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Nero places the tea down in front of Cid, careful so as not to spill any on the documents scattered in front of him.
“Thanks.” He mumbles, clearly lost in thought. He’d been staring at the schematics for what felt like days now, trying to figure out the inner workings of Omega and what they could do to help his friend in the coming fight.
“You’re welcome,” Nero replies, plopping himself down next to Cid, mindlessly stirring his tea with a small spoon. “So, how goes the planning?” He knows the answer already, yet something still compels him to ask.
Cid groans, pinching the top of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut.
“It’s impossible.”
Nero chuckles at this. “That’s never stopped you before, old friend. You’re smarter than impossible.” And he meant it, too.
Cid turns to look at him, clearly ready to reply with some quippy remark about how Nero never helped, yet stopped as soon as he took in the other man’s face. The fond smile he saw instead of the arrogance he was so used to made his heart twinge.
He instead sighs and picks up the tea Nero made him. “You always had a way with words, didn’t you.” He sips the tea, thankful it isn’t another of Alpha’s saltwater concoctions. “However, I do feel truly stuck on this one.”
Nero cocks an eyebrow at this and picks up one of the many papers. “Chadarnook, was it?” He quickly glances over the text, a quick refresher into the facts he already knew. He liked seeing the words written in Garlond's messy script. Then he throws it back into the pile and simply places his arm around the smaller man.
They sit like that for a while, sipping tea, a comfortable and familiar moment shared between them.
“This is nice,” Cid smiles, “Just like we used to be.” He places his free hand on Nero’s thigh, somehow pulling them even closer.
Closer to how they were before, how they could still be.
“Yeah,” Nero mumbles, “Just like back then.” How their brazen, younger selves would laugh at them now, he thinks. It had taken all his bravery for this amount of contact. How reckless they were, stealing schoolyard pecks and holding hands underneath desks! “I miss it, sometimes. Garlemald, that is. And us.” The sometimes is a lie. There’s never a day that goes by where he isn’t filled with regret.
Cid squeezes his thigh. “It doesn’t have to all be in the past, Nero. If we’re fighting for a future… could we not also work for our future?” He doesn’t look up from his tea, doesn’t need to. In the back of his mind he wonders when Nero stopped calling him by his first name. It doesn’t matter, really, but he misses the way his name sounded in the other’s lips. “Sometimes I think Jessie is an envoy of Hydaelyn, for bringing you here.” Nero scoffs at his words. “More often, I think of her as a voidsent in disguise. But maybe… maybe this is our path.” If there’s a higher being , he thinks, I hope it always sends me back to you .
And they fall back into a silence deeper than the one before. A future together , Nero thinks to himself. A future together , Cid thinks as well.
Their tea is long gone now, but neither of them can bring themselves to care. The warmth of the other is almost too much to bear, yet also the only thing keeping them aloft.
“I still love you, Cid.”
“So do I, Nero. So do I.”