Squall POV
Then
The days were growing colder, and the nights shorter, and it already seemed like I'd known him for a lifetime before I popped the question.
"If you've got nothing going on you know…"
"No it's fine, have you booked a table? I know this chick… she can get us a discount"
"Oh yeah, s'pose it gets busy at weekends,." I feel foolish. Of course you need to book in advance, that's what people dating do, they go out on weekends. Go out to restaurants, and the one in Balamb hotel is the only decent one for miles, of course it would be packed.
"Do you think we'll get a table?" It's all going wrong, already. I mean Christ, I should have asked him earlier… I should have booked a table…
"I'll sort it all out, don't you worry." He kisses me lightly on the forehead. How does he do that? Stay so calm, when so much could go wrong. And I want it to go well, I really do, I mean what if he doesn't like it and it gets awkward… and then everything gets awkward, and I lose him? I don't know what I'd do without him.
"I'd better be off, it's getting late, and I've got a few things I need to do…" he slips away, and I'm left alone again.
The nights are cooler, and the mornings have a crispness they didn't used to have, soon there will be frost on the ground and all the wonders of winter will show themselves again. The sunshine becomes weak, the ground turns hard a crunchy underfoot, your breath comes out in white clouds which hangs on the air, and then finally… snow. My favourite thing about winter is the silence that comes with snow. Complete silence, which blankets everything, and seems to get everywhere. It makes me feel like I'm a million miles away from anyone, like I could scream and scream until I was breathless and still no one would hear me. Any other time I'd sit and watch in fascination at how the world is constantly changing, always, in it's constant cycle but right now I want it to stop, just fix itself as it is now, just for a little while. I don't know what we'll do when the weather changes. When it's to cold to stay out long, or when rain pours constantly for 3 days solid. We got caught out in a summer storm a few weeks ago, but it was hot and the rain was cooling and sexual. Autumnal rain would not be nearly as exciting. But time never stays still, no matter how much you want it to.
On Saturday evening at eight o'clock we met in Balamb, We had a table outside, and by the time we arrive the sun was already setting, and it was dim enough that no one would easily recognise us. I had been unbelievably nervous as I waited for him, but it all dissolved as he emerged from the shadows where he had been waiting. He waited! Oh, the little things he did still made m heart quicken. He led the way, and spoke for the both of us, skipped the starter but had a side dish of salad, which we shared, just like a real couple. I had a pasta dish, he had something meatier, he even ordered some modest chardonnay… and well I hadn't drunk much before. I had never really had the opportunity, or reason to. By dessert, a sweet tartlet thing with a dollop of cream which I ordered but we ended up sharing, and chardonnay bottle number two I had found my tongue:
"You really are wonderful, you know that Seif… I mean, everything, this... this place this meal, and … you'know, everything. I just want you to know; you're so nice." And he looked at me with those azure eyes so complacently.
"I know you do love, but I think we'd better be going." Honestly I don't remember paying the bill, or leaving the table, but after we sat on the dock, his legs straddling me, his arms wrapped around me in silence, while I talked and talked about bullshit. It was my little ray of heaven.
Seifer POV
Then
The moon was high and the waters calm, Squall was drunk, his usual nervous stiffness he had in public had all but disappeared, and he talked like there was no tomorrow.
"Shhh… kitten" I whisper sweeping hair behind his ear. It seems to work, as he goes dead silent, like he's holding his breath.
"Squally?" I mutter but before I realize what's happening he has spun him self around on the spot to face me, frantically kissing me while trying to pry my trousers open,
"Whoa, Squally" I mutter and wriggle slightly, afraid the young boy might pull both of us into the water, but I too am up for a little something, and his kissing seems so desperate. I manage to pry him away just long enough to stand up, and stagger slightly over to behind so cool damp cargo boxes, he follows like he's part of me, never more than half a step behind and as soon as I stop, we continue.
The air is thick and salty, enticing and exotic. He bends down to continue the proceedings, but I stop him…
"How about…" I spin him around, and ease his trousers down gently from behind, his flesh is chalk white, as if laminating a light all its own, but smooth and hot to touch. I feel my way, in the dark un-chartered waters, but I know where to go by instinct. He cried out, gripping the cargo with small fists quite a lot, but by then neither of us seemed aware of out surroundings. It was just the two of us trapped in the moment.
And when it ended? Well he collapsed on the floor, a writhing mass of euphoric alcohol induced bliss, he seemed happy enough not to have the favour returned, if I'm being totally honest I think he was a little too far gone to be up to much. But though I was fulfilled I was not happy, had he really wanted to de that? The sky was inky black, and the town had gone to bed, I paced, turning ideas over in my head, and seriously considered leaving him behind the cargo sleeping like a bum, but eventually the guilt won over and I slung him over my shoulder and headed for the garden. Not that we got there, I too had been drinking, and was genuinely exhausted by the time I had traipsed through Balamb, with Squall across my back. I gave up as we reached the woods, and dozed, keeping watch over Squall, his gentle breathing and un-creased features, until at the first lights of day my eyes wouldn't stay open and I fell into a deep troubled sleep.
When I came round the sun was high in the sky and Squall had gone.
Squall POV
Now
"Times change, I guess" He turns to leave, but pauses there, waiting to hear my reply.
"It almost killed me, you know that?" Its all my effort I can muster to stop my voice from hitching, this is a conversation I should not be having, but the need for answers has been eating away at me for nearly ten years answers that have consumed me, changed me, aged me well beyond my years. Seifers aged too, though it was probably down to the cigarettes. He was not the empowering prefect he once was, his face had thickened; around his eyes, not quite the perfect complexion he used to have, and his cheeks where more hollow. Him! He was the one I pinned all my blame on, he had taken my heart, and he had torn it to shreds, He had been my world, I had been just another fling for him.
He turns to me with such resolution it makes me want to throw him down and forgive him, the way we did when we were young, fumbling and furious, a fire deep in your loins which had to subside before either of us could be anything close to civil, let alone caring, loving.
"That's why I stopped seeing you… I couldn't bear to watch you die…" he sighed, a great weight off his chest. But I almost did, and I wanted to scream at him, 'Why? If you cared so much why did you do it… was I not enough for you? If you cared even half as much as I had… leaving like you did would have killed you' But I couldn't, I knew all the answers already, and they weren't the answers I wanted, and time could do nothing to change that.
