here and now
By llamajoy
here and now
By llamajoy
you can turn traitor
you can turn on your heels
but you can’t change later
here and now just how good we can feel
--del amitri
He rubbed irritably at his eyes, awake first. As usual. Hell, it wasn’t even dawn, no need to be up this early on a training day. Which it wasn’t, even. He hated off-days. No point. Only a reminder of all the hard work you were putting off.
When had he turned so bitter? He shivered under the blankets.
The soft rumbling sound of his lover still sleeping was no longer relaxing. Now he just envied him, sound asleep on his back, shirtless with the covers pulled up to his shoulders. With his hand flung over his head.
Hiding his face, even in slumber.
The sheets were tangled between their legs, his lover’s feet slightly chilly against his calves. So like him. Not much warmth to give, not even curled beside him in a narrow dormitory bed. He knew that if he tried to rise, he’d just disturb him. Not that the bastard didn’t deserve a wake-up.
He smirked unconsciously, and pulled all the covers to his side of the bed.
Spluttering as only an acutely self-aware, highly polished, top-ranking cadet can splutter, his lover woke.
"Morning, Seifer," Squall said, feeling better already.
Seifer swung a bare arm and snatched as many blankets as he could in one handful, dragged them up over his head. "Fuck no," his voice was muffled. "It’s not even light yet."
"Good practice," Squall said dryly, sitting up on one elbow. "Tomorrow we’d already be on the field by now."
"Shut up, Leonhart." Seifer’s face emerged from the mass of sheets, looking curious and not near as groggily displeased as Squall would have guessed from his voice. "The hell you want?"
Squall shook his head. "Nothing." Which wasn’t entirely untrue. He wanted some silence, some freedom from knowing the boy next to him was peacefully sleeping while he was forced to lie and watch. He wanted to leave, which he’d never been able to do while Seifer was still sleeping. So he’d stopped trying.
Seifer narrowed his eyes, a thin smile playing on his lips. "’Nothing’?" He imitated Squall’s noncomittal tone to perfection, with just the slightest mocking twist. "So early, Leonhart?" He snaked an arm out of the warm haven of blankets, tracing a finger across the bridge of Squall’s nose. "Couldn’t even let me sleep another fifteen minutes?"
Frowning selfconsciously, Squall could feel the blood rising to his cheeks. "Did I say that?" he snapped, feeling Seifer’s questing hand teasing down his throat, across his abdomen, dipping beneath his sleeping pants. Rather belatedly, he muttered, "Leave me alone."
Of course, it was too late, and he wasn’t entirely upset about that. Seifer’s mouth was the only warm thing about him, it seemed, and it was a potent kind of feeling to have that heat trailing aggressive kisses down his chest.
He stirred involuntarily into Seifer’s touch, feeling his muscles tighten of their own accord. Quietly he absorbed the building waves of sensation, not giving Seifer the satisfaction of a whimper, or a whispered name.
Though he might have wanted to.
It was over with fairly quickly; Seifer’s trigger-sensitive fingers were murder on Squall’s resistance. He stiffened as he came, feeling Seifer’s bloodhound smile, scenting his pleasure and greedy for it. Squall willingly surrendered-- like the first time he’d ever called Shiva, dancing ice crystals shivering through his veins, splintering through his heart. And damn but it was just as powerful.
It never occurred to him not to return the favor. It was what Seifer expected, and therefore what he must do... but there was no bitterness to the obligation. Watching his eyelids flutter closed was a fierce kind of satisfaction-- to distract those quick, clever eyes, to turn his focus within.
He knew what Seifer liked; he’d shared his bed long enough to know what would displease him-- and longer, enough that he didn’t really care to walk that line.
And Seifer liked it like he liked his fights, fast and brutally effective.
So he expertly divested Seifer of his shorts, dropping them next to his own discarded clothes on the floor. And without much preamble, Squall dipped his head, and took Seifer in his mouth, the whole heavy aching length of him. He was gratified to hear the pitch of Seifer’s silence change abruptly.
"Not wasting time, are you, Leonhart?"
Not wasting words, either. Nothing to say, really; Seifer always teased, even if it were what he’d asked for. Squall held Seifer’s hips down to the mattress, not letting him squirm, forcing all his pent-up energy into the burning heat between his legs, and sucking him for all he was worth.
Seifer moaned, his breath catching. "Think you have me-- ahh-- pinned, brat?" No, thought Squall, I know I do. But he let him talk; Seifer turned himself on that way. "You want to have-- nnnn-- your way with me, do you? Think anything could get the better of Seif-- Sei--"
But he couldn’t finish saying his own name, and Squall was fiercely proud, swallowing the rush of his rival’s helpless come.
"Mm. You’re improving, Leonhart," Seifer mumbled, his voice already sleepy through the husky timber of sated desire. "I could almost forget," here he yawned luxuriously, "that my feet were fucking icicles..."
Squall almost smiled; there was always something. Surely enough, the blankets had slid off the bed into a rumpled slightly damp heap on the floor. He fished them up, wrestling with the twisted mass of them, and spread them over the bed. Seifer didn’t help, hands over his face again, mouth drifting open.
Almost asleep.
On other mornings, Squall would have extracted himself from the bed then, pulling on his pants and heading for his own room. Seifer would make fun of him for it later, but then, Seifer would rib him for anything at all. Only an extra incentive.
Squall tucked himself against Seifer’s side, the other boy’s bodywarmth actually kind of-- pleasant. He hid a wan smile in the crook of his elbow, watching the slow rise and fall of Seifer’s profile as he snored.
Something had changed. Or maybe it was that nothing at all had changed, when it should have. Either way, he could suddenly sense the beginning of the end. He surprised himself, then, by realizing that he actually gave a shit. What they had was all Squall had ever known, really, and he was abruptly and unpleasantly aware that he couldn’t just take it or leave it.
He would miss the arrogant rude mean-spirited little prick, if something ever happened. He stopped kidding himself. Given Seifer’s confrontational personality? When that something ever happened.
He sighed. Fucking deep thoughts for oh-six hundred hours. He lay an arm-- daringly-- across Seifer’s chest, resting his head against the familiar bittersweet presence and tried to go back to sleep.
Not surprisingly, he could not, so he lifted his chin and stared out the blind-slatted window beyond the bed, beyond Seifer, watching the sun rise.
~fin~