Disclaimer: I have no legal anything over FFVII.

A/N: I want summer… This takes place in an AU where Angeal, Seph, and Genesis are college students, and roommates.

No Way Out

"You're lifeguarding this summer?"

"Yeah," Genesis replied, "hopefully this year, that crazy lady who always ate in the pool and tried to get me to marry her daughter decides to stay home."

Sitting around in the lifeguard chair at the community pool all day wasn't necessarily Genesis's ideal summer job. It worked well enough, though, since he could walk to work (instead of carpooling in Angeal's beat-up old pickup truck) and if he was lucky, Elena and Cissnei, the other lifeguards, wouldn't notice him staring. And if they did, hopefully they wouldn't slap him.

"If she tries, tell her you're already married," Sephiroth said.

"To Cissnei," Angeal added, walking through the door with an ice-cream cone.

Genesis leaned over and licked the side of Angeal's ice cream. "I should tell her I'm married. That'll tell her off." Not to Cissnei, though. She would definitely slap him for that.

"Or you should bring Sephiroth with you and see if this crazy lady will marry her daughter off to him instead," Angeal suggested, jerking his ice-cream out of Genesis's reach.

Sephiroth, who had been lying on the couch, reading, sat up and cracked Genesis over the head with his book. "Don't drag me into this!"

"Angeal, that could actually work," Genesis laughed.

Sephiroth began protesting and threatening to physically harm Genesis if his friend attempted to drag him along.

He found himself at the pool anyway. Genesis was on duty, so he was stuck a good four feet above the ground. Sephiroth was leaning against the base of the lifeguard chair, near Genesis's feet. Genesis kept kicking him whenever he wanted to get attention. "What?" Sephiroth growled as Genesis's toes hit him in the back of the head for the fifth time.

"Zack's here," Genesis pointed out. The black-haired boy had been nicknamed a puppy by Angeal, and both Genesis and Sephiroth understood why. He was always jumping around hyperactively if he wasn't flirting with every girl at the pool. "I think he's been chasing Cissnei around." He was right, Zack was standing by the side of the kiddie pool in a brightly colored floral-print swimsuit, talking to Cissnei and probably attempting to be smooth.

Genesis thought that Zack Fair didn't know the definition of smooth.

"Hn." Sephiroth leaned back against Genesis's chair again, hoping that he wouldn't be kicked. He didn't honestly care who the puppy flirted with. As he looked around, bored with the goings-on, he noticed a very sunburned, heavyset woman standing in the water with a bag of chips in her hand. She fit Genesis's definition, so he nudged his friend's ankle. "That her?" The paroxysm that came from Genesis when he noticed the woman was quite a sight to behold… and laugh at. Sephiroth only chuckled, hoping not to further anger Genesis. "Hopefully she doesn't notice you, eh?"

"Oh, please, someone get me out of here," Genesis groaned to no one in particular.

"You're in luck," Cissnei said, approaching him from behind. "I think she's eyeballing Sephiroth."

"Oh, please," Sephiroth said, snorting and rolling his eyes, "you jest."

She was right, though. The woman made her way over to the side of the pool and turned to Sephiroth, ignoring Cissnei, who blew her whistle and warned the woman not to eat in the pool. "Say, you seem like a nice young man…" she ignored the scowl that Sephiroth was giving her and continued. "Would you like to meet my daughter?"

Sephiroth was now beginning to think that claiming he was married to Cissnei wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.