A distinct disadvantage of the Garden moving -- at this moment, over dark ocean water spreading to the horizon's edges in every direction -- was that there was nothing to do while inside it. No mission objectives, nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait. Nothing to keep his attention but the faint, constant rumble of the engines and the pattern of cracks in his bedroom ceiling and the same thoughts to chase in circles while staring at the inside of his eyelids. Nothing that ever went anywhere.

So Squall had gone to the library, and picked a book with a cover as interesting as any. Battlefield chaos with a sneering sorceress at its center, magic and tactics and daring-do -- he had thought maybe it wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

Forty-eight pages in, however, he had made up his mind that the so-called dashing hero was too stupid to live, and his gaze mutinied and slid away from the printed words like magnets opposing. So much for that bright idea.

He put the book aside and leaned back to the wall, hair falling out of his eyes and the pillow bunching soft against the small of his back. Ceiling cracks were still just ceiling cracks, deeply shadowed with the long gold light of day's end but no different. What now? More of the same --back to his mind slipping into its deep-carved rut, people and events that didn't make sense and wouldn't make sense no matter how long he wondered, old ego wounds that ached still and weren't going to stop, the leader role that twined around his neck hard enough to strangle and everything leading back to a sad little boy in the rain but that was where Shiva's shining presence began and everything was blurred with frost. The restless confusion, like something inside wanted to pace its cage, like he wanted to ask important questions but he didn't know what to ask, or to whom. The same, always the same and he would punch it if he could.

Squall sat up, slinging his feet to the floor and grabbing for boots to stuff them into. He had to do something. He had to get up and find something to do, anything but more useless mind-circles, maybe he could take the stupid book back to the library or--

Harsh pounding on the bedroom door, startled instinct making him half-reach for the gunblade's ghost presence on his hip. And then sharp annoyance welled up in him -- he should have known, by now, to half-expect that pounding that was too eager to be anyone else. Squall rubbed at the bridge of his nose, like that was instinct, too.
"Come in," he muttered.
And Zell came in, electric-bright energy and that toothy grin. More of the same, but there was nothing dull about Zell. At the very least, he moved.
"Hey Squall, wanna kick some monster butt?" The door clicked closed and his weight flitted from foot to foot, perpetual motion that seemed perfectly natural in the corner of Squall's vision. He had often wondered how it was possible for a person to be like that -- movement incarnate. Sometimes it took so much just to move.

Kicking monster butt? It was a question he had heard from Zell plenty of times, and...going to the training center would be something to do. It would be that rhythm of battle to slip into, gunblade solid in his hands and magic's strength crackling through him, Zell darting by his side and both of them so focused, circling and striking and the dying shrieks of their monster prey, it was like sharing a mind and nothing could stop them. But...battles took energy. Something like energy leaped inside Squall but it wasn't enough this time, it wouldn't reach high enough for him to care. Training. More training. The memory-glory faded away into grey boredom -- it was just training, it was the same as always. He didn't know why that tasted so bitter.
"...Not really."
Zell's movement slowed to a stop. "Okay."

And that should have been it. That should have been the part where Zell said something about finding him if Squall changed his mind, and left and took his neverending energy with him, and then it would be back to bedsheets rumpled under him and the maddening thoughts to chase. But Zell stayed, and scratched at the back of his neck while silence drew out cold and awkward.

"...Still don't wanna talk?"
Oh, not this again. He wanted to sigh or maybe growl, but Squall just rubbed his nose, hard enough to make the smooth scar line burn with friction. What was it about him that begged people to pry him open? There was a reason, he knew there was, but it was distant and blurred with ice.
"No."
"Yeah..." Zell moved to the desk and perched on its edge, his movement edgy and his grin turning sheepish, something draped over his face like an idea forming. "S'what I thought, I just figured, y'know, I wouldn't wanna miss it if you did have something to say. Even if it's not really important or anything. Hey, is that Courage of Odin? Is it any good?"
It took Squall a moment to place the name, and then he glanced to the book on the floor, its colourful cover suddenly gaudy and the thought of opening it making him roll his eyes.
"It's the corniest thing I've ever read."
Zell brightened. "I bet! Selphie was going on about the love story, man, she's such a sucker for romance and frilly girl stuff!"
Romance? He had been smart to stop reading, then. The thought of two poor fools gazing into each others' eyes, murmuring sweet nothings and pledging eternal love, irritated him the way only stupidity could. It would be sad, truly sad, if Squall were bored enough to read that.
"What kinda stuff do you normally read?" Zell asked, tapping the restless first bars of a tune against the desktop.
It didn't matter, did it? "I...don't read much." Because reading was just sitting there listening, absorbing, thinking, anything but doing and there was only so much of that he could take--
Zell muttered agreement, and rubbed at his neck some more. "I kinda figured you'd read a lot, 'cause, I mean, you kinda seem like the type..."

And then he finally rose from the desk's edge, and shifted to the center of the floor to...not shadowbox. Zell just stood there, giving Squall a look like even he couldn't figure it out, practically humming with energy all pent up. It was wrong in a way Squall couldn't place and the silence started to itch.
"Is that new?" Zell asked.
"...Huh?"
"That shirt, I've never seen it on you."
Another slow realisation, and Squall looked to his own chest. It was just an old green T-shirt, something he had lying around... Oh, there was something to do, he could go do laundry. He could go sit in front of one of the battered old washing machines and watch the water swirl -- it had to be more interesting than ceiling cracks. He could do that if Zell went away soon, if he left and took his neverending energy and the gathering tension with him.
"...It's just some old thing." This didn't matter either, did it?
An idle shrug. "It's just a nice colour on you."
It didn't seem like the kind of thing Zell would say; maybe it needed something, a sweeping gesture or, hell, just something, some movement. He had never thought it would seem so out-of-place for Zell to finally just stand still, and stare at him.

And then Zell finally jerked to motion, sitting on the bed so it sank with his weight, his hands fidgeting and clenching to fists and the strangeness of it all ringing in Squall's mind. He was sitting so close, he wasn't bouncing and open like...like Zell. Shivering nerves crept through Squall -- there was something terribly familiar here, something heavy and looming but it couldn't be, not him--
"Um, so..." Zell's eager chattering had died to a murmur, one nearly shaking with the effort of being quiet and calm.
Ohh, it always happened this way, didn't it? Someone cornering him with vulnerable emotional things like still-beating organs, making the tension cement-thicken in the air, putting him through a very special kind of torture and he didn't know what to do about it, as if he ever knew what to do anyway. He didn't need people, he didn't want those bonds in vulnerable places--

Wait, Zell was...?

"What?" Squall replied, his voice level even though the shivering inside was starting to claw at his throat. He wouldn't help this. It would dwindle and grow quiet and die away, awkwardly like it always did because he wouldn't know what to do even if he agreed, and damnit, why did people always want something from him? Why was it never simple?!
"I dunno, I just kinda figured..."

There was something oddly like a smile in his eyes, and Squall remembered with glass-sharp clarity that this was Zell, and he wouldn't just let something quietly, awkwardly die. Zell didn't do that. He spoke his mind, he wore his moods like his very clothing, he never did anything halfway or half-hearted -- Zell had started something, and he wouldn't give up that easily. Far from the careful card houses of niceties and passive white lies that most people kept.

Cool determination nestled up to the quivering nerves. Fine. He could handle this, if it was actually going to be simple. But how could it be simple?
"What?" Squall repeated, and he wondered how many words would have to be wrenched out before this was through, how many of these silences like staring down an opponent in a training duel.
"I..."

And that was all Zell managed to choke before the fidgeting swept over him, before he rubbed palms harshly on his thighs and his gaze darted, flickering back up again and a hand pressed to the back of Squall's neck like firm lightning, fast enough that all he remembered was the vivid blue of Zell's eyes and the hot, deafening surge of his own fear. One forced word and Zell's mouth pressed to his own, slick-hard movement of lips and tongue and it didn't feel anything like he had imagined, and the hand at his neck tightening until it tugged the roots of his hair just enough to burn, and the screaming fear crumbling into sparkling bits of something else entirely. Feverish for a moment, like struggling against Slow magic, and then it tapered away, the mouth-touch was gone and the grip slid out of his hair with a whisper and the bed creaked as Zell shifted back. And it was like before, just sitting there on the bed and staring at each other.
Zell grinned, faintly sheepish again, and huffed something almost like a laugh.
"That," he said. There was a slight catch in the low edge of his voice, enough of a glitter in his eyes for Squall to know he was in way over his head now.

And, god, his heart thundered, different than in peril and combat and somehow it was worse. Squall looked away to anything but those eyes, clenched his fists bloodless and numb, hoped he wasn't shaking as much as the nerves shivering through his body and just breathed. There was a point to this, something concrete that made sense -- there had to be.

"...What do you want?" He passed tonguetip over his lips. They felt different, like Zell's presence lingered and burned still. The mattress shifted with some squirming motion, the bed frame muttered.
"Nothin'...big. If that's what you mean. Not, like, dating or anything..."
Ohh, just the word made terror wash cold through him. Don't think about it. It wasn't important, the...social side of...this. With Zell. He just had make sense out of it, chase it until he understood and knew what to say. Since when did he ever know what to say?
Zell's voice came back into the thick quiet, still slow and thoughtful and plainly honest. "Just kinda...this. Simple stuff."

Simple. Squall liked to think that he could handle simple.

"...Nothing complicated."
"Nope. Just whatever feels good, baby."
His hair blurred everything brown, but he was sure Zell was smiling. Something simple with no bonds lurking in it, just two guys and no sticky sugar coating. Just whatever this was that made adrenaline race through him and made his thoughts stop circling and let him feel, let him do.
"Nobody has to know...," Zell offered, and it sounded almost casual.

Squall had never bothered thinking about it, about what relationships were like and who he hoped for, about scenarios. But here it was -- reality, and it wasn't even a girl like he had half-supposed. It was Zell -- he knew Zell and fought beside him and trusted him. Strange, so strange, but... He couldn't find a reason to say no. And before he could think flaws into it, before his bit of courage faded, he pressed his different-burning lips into a tight line and nodded.

And it was another type of cement-thickening in the air when he looked back at Zell's intent grin, saw him flick tonguetip over his own lips and felt that firm hand slip around his neck again, and the world faded to just presence and touch and his ever-roaring heartbeat, the moist bizarreness of their mouths twining together. It was the bed moving underneath him as Zell wriggled closer, the little wet sounds their lips made, the strong hand stroking a fire-bright path down his chest and stomach and all the nerves and heat racing to follow it.
It was a shadow of fighting, really -- bodies moving against each other, the press and tug of weight and there was no planning to it, just whatever worked. Squall sprawled back on a numbing elbow and one leg had no bed underneath to support it -- minor, niggling things next to the heaviness and warmth and muscle and presence of another person on him, draped over his thigh and hip and chest, oddly pleasant. Zell's breath rasped over his throat in warm waves and he didn't really mind the uncomfortable way his back had to arch, he stopped paying attention to the shrieking nerves and they began to hush. Hair tickled at his nose and smelled indescribably male, his belts gave a muted jangle as firm touch brushed a hipbone on its way down -- it was still so strange, he was just learning this and he wondered how Zell knew, but the heat crested and everything else disappeared into haze and it didn't matter anyway, some small gasping sound came twitching out of him and he stopped thinking.

This was...a good way to stop thinking.