Title: Sparring
Author: Traxits
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Pairing: Irvine Kinneas/Zell Dincht, established relationship.
Rating: Teen for one f-bomb.
Word Count: 508 words.
Request: Final Fantasy VIII, Irvine/Zell, rubdown; for the "Intimacy without Sex" category.
Summary: Irvine suffers through sparring with Zell for one moment. Slice of life ficlet.
Author's Note(s): Written for the "Fic Promptly" community on Dreamwidth.

[[ … One-Shot … ]]

Irvine had more bruises than he ever cared to count. It seemed that no matter how much he went through all of the practices that Zell had shown him, he didn't get better. At all. Admittedly, were he sparring with anyone but Zell, he probably could have held his own better. But sparring with Zell was distracting.

Honestly, Irvine couldn't have even said what started the whole thing. Zell liked to shadowbox, so Irvine was fairly sure that it had started that way ("I took unarmed combat too, Zell. C'mon."). However it had happened, it had rapidly become a one-a-week thing. It was a thing that Irvine looked forward too.

Not for the actual sparring match itself. That was hell. The 'match' mostly consisted of Irvine attempting to block, and Zell pulling punches when he knew they would connect. Irvine's middle was perpetually varying colors, everything from purple to a dull yellowy-brown. Sometimes, he'd sport a really good bruise on his jawline to match. He was that kind of guy, after all.

But after the match. After Zell had come down slowly, after they'd showered and Irvine could wince and touch his newest bruises with ghost-like fingertips, Zell would sigh and take him back to his room. That was Irvine's favorite part.

Zell had some sort of balm to put on bruises, and Irvine would get to stretch out over the bed while Zell carefully applied it to each bruise he could find.

For someone trained to kill with his fists, he had a gentle touch, and Irvine liked to watch him in the mirror, where Zell didn't notice. Zell had a variety of expressions as he would work, and Irvine had rapidly categorized them. There was the 'oh-shit' expression, where Zell's brow would furrow and his jaw would tense as he applied the balm to a particularly bad bruise. That one was always accompanied by a low, "You're fuckin' suicidal, Kinneas."

Irvine often wondered if there wasn't a small kernel of truth in that statement.

Then there was the 'concentrating' expression, where Zell would part his lips and bite just the tip of his tongue as he applied bruise balm. That one was the most common, and Irvine had often wondered if Zell even realized that he did it. Just slightly less common was the 'proud-of-himself' expression, where Zell's lips would quirk in a little grin and his eyes would widen just a touch. It popped up whenever Irvine's bruises made a particularly interesting pattern.

The craziest thing about the whole scenario though, was the very simple fact that Zell knew him better than anyone else. He knew that little patch of skin over Irvine's ribs where he was impossibly ticklish; he knew that if he applied just the right amount of pressure on a certain point on Irvine's back, Irvine would melt under him. It was unnerving on many levels, and in some ways, it made the moment that much more... something.

Irvine wasn't the sort of guy to question. He just went with it.