Author's Note: If you like mood music for this piece, I'd suggest "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls.
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Survival Tactics
SeeD taught him to physically protect his body. Rinoa taught him to preserve his mind.
It is around midnight when he comes to her. He doesn't bother to knock anymore; she opens the door before he even thinks to do so. He isn't sure if it's the Sorceress-Knight bond at work that makes her know, but whatever it is, he is grateful for it.
The less he knows, the easier it is for him to acknowledge her affect on him, he decides subconsciously.
Sometimes when he comes to her, she is fully dressed, having just come home from a day's work as Cid's receptionist. Sometimes she is clad in the overly large shirts she wears to bed. Sometimes, she is swathed in delicate silks that she picked out with him in mind. But she is never surprised when he shows up, even if he is himself.
With nothing but a quiet smile, she lets him through the doorway, and he seizes her before she can shut the door closed. Her body jerks in his hands, whether it's from suppressing a laugh or a fit of pleasure he isn't sure, but whatever it is, he doesn't care; he simply nudges the door shut wit h his foot as he continues pressing kisses to her neck. Tonight is a night for silk, which he notices when he sees the plunging neckline of her negligee.
She is pressed against the wall with a thin strap of her suggestive attire slipping off of her shoulder, and he almost grins knowing that he's had her against every wall, every surface of her suite. Her touch is light, soft, delicate like the silk she's robed in, and the way she breathes against his skin makes him wonder if she's comfortable with all of this. But the desperation in her fingertips, the subtle way she attaches her body to his makes him remember that she was the one to make the first move.
Somehow they move to her bed, the generic size hardly being enough to encompass the both of them, but neither mind. The tangled limbs the lack of space causes looks stunning under the moonlight that spills in from her window. He drinks in her image; her pale skin glows under the lunar light and her dark eyes smolder from under raven tresses. The moon shines over her breast as his hand does, and he can feel her breath shake throughout her entire body. She watches as his hand strays down her body and burns the image into her memory. She has graced many with her smile, but he is the first she has touched, tasted, loved, and for that he is grateful.
His hands move methodically, as do his lips, because that's just the way he was taught to live. He feels her Cheshire grin against his shoulder, the word 'relax' casually breathed into his skin and down his spine, and he does. Her leg brushes against him accidentally, but the effect is just the same. He forces her body down against the bed gently, and when she laughs, his world closes in on her and her alone.
When they finish hours later, she curls up next to him, stroking his bangs out of his storm-colored eyes. He can feel her heart beating against him, and the rhythm is soothing, like something his mother would have done if she were alive.
'Love you', he hears in his head, and he isn't quite sure if the voice is hers or his. But she squeezes his hand gently, and just for a moment, he is able to dream.
It is halfway through his newest pile of paperwork the next day that she waltzes into his office with a turkey sandwich in tow. She is smiling brightly for someone who couldn't have gotten much sleep the night before, he thinks to himself. But the thought is banished from his mind as she sets the plate down in front of him and orders him to eat.
"Selphie came by my dorm this morning," she says absentmindedly as he takes his first bite of his meal. "She says it smells like strawberry kiwi-flavored lube."
He stiffens at the statement. Normally, he couldn't care less for the thoughts of those around him, but what happened at night was private, was sacred…
She giggles at his awkwardness, and the melodic sound lets him swallow. If she wasn't being bothered by it, as long as he didn't have to protect her from any unnecessary glares of hatred in the halls ('That terrible Sorceress used her magic to make her sleep with him!' 'Shut up, shut up! What could you possibly know about anything?'), then it was fine by him.
He finishes off another bite before asking, "Tonight?" His tone is so apathetic and low that she almost thinks that she imagined it. But she knows better. Small moments of weakness are all he believes he can afford, and she is more than willing to oblige him when he needs her.
"Yeah, sure," she tells him with a chuckle. "Same time as always, right? I'll be waiting."
Their promise is mentioned by coincidence, but she reaches up to the rings hung from her neck nonetheless. A faint blush crosses her ivory cheeks, and she quickly skips out of his office.
The stack of paperwork suddenly seems shorter, he thinks to himself.