Irvine was smiling. Squall wasn't.

In the few moments Zell wasn't dedicating to punching the air and hating Irvine with a passion, he reflected that most of the trip since Galbadia Garden could be described that way. Irvine had split the party into two groups, and had placed himself with Selphie and Rinoa, and Squall hadn't complained, and the girls had shouted at him: Irvine smiled, Squall didn't. They'd been given a mission to some bizarre Tomb in an area that Irvine knew and the other SeeDs were completely lost in: Irvine smiled, Squall didn't. Zell had been hit by some monster's attack that turned everything into a spiral of colours and strange sounds, and 'woke up' a few seconds later to find out that he'd broken Squall's nose with a particularly good punch: Irvine goddamn Galbadian idiot smiled, Squall didn't.

Now it was about the muffins.

Irvine was leaning against a wall, holding a particularly tasty-looking chocolate muffin up towards Squall, and - of course - smiling. Squall was standing in front of him, staring at the offending baked good, and - of course - not.

"I assume you bought those in Deling City?" Squall asked.

"Not many other places to buy muffins around here, are there?" Irvine said.

"Our free time in Deling was set aside so that the Balamb SeeDs could familiarise themselves with the city..."

"Which I'm already pretty familiar with, so I did a little shopping."

Squall didn't miss a beat. "...Not to spend our supply money on indulgences."

"It wasn't your supply money, Mr. Leader. It was my money, which I chose to spend on muffins. Which I am now, out of the goodness of my heart, offering to you. You don't want one?"

Squall looked from the muffin to Irvine's face, and back to the muffin again. Then he shrugged, and said, "Whatever."

"Could have told you he'd say that," Irvine said to Zell with a wink - a wink! Like we're friends or something! Asshole. - as Squall took the muffin.

Typical of him that he doesn't offer me one.

"Want one?" Irvine asked, holding up a muffin.

Zell shifted mental gears quickly. Typical of him to try to buy me off with muffins.

Taking silence for assent, Irvine threw the muffin in a lightly curving arc to Zell. Zell grabbed it out of the air, martial-artist reflexes intercepting it perfectly. Irvine made a faux-wince, and Zell had a moment to think, Yeah, well, better than you could do, gun-boy, before he realised that he was still wearing his fighting gloves and the muffin was half-crushed in his grip. A small, sad portion of the crisp top broke away from the muffin and fell into a pool of stagnant water on the ground.

"Not a good idea to catch with those gloves," said Irvine, half-laughing. Overinflated cowboy poseur. "Want another one? I've got a few."

Zell stuffed a quarter of the broken muffin into his mouth and scowled at Irvine.

Irvine laughed again, as if Zell had told a particularly good one about the Trabian, the Galbadian, and the FHer who walk into a bar. "Well," he said, swinging the bag of muffins over his shoulder, "I'm going to go see if there's any hint of that GF the guard said was in here."

Zell paused in his frantic chewing for a moment, and realised something with a hint of chagrin - the muffin was really rather good. Typical of him to buy expensive muffins when we're on a mission, he thought to himself, ignoring the fact that his spite made no sense whatsoever.

"Don't get lost," Squall snapped.

Irvine held up the location indicator. "Not gonna." He turned, and walked away.

Typical of him to take our only location...

"Zell?"

Zell looked up at Squall, who stood holding his muffin in his hand, examining Zell in the considering manner he seemed to have perfected over the years. "Yeah?" Zell said, guardedly.

"You're not acting like yourself. Something the matter?"

Wait. Squall's taking an interest? Squall's taking an interest? "Nothing." Zell shook his head, and stuffed his mouth full of muffin again.

Squall bit off a section of his own muffin, and Zell found himself watching, interested without reason. A flash of even, white teeth, and a tiny section of muffin gone. Squall ate the same way he did everything else: careful, precise, always acting with the least wasted effort possible. Zell knew that from watching him at meals of iron rations on the road, but somehow he'd never considered how Squall would eat a muffin. It was almost ridiculous.

Squall swallowed carefully before speaking. "You don't trust him."

"He's full of himself and he doesn't take anything seriously and he flirts with all the girls and he dresses stupidly and he's an asshole!" Wait, how loud was that? Sound carries too well in this stupid tomb.

"He's important to the mission. We'd better get used to it."

In normal circumstances, Zell would have growled, and very possibly punched something. But it was surprising, and almost flattering, that Squall had judged his problem so well - Zell was hardly the most difficult person to read, but Squall didn't seem the kind to pick up easily on other people's feelings. And Squall hadn't tried to defend Irvine or villify him, hadn't tried to identify with Zell or talk him into "getting along". He hadn't pretended anything, just spoken the truth of the matter. As if Zell was... not his friend, not quite, but his equal.

From the man who tried his hardest to act like rest of humanity didn't exist, that was a compliment better than a hundred half-discarded muffins.

"Reckon there really is a GF in here?" Zell asked. His voice echoed in a way he didn't like. Zell thought he'd take on any human in the world, or any monster, with never a thought of backing down... but demi-god figures as old as Time who lived in your brain and made your dreams all weird were not Zell's chosen enemy. He wondered how he really felt about having them as allies.

Squall shrugged. "I can't say. But rumours typically have a basis in fact, and the cadets at the door were running away from something. Maybe a monster lives within the tomb and has been confused with a GF. It wouldn't be the first time."

"Or maybe the monster is a GF. Right?"

"We can hope so."

Squall took another careful bite of muffin. "If there is one, we should probably give it to him. Selphie's complaining about having to share Siren." Secretly, Zell hoped that there was a GF, and it was a chocobo with a missing wing.

Squall nodded assent, and Zell noticed that there was a muffin crumb left on his lower lip. He wondered whether to tell Squall about it. Or flick it off with a finger. The latter was probably the better option. Or - hey, muffin crumbs are meant for eating, and if he flicked it off with a finger it might fall into one of the pools of bad water and that'd be a waste, maybe he should just step forward, reach up, and pluck it off Squall's lips with his own...

"Hey!"

Behind Squall, Irvine appeared from a corridor Zell hadn't noticed, waving a hand above his head.

"What?" Zell called out, irritated.

Squall turned around, but didn't say anything.

"I need more Fire spells. There's more Blobras out here than needles on a Cactuar."

Typical of him to waste all our Fire spells, Zell brooded.

"Any hints of the GF?" Squall asked.

"I don't know. There's a big statue thing over there, I Scanned it, and there's huge magic in it. But, hey, could have just been an Ultima draw point that the Unknown King built a statue around, and by now it's turned into Stones..."

"Any magic's worth checking out," Squall said, pulling out his gunblade. "Whether it's a GF or Ultima Stones, it's useful to us." He turned to walk towards Irvine.

"Squall!" Zell said.

Squall turned around. "Yeah?"

Zell flicked at his own lips with a heavy leather fingertip. "You've got a crumb here."

Squall reached up one hand - Zell thought to himself that, weirdly, he could almost count the callouses on it even from this distance - and flicked the crumb away. "Got it?"

Zell nodded.

Squall didn't smile... but behind him, looking at Zell knowingly, Irvine did.

end

Author's Notes and Disclaimer: I don't own any of the above characters, their situation, their muffins, or Final Fantasy VIII, and make no claims to any of them.

...Yeah, it's a strange situation for a fanfic. But it was for a Trapezoidal Challenge. The prompt was "Write any sort of scene you want, so long as it involves The Tomb of the Unknown King and muffins", so I wrote this.