Chapter 24: Where You Are
He had slept well that night, deep dreamless slumber not once interrupted. Only every now and then had he subconsciously drawn the figure at his side deeper into his embrace, strong arms wrapped tightly around the lithe frame that was Squall's body.
Entirely content in his sleep, he turned onto his left side and didn't notice a pair of storm blue eyes fluttering open lazily and growing wide at the sight they were opposed with.
'Seifer…?'
It was late morning, and Squall's mind had awoken before his body had. His eyes stared blankly at the face only mere inches from his, and the skin that was so close that he could see the stubble on the chin. Then, as his muscles were kicked from the dream world, he felt the leg draped over his own and the arm that held him in a tight hug.
Needless to say, Squall's face flushed crimson at the realization of where he was, and with whom he was.
For a minute or two, he simply gaped in horror and disbelief. How in Hyne's name had he ended up in one bed with Seifer, and what had happened after that? For all he was able to see, Seifer wasn't wearing any clothes, and he didn't dare to use his hand or knee to back that impression up by feeling for proof. He lowered his head as far as he could, his blue eyes screening his own body, or whatever wasn't covered by the blanket, anyway. With relief, he saw that he was still wearing his t-shirt, and he felt the fabric of his shorts between his legs.
Overall, that knowledge didn't offer much comfort, though. His face was still hot from the blush, and as much as he roamed every corner in his mind for the memory of what had happened during the night, he could not figure it out. Seifer was simply there, and as a matter of fact, he was all over him.
Suddenly, Squall started to feel very uneasy. He hadn't been that close to anyone in… ever. Him and Rinoa had slept in the same bed a few times, but it had never quite felt like this. The scent of Seifer was everywhere, as was his body. The weight of his arm resting on Squall's side would have maybe felt nice, hadn't it been for the brunette feeling oddly cornered and invaded in his private space.
'This is weird, why am I... why is he... I don't understand. And why is my pillow...'
With much shock, he then realized that his head had actually been resting on Seifer's other arm instead of his pillow, warm skin pressed softly against his own cheek as he laid there, quietly.
Of course, he didn't stay that way much longer.
Without thinking first, Squall immediately pulled away, backing up against the wall behind him. The dozing man at his side acknowledged his rash movements with a muffled groan, but he didn't wake up. Squall closed his eyes and let out a small gasp of relief, before he slowly struggled to sit up in the bed.
'I don't care what happened, I've gotta get out of here.'
Carefully, his face slanted wryly at the shallow pain in his chest, he tried to rise into a squatting position, gingerly bringing one leg and one arm across the sleeping blonde. He had almost managed to move his other limbs over to the other side as well, when the body underneath him stirred and Squall jumped in terror. His left foot lost hold while his right got entangled in the blanket, and before he had a chance of grabbing on to anything, he was sent crashing face forward to the floor. To make matters worse, he even succeeded in kneeing himself in the stomach like the unquestionable professional that he was.
"Ouch!"
With a loud thud and an even louder groan, Squall collapsed to the ground, cursing himself for his clumsiness and stupidity.
Stirred by the loud noise, Seifer's body jolted upwards into a seating position before he had even come close to being fully awake. Blinking, his gaze shot left and right, before it slowly dawned to him that Squall was laying on the floor, somewhat curled together painfully and cussing like a sailor from Fisherman's Horizon.
"Wha… uh…"
He flicked tresses of askew blonde hair from his eyes and stared down upon the miserable boy languidly, before something inside him snapped. Smoothly, he flung himself out of bed and lowered himself into a squatting position.
"The hell are you doing down there? You okay?"
His hand touched Squall's shoulder, who turned to face him reluctantly. A slight blush still graced his high cheek bones, and humiliation was burning from grey blue depths. Squall nodded curtly, then made a vain attempt at struggling to his feet, but failed pathetically.
Seifer leaned forward, one knee now connecting with the grey marble tiles of Squall's living room. He grasped Squall's arm firmly, securing him into place so that he wouldn't try to stand on his own again.
Then their gazes met, and it was as if the moment had suddenly frozen in time. Green and blue just burned into each other, unable to speak, unable to move. Squall marveled over the sunlight reflecting in Seifer's eyes and his wheat blonde hair, while Seifer couldn't keep his inquisitive stare off Squall's softly glistening pair of lips and the many different hues of blue and grey that rushed through his wide eyes. For the length of a heartbeat, he felt the desperate need of leaning forward to close the space between their faces surge through him with the force of a tidal wave. Before he could follow his feelings though, the young man facing him suddenly turned his head and broke their eye contact.
"Nothing," Squall breathed, his voice sounding choppy. "I'm fine."
Seifer stared at him almost pleadingly, trying to hold on to the tender moment by any means, but it had passed, and his thumping heart settled back in his chest with disappointment.
Slowly, Squall scrambled upwards until he stood tall again, Seifer all the while mirroring his movements, ready to support the other man's body if needed. The brunette studied him silently, a flash of confusion passing over his features before he blushed again and shrugged Seifer's hand off. He opened his mouth, trying to ask what had happened during the night, then changed his mind and glued his lips together again quickly.
"What? What is it?"
The brunette shook his head, ignoring the questioning look in his opposite's face.
"Don't give me that, open your mouth for Hyne's sake!"
Again, Squall scowled but said nothing. He lowered his gaze, suddenly taking in the fact that Seifer was wearing a pair of shorts after all. Squall's blush deepened when he mused that Seifer was probably the guy with the best looking body he had ever seen. Many would say that the brunette, though much more slender, had a rather fine built himself, but compared to his brawny rival, Squall felt extremely insecure and self-conscious - he always had.
"Damn, if I wouldn't know any better I'd say you suffer from fucking lockjaw, Leonhart."
Frustrated at himself as well as the shorter boy, Seifer pushed past Squall and vanished into the kitchen. It took him a minute to work off his tension by pointlessly shifting dishes around and chugging a glass of water, before he returned to the living room, finding Squall rooted to the same exact spot and looking back at him blankly. The way he was standing there, a much too large shirt dangling from his shoulders and his eyes all pure and light, Seifer felt like he was looking at a puppy who had just been snatched from the jaws of death, rather than a grumpy eighteen year old gunblader who was the respective commander of Balamb Garden.
Sighing, the blonde leaned backwards against the nearest wall, fixing Squall out of attentive pools of liquid emerald.
"Do you remember what happened last night?"
Dark brown brows lowered, and the younger blader placed most of his weight onto one foot before shaking his head contritely.
"Figures," Seifer sneered, then grew serious again. "You had a nightmare or something, I guess, 'cause you were mumbling all sorts of weird things. I woke you up and you almost crushed my skull for it, thanks a lot by the way."
Squall's narrow nose curled, but he remained silent.
"Then you glomped me like a little school girl and wouldn't let me out of your bed again, so I ended up spending the night there. You were all over me, I swear, I didn't know you had it in you, Leonhart."
He chuckled at the lethal expression that darkened Squall's face. So yeah, he was exaggerating and stretching the truth a little, but that frown made it all worth his while.
"Bastard," Squall hissed coldly, finally leaving his chosen spot of tarrying to gather some of his clothes out of a closet and slam the door shut behind himself as he entered the bathroom.
"Tsk. No sense of humor whatsoever."
Seifer returned to the kitchen and begun to prepare a rather extensive breakfast. He placed fruit salad, pancakes, cereal, juice and coffee on the dining table, right along with a fresh set of dishes.
Just in time, the bathroom door flung open again, emitting Squall Leonhart sporting a head of messy wet brown hair, typical black and white wardrobe, a pair of leather gloves and his favorite frown.
"Breakfast is served, your highness," Seifer announced with a mock bow.
"Will you cut that shit out?"
"What do you mean, your royal glacierness?"
If looks were capable of ending a human life, Seifer Almasy would have died a hundred deaths on the spot. Unfortunately for Squall, his well placed death glares resulted in nothing but a laughing blonde twenty year old gunblader who was oozing with impertinence.
"Leonhart, you wouldn't know humor if it smacked you right up that pretty face of yours."
"Don't talk to me like I am a fucking girl."
"Touchy, aren't we just?"
"Fuck you, Seifer."
"Maybe later, frisky kitty. You want some breakfast?"
Squall buried his hands in his pockets and shook his head just to be intractable. Seifer realized that he wasn't going to get anywhere with his momentary route, so he decided to try something else.
Instead of making the brunette eat, he'd just leave him the hell alone.
"Do whatever you want, I'm going to take a shower."
He trudged by the irritated SeeD, though not without seizing the chance to swat him over the head once more. For a moment, he also caught a whiff of Squall's after shave or soap, a faint smell of sea and sand. It was a rather intoxicating scent.
'Mmh.'
"Quit doing that," Squall snapped.
"Don't tell me you're afraid I'm gonna ruin your hairdo, Leonhart. 'Cause frankly, you don't have one."
"Go drown yourself in the tub, Almasy," the other hissed darkly, his dry sense of humor flashing up just momentarily.
Seifer paid him an amused chuckle before he disappeared into the bathroom. The mirrors and walls were still steamed over, which mildly surprised him because he had expected Squall to prefer ice cold showers over anything else. Then again, the previous night had proved that "his glacierness" wasn't all that averse to warmth and comfort.
Taking care of his morning toilet ritual, Seifer wondered if Squall really didn't remember anything. His dream had to have been rather vivid, and aside from that they had quarreled for quite a while, too. Maybe his mind had just pushed the memory away because it hurt, which was something that Seifer had seen the brunette do quite frequently. He liked to lock up all of his emotions, which was the only reason why he was able to maintain such a perfect impersonification of pure frigidness.
'Hmph. Considering that he was crying, that sure was some emotion right there. Too bad he probably just tossed it to his pile of other emotional debris.'
He flushed, stripped and stepped into the shower. Squall's bathroom was quite big, actually, since he had a large bathtub as well as a separate shower. Why exactly the brunette had a tub was beyond him, since even with all the imagination he could muster, he couldn't possibly picture Squall Leonhart having a bubble bath.
Once the water was running, he shut out all of his thoughts concerning the ice princess and simply enjoyed the heat and the smell of Squall's ocean scented soap. Hot showers were something that Seifer thoroughly savored, and he liked to take his time.
Finallt, over thirty minutes later, he had dried his hair, shaved, and walked out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel slung around his waist. He was of course trying to aggravate and embarrass his roommate, but to his surprise and disappointment, he found the rest of the apartment quite deserted.
'At least the ice princess ate something.'
Indeed, one of the plates had been removed from the table, and the stack of pancakes had shrunk noticeably. Seifer would have much preferred to have them warm and in the company of a certain dark haired gunblader, but he knew what he had bargained for. If he wanted to coax the brunette into eating, he'd have to make some sacrifices.
'He was right. I am turning into a mother hen.'
Shuddering at himself in disgust, he decided that no matter how much he did care for the stubborn brat, he was not going to baby him any longer. Squall was eighteen years old after all and had a mouth to match his own if he really gave it a try. He wasn't matron, anyway - it wasn't his job to play Squall's substitute mother.
All of Seifer's earnest resolutions were crushed to nothingness, though, when his heart jolted sharply as he noticed the open container that had formerly contained LionHeart.
"Formerly", because LionHeart was no longer there.
'Fuck. Kadowaki is going to kill me.'
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To be continued!
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-Dedicated to Tigger, Nala, Simba and Leia-
This is to your paws on my hands, your heads against mine and your purring that I'll always feel right next to my heart.
I miss you.
.
Hmm this is going to take more chapters than I originally thought… damn you for being sooo stubborn, Squall, I had to change some of the timeline of the story again… as it looks right now, this will be about 34-36 chapters long and bound to need a sequel if you guys want to see any real action. But we shall see, I usually change my mind during the process, anyway. I just can't seem to fit any bed-action anywhere, not before Squall confesses his feelings, anyway, and that's gonna be the big bang… accckkkkk okay I am telling too much, someone shut me up.
By the way, with English not being my native language and all I really have problems with things like "yours/your's" etc and spell checker isn't helping me any -- I try to be as accurate as possible, but errhhh you see how it goes -- so if I made any mistakes I am really sorry, and I'd be happy if you'd point them out to me since I don't have a beta reader to go through this.
Why is it that my kittens always lay on my arms when I try to comment on reviews? Is this an omen o.0 ACK! Either way, it doesn't help lol Anyway, on with it even though my arms start to hurt
(Author's Note: Reading this now, over a year later, makes me incredibly sad. My kittens were the sweetest things ever, I love them so much. They got shot by some bastard of a hunter. I'd give anything to have them laying on my arms again like they used to. Tigger, Nala, Simba and Leia - I hope you have lots of mice to chase and games to play in kitty heaven. I'll miss you until I get to see you again.)