I figured you wouldn’t let me stand at the stove long enough to make something more complex.”

“Nope,” I said. I wasn’t even so keen on him standing up beside me right now, I’d seen him stumble a couple of times getting him into the house and to the bathroom, so I wasn’t going to let him keep it up, no matter how much he guilt tripped me. He needed to rest. At least the second scan spell I’d cast on him before I’d let him go shower was showing a mild improvement, he’d recover just as well as he always had, as long as he took some time to rest. That was the other reason I’d bought him home with me - I was worried he wouldn’t take it seriously if he was on his own.

“So, what now?”

“Couch, movie, more coffee, us?”

He held his mug out to me. “Excellent plan of attack.”

I topped off both our mugs and led him back into the living room.

My living room felt much more like a me room. I had a huge grey L-shaped couch in front of my fireplace and the TV - It was comfortable enough to fall asleep on, as several late nights of mine would testify. The one plant I’d never managed to kill - a fern nicknamed Marl that was currently trying to eat the end table it was perched on - sat in a sunny spot near the windows, just far enough away to avoid it getting a chill. Of course I had all of the gadgets one might require for a good movie night or gaming night, everything hooked up as wirelessly as I could manage so I could keep everything tucked away and hidden as much as possible.

We curled up together and watched a creepy horror movie, inspired by our time in the back seat, paused only long enough for me to add the chicken to the pan as instructed and then put it in the oven. And, of course, to dish up when it was done.

The wind howled outside, rain lashed at the windows, and the two of us ate the best damn meal that had ever been cooked in my kitchen. Everything he touched turned to gold, even now, and I was so very good with that. As long as he was happy to stick around, I was more than happy to have him. “I need to learn how to cook like this.”

“I could teach you.”

“That sounds like a shortcut to an argument.”

“Depends,” he mused, spearing a carrot with his fork and examining it. “You listen to me a lot more these days.”

“I guess I do. Maybe then….” I said. I didn’t doubt that he would try sooner or later. Maybe he’d even succeed, after all, I did listen to him, like he said. And our sum total of clashing had come to what, a few snaps at each other earlier in the day? Damn, we were getting better.

We watched another movie after the first. Something a little more camp horror, fun but light. Nothing too serious. By the end of it he was yawning and my eyelids were starting to feel heavier than Hyperion.

“So…”

“So?” Squall echoed, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“I have a guest bedroom, but…”

“But If you really want to keep an eye on me, we should share,” he said, finishing the thought I was finding it difficult to put words to. Yes, that was it.

“Which is honestly not a come on.”

“Even if it was a come on, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, I got the idea… but I would mind,” I admitted. Yeah, there was a part of me that was all for jumping into bed with him and getting carried away, but as stupid as it felt, I wasn’t ready. It all felt too weird and teenage in my head, really, and I didn’t know how to deal with it except to say that I just… I didn’t want to rush into sex with him. It felt like it’d make it somehow worth less than it should have been. I wanted to take this slowly, to treat it with the respect it deserved. I was already falling for him little by little and I wanted to enjoy all of it.

“I could tell,” Squall kissed my cheek gently.

“I want to do this right,” I said weakly. I didn’t really know what “right” was but whatever it meant, I guess I had to work it out.

Squall gave me one of his beautiful smiles. “I’ll wait as long as you need me to, Seifer.”

“You’re good to me.”

“After what you told me about the last guy, it’s about damn time someone was.”

Rather than answer that, I dragged myself to my feet and offered him my hand. “C’mon. Let me take you to bed.”

He took it, looking up at me with those beautiful eyes and for a moment, I fell a little further and faster. “Sounds perfect.”