The world needed more Squffie fics and I wanted to write some Halloween-themed almost-fluff. And so this oneshot was born! But be warned, children: there are some crazy AU ships below. Read at your own risk.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy. If I did, I would've made sure that Squall and Yuffie were canon as hell.
"Guess what day it is," Yuffie whispered into the shell of his ear as they lay on his bed. The annoying part about the situation was that he never actually invited her into his bed – it was just where he always found her in the morning.
"The day you finally let me sleep in?" Squall asked as he buried his face into his pillow. It smelled like her, like jasmine and tea and gunpowder and cinnamon. And even as he told her, " I think that sounds about right", he had to stop himself from inhaling too sharply.
"No, silly! It's Halloween!" She moved even closer to him than she'd been a moment ago before she murmured, "and I've got a plan" in a way that twisted his stomach into a knot.
"Oh no."
He could almost hear the smile in her voice when she said, "Oh yes".
And if the smell of her on his pillow wasn't enough to drive him up a wall, he was sure she'd come up with another way to guarantee that he'd completely lost his mind by the end of the night. But exactly how she'd accomplish such a thing was what really worried him.
"Do you have any plans for the day? Plans that don't include me, by any chance?" There wasn't a shred of hope in his voice; he knew he wasn't getting away from her that easily.
The mattress winced as she did a ninja-roll off the bed – he'd bet all the money in his wallet it was probably to go put on some cheesy costume.
"When don't my plans include you? Honestly, I think you'd know me better by now. But hey, don't look, okay Squall?" He could hear her clothes rustling as she took them off, then threw them in a pile on the floor as she got changed.
"Because you've got something to look at?" He answered her question with a question as he rolled onto his side and propped his chin up in his hand. "And it's Leon."
"Leon-Shmeon," She said, back turned to him. "If it weren't my favorite day of the year, I would totally punch you in the face."
"Yeah, I know." He got up and walked over to the bathroom, hesitant to reach for the light switch. "I swear to Gaia, if you wrote "our undead ninja babies would be so spooktastic" over the tub wall with shampoo like last year, I'm going to-"
"Help me make some?" Yuffie wiggled her eyebrows at him from the living room as she shimmied into her costume - a little black number he assumed was supposed to be a dress. He moved his gaze away after a second or two; the stupid thing was designed to make her look like some sort of zombie, but all he could see was the way it pointed out every curve she had. When in the hell did she get those and why did he never want to look away from them?
"In your dreams, Yuf." He gave her a half-hearted glare when he asked, "Now if I could shower in peace?"
"Well, geez, it's not like I'm gonna sneak up behind you," She rolled her eyes, adding, "That'd be a bit too spooky, even for me."
"Right. But crawling into my bed isn't."
"I wouldn't do it if I knew you didn't say my name in your sleep. Your subconscious totally digs me," She winked and blew him a kiss before leaning over to grab the keys to her bike out of the bowl on the coffee table. Her dress rode up and she knew it, she knew it, and he swallowed hard and looked away.
"And just for the record, if I don't see you at Tifa's party by nine, you're dead. Deader-than-Vincent's-dead-scientist-chick dead," she said, smiling sweetly before she closed the door so hard, the pictures on the shelf over his bed shook.
Squall let out a long sigh before he flipped on the bathroom lights and got undressed. As he closed the door and turned the hot water on, he realized that he was a goner the second she'd started calling him by his real name. And he was dead the minute he realized he didn't mind.
He checked the time on his phone as he approached Seventh Heaven. It was eight fifty-eight and he still had a ways to walk – Tifa's bar was on the end of the street. He could see the bloody handprints all over the door and windows even from here; he'd guessed that Yuffie herself had been the one to scream, "I volunteer!" before jumping down from her perch on one of the bar stools and coating both hands in old paint.
The chill in the air cut through his trench coat and the thin cotton of his shirt - stupid costume. He'd never worn one to any of AVALANCHE's Halloween parties before – but he'd figured it would make his ninja girl happy.
Wait…his?
When in the world had she even become his? Or better yet, why in the world would she ever become his?
It was ridiculous to even think of something like that. They were just friends. Friends who slept in the same bed and gave each other their spare keys and went to dinner together at those fancy restaurants where they put candles and roses in bowls of water. Oh, fuck…they weren't just friends, were they?
As Squall threw open the door to the Seventh Heaven and dragged the cold night air in with him, the way Yuffie's whole face lit up when she saw him had his stomach in a knot again. Crap.
And then she threw herself at him, running across the bar and straight into his chest the moment he let the door close behind him. Double crap. He had to wrap his arms around her shoulders to keep the two of them from falling over. But it totally wasn't a hug because he just didn't do hugs. And when he made a move to pull away from her about as gently as he could, she grabbed onto his hand. But it totally wasn't hand-holding because he just didn't do hand-holding.
"I'm glad you showed up, y'know."
"Yeah well, I'm glad there were conscious people to show up for. I'm guessing Tifa didn't let you make any of the drinks this year?"
"Hey. Hey. I only put weird shit in everyone's drinks that one time! It was like a zillion years ago!"
"It was last year, Yuffie." He resisted the urge to drop his head into the palm of his head.
"I would've done it again if Boobs had let me, but noooo. I have to be responsible now and blahdeblahblah. What a load of chocobo shit."
"You've obviously changed so much." Squall shot back, rolling his eyes as she led him to the middle of the room, where Cloud and the rest of the gang had spread out in a circle on the floor. He watched Aerith crawl to the center of the circle and spin an empty beer-bottle before moving back to the spot she'd been sitting in a moment before. When the bottle came to a stop, the neck was pointed at the soles of Vincent's combat boots.
"Oh no, I am not about to-" Squall hissed as he watched Aerith and Vincent move to the circle's center and kiss each other lightly. Tifa counted the seconds from her perch on a nearby bar stool, and Barret and Cid made bets on who would have to kiss next.
"Oh yes, you totally are about to!" Yuffie yelled as she pulled him down to the floor with her.
"Who's next?" Shelke asked from across the circle.
"I volunteer!" Yuffie said, waving her arms around wildly before pointing to Cloud. "This guy right here."
"I'm pretty sure he isn't into Aeri or Teefs, if ya know what I mean." She whispered to Squall, wiggling her eyebrows at him for emphasis on 'if ya know what I mean'.
Cloud's face went as pink as the bows in Aerith's hair when the neck of the bottle brushed against Zack's hand. Their kiss met the seven-second time limit, but Squall had a feeling that they probably wouldn't have stopped if Cid hadn't started wolf-whistling.
Shelke was the next one to crawl into the center of the circle and spin the beer bottle around. As the bottle made its slow rotations around and around the circle, Yuffie told Squall that the android-like girl was a total skank with faulty programming, and that she was just a clone of Vincent's dead-chick.
"Well it looks like he's found someone else, huh?" Squall asked, gesturing to the way the hard stare in Vincent's eyes softened when he looked at Aerith.
"Looks like it," Yuffie said as Shelke and Reeve kissed. Their lips were still on each other's when Tifa counted to six, and then seven, but after another moment they pulled away with twin smiles stretching across their faces.
Reno and Rude were the next ones to kiss, and even though Reno's kiss was a drunken one at best, Rude still flushed about as red as his best friend's hair at the gesture. Tseng and Elena shared a pretty chaste kiss compared to their friends', and Squall had to resist the urge to snort when Yuffie leaned over and gave Aerith a high-five as both of them yelled, "It's canon, now, bitches!"
Yuffie flashed him another one of her trademark grins before she crawled into the center of the circle and spun the bottle so fast, it became a blur of green glass and white labels. "Whatever happens, happens - right, Squally?"
A funny feeling twisted up his stomach as the bottle's momentum slowed down. He looked her straight in the face when he said, "right, Yuffie", his voice about as shaky as his knees.
And then he watched the neck of the bottle come to a stop before him. Him. When he blinked once, twice, it stayed there. Whatever happens, happens.
He crawled into the center of the circle and leaned towards her at the time she leaned towards him. A shiver moved from the crown of his head all the way down to his toes when their lips met. And then it didn't matter that there were people watching, and that Tifa was counting down the seconds, because Yuffie was kissing him like she meant it and he was trying his best to be gentle with her, goddammit.
"Seven…" He moved his hand to cup her cheek.
"Eight…" She weaved her fingers through his hair.
"Nine…" He bit her bottom lip even when he told himself he wasn't going to.
"Ten…" She moved her tongue over his teeth and he swore to God, if she did it again he was going to lose it completely.
And then she was pulling away from him and he wanted nothing more than to pull her back against him, to have her stay there forever. But as he looked into her face, he wondered when in the hell her eyes had gotten so green, or when he realized her smile was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, or when he stopped giving a shit about what the others thought of their age difference.
"Well shit, Squall, ya really didn't wanna fucking let go of her, there!" Cid said before he took a long drag on his cigarette.
Squall rolled his eyes and said, "It's Leon, old man", before leaning down to tell Yuffie that she was the only one who was ever allowed to call him Squall. Ever. He didn't miss the way she shivered all the way down to her toes when he moved behind her to whisper, "Happy Halloween, Yuffie", before he stood up to go get both of them a drink.
Almost-fluff because I feel like Squall isn't a very fluffy sort of guy. But yeah. I'll probably be writing more Halloween-themed almost-fluff for all my favorite ships for the next week or so, so look out for them!
