lotus_beauty

Occupational Hazard parts 2 & 3 ^^

Part 2

"Holy shit." Squall stared at the expanse of the entry and front room beyond as well as the staircase that took his eyes up to the second story. He stared in shock and bewilderment before setting his guitar down to trot back outside to look at the exterior of the house. "I must be losing it. I didn’t even look at the place before I walked in," he murmured and stared up at the house.

"I have a distracting quality." Seifer smirked as he leaned on the doorway.

"I’ll say." Squall shook his head and walked past him into the atrium. "I never could resist a fight."

"So, I’m irresistible, huh?" Seifer let out his patented smirk, remembering all of the scuffles they’d gotten in as children as well as when they were young adults.

"I wouldn’t put it like that." The brunette threw a wad of paper at the taller man, making a face when Seifer deftly caught it and slipped it in his jacket pocket. "Jerk."

"Thank you." Seifer bowed, pleased. He snorted when the singer rolled his eyes amused.

"How did you get THIS place?" Squall asked curiously as he picked his guitar up again, his eyes wandering around.

"Well, working for the president has its perks... and a big paycheck," the blonde replied with a grin as he took off his jacket and hung it up.

"No kidding..." The brunette spun around slowly, taking the large atrium in. Seifer could tell that he didn’t really know which direction to go yet so he took it upon himself to start the tour.

"Hungry?" The taller pulled his tie loose and over his head as he lead the singer away to the left. He could hear Squall’s boots hitting the floor lightly behind him and glanced down at them. He was slightly surprised at what little noise the big boots made, but then again, Squall had been trained as a military soldier. Squall was probably used to making as little noise as possible. Though, his leather coat and pants did little to stop the noise.

"I left my guitar out there... Is that okay?" the singer asked curiously.

"Yeah." Seifer waved his hand before pushing the door of the kitchen open and making a beeline for the fridge. "Rika will get it."

"Rika? Is she your-"

"NO." Seifer cut him off roughly as he stopped in front of the fridge, staring at the door for a moment before turning and saying softer. "No, she’s my maid." He opened the fridge, feeling a bit awkward.

"Oh." Squall stayed rooted to a spot just in front of the door, silently fidgeting a bit.

"Hungry for anything?" The blonde asked as he searched the fridge with his eyes.

"Not really..." the singer mumbled.

Seifer sighed and let the fridge close as he came around the island counter in the middle of the kitchen to pull Squall to a stool at the island and sit him down upon it. "Look, I’m sorry about that, but..."

"It’s alright, Seifer. I understand," the brunette said as he looked into the taller man’s eyes, smiling a bit before taking his gaze to the counter. "Got any pizza?" He glanced back up again, hopeful.

Seifer let their previous conversation drop and smiled. "Yeah. You like pepperoni?"

Squall nodded with his smile getting a bit bigger. "And cheese."

"Good, because that’s about all I have." The blonde opened the freezer and pulled out two pizzas, grinning when Squall rolled his eyes. "Trust me. I can eat a full one."

"I don’t doubt that. But are you sure I don’t eat more?" Squall replied mischievously.

"Hah! The only person who could out eat me was Zell," the blonde replied as he turned to twist a knob on the oven, setting it to the right temperature.

"Hyne, don’t remind me." Squall put a hand to his stomach. "It makes me sick just thinking about it."

"Sorry. I forget you have to live with him." Seifer chuckled.

"Well, hopefully not anymore." The brunette rested his elbows on the counter and leaned forward. "I kinda like it here."

The taller laughed. "There’s lots of space for us to fight. Inside and out!" He waggled his eyebrows as the younger man chuckled softly. "Then again, if we get pissed at one another, it will be easy to find some space."

"I’d say this place is heaven sent then." Squall smiled.

"Are you sure that you can tolerate living with me?" Seifer asked, slightly amused as he set each pizza on its own tray to put into the oven.

"We lived together for years Seifer. Just because we were kids didn’t mean we couldn’t tolerate one another," the singer replied. "And besides, I can see that you’re a lot more responsible than you were."

"It’s been four years," the blonde stated. "Some things have changed, others haven’t." He looked down at his hands, seeing one band of silver on a finger before ignoring it and going on with his task, putting the pizzas in the oven.

"Hm, I guess you’re right." Squall fiddled with the leather and silver choker resting on his neck.

"So, I guess I’ll show you around while the pizzas are cooking. Sound good?" Seifer asked to receive a nod. "Alright, it should take about 25 minutes for our food to cook so we should have plenty of time." He strolled over and pulled Squall off of his stool, dragging him toward another door as the singer laughed a bit. "This way!"

~*~*~

Over the next two weeks, Squall moved in but was very busy after getting adjusted. The two men rarely saw one another with their busy schedules until one Saturday, when Seifer awoke to the sound of a cell phone ringing. It was a very odd ring that Seifer distinctly remembered he did not program into his phone. The bleary eyed blonde found himself on the couch in the front room on the main floor, where he’d collapsed the night before and grabbed whatever was making the noise.

"Huuullo?" he mumbled into it after clicking the button.

"Squall?" a very confused female asked.

"Squall?" the blonde’s face contorted and he yawned. "This is Seifer."

"Oh my god. Seifer?! Is that really you???" It was Selphie. He could tell by the insane amount of screeching that was now being emitted from the blasted phone. Again.

"Please don’t yell into the-" Too late, he thought and winced as she squealed to whoever else was in the room.

"How ARE you Seifer? Is everything going okay over there? Squall just up and left a few weeks ago and said he was going to live with you. We didn’t know what to think even though he didn’t say anything else, but he said he wasn’t quitting the band and so we were okay with that, but we were just confused as to why he was living with you because you guys hardly ever got along at all and-"

"SELPHIE!" Seifer stopped the maniacal chatterbox. "What do you want?"

"Oh, um, well we got a call and an interview was moved up a few days, to today, so I need to tell Squall to get his ass downtown," she explained.

"Well, gimmie a sec... I think he’s still asleep..." the blonde said and stood, stretching for a moment, before trotting up the stairs, down the hall, bursting into the singer’s room. He grabbed Squall’s shoulder, being less than gentle while still sort of half asleep, and shook the singer a bit. "Squall, phone."

"Tell them I’m asleep," the brunette grumbled and put the pillow over his head.

Seifer sighed, slightly amused. "I did. It’s Selphie. She says you have an interview today."

"No we don’t," Squall croaked.

"You do now."

A steel blue eye peered out from under the pillow and he reached up for the phone, receiving it from the blonde to hide it under the pillow with him. "Hello? ...What??" A sigh emanated from under the pillow. "FINE. I’ll be there in an hour, okay? Bye." Another sigh was heard.

"Need a ride?" Seifer asked.

"That would be much appreciated." Squall dug himself out of the blankets and stood. "Seeing as you JUST bought the motorcycle yesterday and I can tell you’re just itching to drive the thing."

"I think it’s the wind in my hair that does it." The blonde smirked.

"You wear a helmet."

"I was being facetious."

"I would rather you were clean. You kinda smell." Squall resisted the urge to smile, but lost.

"Thanks," Seifer murmured deadpan. "You take your shower," he gestured to the bathroom adjoined to Squall’s room, "and I’ll go to my room and take my shower. Then we’ll be like twins."

Squall snorted as he started toward the bathroom. "I’d shoot myself if I were your brother."

"Why?" Seifer asked as his eyes wandered over the brunette, realizing that the singer still cut a perfect figure.

"Think about it." Squall leaned in the bathroom doorway.

"I’m sure there are some more reasons than that."

"No, just that."

"I highly doubt we’re related in any way." Seifer rolled his eyes as he started toward the door. "Trust me."

"Oh? How would you know?"

"I don’t, but I’d shoot myself before you." The blonde leaned on the frame of the door to the hallway, facing the singer.

"Why?"

"Because I’m the one who started it." And with that, he walked out.

~*~*~

Part 3

"Why do you think you started it?" The man before Seifer asked.

"Well..." The blonde thought for a moment. "We all felt it was the best action for the people." He smiled.

Seifer was sitting at a table, in a small but comfortable room across the table from a reporter. He watched the tape in the recorder sitting in the center of the table spin slowly as his thoughts moved backwards.

After his shower, Seifer had brought Squall down to the radio station, playing as if he were tagging along that Saturday, when in fact, he had an interview as well and found it a happy accident that Squall had to go down to the same place too. He followed the singer quickly down the halls as the man leading him made the maze of halls look simple to navigate.

Squall knocked on one of the doors to receive a resounding "COME IN!" and murmured, "Here we go." As soon as the door opened, everyone screeched when they saw the blonde. Suddenly, Seifer found himself with a Selphie on his hip and a Zell clapping his back. It was... odd to say the least, and reminded him of his last year at the Balamb Garden.

Only a few minutes had passed when their interviewer arrived and Seifer bowed out to go to his interview. They were surprised to find that he too was going to be interviewed on a rock station. Seifer took pride in his monthly radio interviews for the simple fact that a lot of young people listened to what he had to say because they understood that he was still young too. He also felt he was helping young adults find their political place, something he didn’t know he really could have. Seifer was still finding his place, but if he stayed with his job in politics long enough, he figured he would pick a side, or at least his own spot eventually.

As the interviewer, Rob he’d introduced himself as, finished up his questions, Seifer wondered if the band was done with theirs. He’d noticed how Squall had a kind of glow about him when everyone assembled to do the interview. Squall might have complained about the group, but Seifer could tell that they were quite a tight nit family. The singer loved them, even though they annoyed him. Seifer began to envy their closeness. The blonde was brought out of his reverie by the clicking of the tape recorder that Rob had shut off.

"We’re done," the young man said as he smiled. "Thank you for your time Mr. Almasy."

Seifer stood and shook Rob’s hand. "Oh geez, call me Seifer. You make me feel old and I’m the same freaking age as you." He grinned.

"Well, I’ll be doing your interviews from now on, so I guess I’ll see you next month Seifer." Rob nodded.

"Same to you," Seifer saluted him and strolled out of the room. Once the door was shut behind him, the blonde stretched and yawned. He felt like he needed a nap. Maybe he was getting old.

"Why didn’t you tell me?"

The blonde turned to see Squall leaning against the wall next to the door, staring straight ahead. Seifer tilted his head as he looked at Squall’s profile, which was nearly perfect. He really just liked the perfection of Squall’s face... and his eyes, but then again, he didn’t really want to get started on Squall’s eyes at that moment.

"Tell you what?" he finally answered.

Squall looked over. "That you had an interview too."

"I had to go too so I didn’t really think about it..." The blonde’s hand touched Squall’s right ear. "I didn’t know you had so many piercings..."

"Yeah, I’ve had those for a while," the brunette answered quietly.

Seifer let his hand drop and looked away uneasily. "Sorry."

Squall shook his head. "It’s okay. Let’s just go."

"Alright," the blonde nodded and led them out to his bike.

"Um... Seifer..." the brunette murmured as they entered the parking lot.

"Hey, I’ve got a question. How come you don’t have a bodyguard?" Seifer asked suddenly, trying to change the subject he knew that the singer had in his mind. "Don’t fans ever bug you? I mean, you saved the world once."

"We’re still on an indie label, and people usually get the feeling we want to be left alone. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something." Squall said quickly as he came around to the other side of the bike when Seifer stopped at it.

"Is this about earlier?" Seifer asked to receive a nod. He sighed quietly before replying. "Well, I guess all you have to remember is that I started it, and you ended it," he said bluntly and watched Squall wince. "You remember don’t you?" The brunette looked away. "I see. Well, we better get home then." The blonde climbed onto his new bike and Squall behind him, holding him around the waist.

This time, on the way back, he didn’t enjoy the feel of someone’s arms around him so much. It reminded him all too greatly of times that he couldn’t reach anymore.

~*~*~

Another two weeks passed, another busy two weeks in which the two men didn’t see each other or speak much again.

A month, Seifer thought, they’d been living together for a month and they hadn’t killed one another. It was a miracle. Then again, it was a big house, and they were always in and out at different times. The blonde smiled as he stepped off of his bike and walked toward the door. It was the last day of his stint of meetings and Laguna had given him a few weeks off to rest. Thank Hyne for sleep. He desperately wanted it now.

Seifer unlocked the door and slipped in, pulling his jacket off to move to the closet and put it away. He made his way toward the stairs as he glanced into the front room and saw Squall sitting on the floor, leaning on the coffee table, which was covered in papers. The blonde, curious, went into the room to inspect and found the papers to be sheet music that Squall had been scribbling on. The singer himself was out cold. Seifer wondered how much sleep a band member really got after all the interviews, lives and such.

After kneeling down next to the brunette, Seifer lifted Squall’s face from the coffee table and pulled the man into his arms. Squall was lighter than he’d expected. The singer didn’t even squirm; he just leaned on the blonde, making Seifer smile a bit. He carried the singer out of the room, up the stairs and down the hall to his room. As the blonde was carefully setting Squall on his bed, the singer wrapped his arms around Seifer’s neck and nuzzled his cheek.

"Stay," he murmured.

"Squall... I can’t," Seifer replied quietly, trying to keep his wits.

"Please... Just for the night..." Squall breathed and Seifer glanced over, realizing Squall was still asleep. He watched as the singer slid back into a deeper sleep and waited until Squall’s grip loosened to slip from his grasp. A shaky sigh escaped Seifer’s throat as he swallowed the lump in his throat and sat, leaning back on the bed. He couldn’t do this; he couldn’t take advantage of something Squall said in his sleep.

Seifer ran a hand through his hair as he tried to push away his feelings. They’d come back so suddenly, but he couldn’t forget the feeling of Squall’s arms around him, especially when he’d always wished to have them back so badly. They brought memories of their fleeting relationship back at Balamb. Reminiscing on it, he knew that eventually Squall would leave him for his music. He didn’t blame Squall so much as he blamed himself for falling for someone like Squall and not being able to go with him. But it still hurt. It hurt like hell to want someone that he felt was unattainable.

The blonde looked at the back of his left hand and twisted the ring on his first finger until the Griever symbol showed. He bit his lip as he stared at it. Squall wouldn’t have given it to him unless he felt something too, right? He glanced back at the sleeping singer and stood to lean over the bed and look at the choker that Squall always seemed to wear lately. It was leather, but the middle front area had been cut out and replaced with a long flat piece of unmarked silver. Seifer carefully and quietly reached out to turn the silver over and stared at the engraving on the other side for a moment. Seifer Almasy was written clearly on the other side. He wondered briefly if the chain had broken...

With a shake of his head, Seifer let go of the choker and moved away from the bed and toward the door. He would talk to Squall about it later. The singer was probably as dead tired as he was.

"Seifer."

The blonde stopped with his hand on the door handle and half turned to see Squall sitting up and looking at him warily.

"Why are you in my room?" He looked down at himself. "And why am I still dressed?"

"I found you sleeping in the front room downstairs." Seifer turned all the way to the brunette and leaned back on the door. "I can take you back down if you’d like. I’m sure the coffee table was incredibly comfortable."

The singer rubbed his undoubtedly sore neck and shook his head. "No, thank you."

Seifer smirked. He never understood the sick pleasure he got when he won against Squall. Maybe it was something he’d never understand, but right now, he just had to smirk.

"Uhm, did you carry me all the way up here?" Squall was looking down at the comforter on which he’d been placed.

"Yeah." The blonde bit back a witty retort when he noticed that the singer seemed embarrassed. He started to feel bad about the smirk.

"Thanks. And uh, thanks for not undressing me..." Anyone could see that the brunette’s cheeks were red. Seifer attributed it to the blue hair that hung down from his scalp, making the red stand out more.

"No problem," he replied quietly. "You’re pretty light and I didn’t think it would be my place to undress you."

Squall nodded and thanked him again softly. He then got off of the bed and approached the blonde, looking at him when he stopped in front of him.

"What?" Seifer asked confused.

"I want to go and get the stuff I left down there," Squall replied simply.

"Oh, well, I can go get it for you. Go on and get ready for bed and stuff," Seifer told the singer.

Squall eyed him. "You sure?"

"Yeah."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just set it on the desk when you get back." Squall pointed at a wooden desk against the wall to Seifer’s left and then made his way into the bathroom.

Assuming he was dismissed, Seifer slipped out of the room and made his way downstairs to collect the papers. As he was straightening the papers, the blonde took note of the paper on top of the pile. The words written on it looked vaguely familiar. Half of them were either crossed or scribbled out, but the ones that remained made him frown for a moment. After a few minutes of staring at the paper, it dawned on him and he made his way to the closet near the front door. Inside, he dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out what was once a crumpled piece of paper, now carefully folded. The blonde set the rest of the papers on a table in the atrium and opened the paper from his jacket, holding it up to compare with the one he’d just found. It looked like Squall had been trying to remember what he wrote on the first piece of paper, but couldn’t recall it correctly. Seifer had to agree with all the scribbles on the second paper, seeing as the first had better lyrics.

Lyrics, he realized. He’d been putting his coat on a hanger in his office a few weeks ago when he found the paper. Now he understood what all the writing meant. Seifer put the two papers on the top of the stack and took it back up to the singer’s bedroom, setting it on the desk as per requested.

As he turned, Seifer’s eyes caught in the bathroom doorway and he stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at Squall, who was standing where Seifer’s eyes had stopped, still glistening from the water with a white towel around his waist and his hair flattened by the water in it. Needless to say, Squall looked unknowingly yet incredibly sexy. His wet skin shimmered in the light of the room, water droplets slipping down his torso ever few seconds, some causing his eyes to follow them. The droplets came from his hair, which now looked black with dark blue streaks in it. The water dripped from it, onto Squall’s shoulders and down his pale skin to the towel. Seifer almost wished the towel wasn’t there, but regained his wits fast enough to cough and look away, slightly uncomfortable.

"You took a shower?" he asked to break the silence.

"I usually do before bed," Squall replied quietly, making his way over to the papers on the desk, directly behind Seifer.

The blonde turned to see what Squall was doing and clasped his hands behind his back to keep himself from touching the damp singer, or doing anything else he might regret.

"Where did you get this?" he asked as he stepped back with the paper that Seifer’s coat had hidden.

"You threw it at me the first day you were here and it’s been in my jacket since then," the blonde answered him calmly as he noted Squall’s amazement. "I thought you might need it when I recognized some of the words on the other sheet."

"I’ve been looking all over the place for this." Squall smiled. "Thank you."

Seifer returned the smile. "No problem." He turned to leave and was stopped once again with his left hand on the door handle as he felt a touch on his arm. He felt the singer’s hand squeeze his right arm and pull him back, making him turn toward the shorter man.

"Seifer, what’s going on between us?" Squall’s clear steel blue eyes stared up at the blonde and he found it difficult to look away. He couldn’t when he saw the raw emotion hiding behind the singer’s eyes and sighed quietly, looking a bit sad.

"I... I don’t know yet..." he mumbled in response, but couldn’t pull his eyes away from Squall’s.

The singer let go of Seifer’s arm to reach for his left hand, pulling it over to look at the ring on his finger. "You kept it."

Seifer took his hand away to reach up and touch the silver still at Squall’s neck, halfway wondering if he wore it while he was showering. "You kept it."

"I took it off of the chain."

"I can see that," the blonde replied as his hand rested over the spot where Squall’s neck met his shoulder, his thumb sliding gently over the singer’s jaw.

The singer leaned his head into the caress as his eyes slipped closed and two tears fell, one over each cheek. He bit his lip and kept his eyes closed as more started to fall.

"Squall," Seifer murmured as he wiped away the tears with one hand. "Come on, don’t cry." He cupped the singer’s cheeks as Squall finally opened his eyes and looked up at Seifer, still biting his lip to keep it from shaking. "What’s the matter, Squall?"

"Just hold me, damnit," Squall managed as Seifer pulled him into a hug, letting the singer cry quietly into his shoulder. Seifer blinked a few times as tears slipped down his own cheeks, the pain in his heart multiplied as he listened to the person he cared about the most cry on his shoulder. Even though they’d barely spoken over the four years they’d been apart, the pain was eating away at them both. Seifer even ignored the pain when he’d found out Rinoa and Squall were apparently dating, thinking his feelings were silly.

"Squall-"

The singer held tighter. "Don’t let go... Please."

"I won’t. Just let me look at you."

Squall sniffled and leaned back to look up at the blonde. His eyes were all red from crying and he looked extremely dejected, as well as lost. Seifer wiped his cheeks and cupped his face again, smiling a little as the brunette wiped his cheeks in return.

"Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up... again." Seifer led him into the bathroom and watched the singer turn on cold water and splash it in his face a few times, trying to get the swelling around his eyes to go down. The blonde took a rag to wet it under the water and held it against his face for a moment, wiping it clean before setting it aside to see Squall sit down on the seat of the toilet, still in only his towel.

"I never thought I’d see you again." Squall looked into the blonde’s green eyes as the taller man kneeled before him. "Not like this anyway."

Seifer shook his head. "I never thought I’d get to hold you like that ever again. I thought I’d lost my chance."

"Never. It just didn’t seem like our time back then though." Squall looked down at Seifer’s hand, which reached up to hold his, and squeezed it. "I wanted to get the hell out of the garden and do something new, and you wanted to go to school and actually make something of yourself."

"Very out of character, I know." Seifer smiled while the brunette chuckled.

"But you know, I think it was worth the wait. We’ve both grown in different ways and yet... it all just kinda came together again."

"It hurt so much when you left." The blonde looked down. "I knew that I couldn’t go with you, but that you wanted me to. And then I questioned if you really wanted me. It was so hard to put that behind me, especially everyday when I looked at the ring and questioned myself. Was I really good enough for you?"

"Seifer, don’t say that. You said that when we first found that we were attracted to each other back at the garden."

"To which you replied, ‘Whatever.’" Seifer grinned when the singer chuckled, slightly embarrassed. "I’m not surprised that there was a song on your guys’ first CD called Whatever."

"That was Fuujin’s doing." Squall grinned.

"So I read in a magazine." Seifer winked and stood.

"Where are you going?" The singer frowned, a bit confused.

"I’m not going to let you sit there in your towel all night." Seifer grinned when Squall blushed. "Come on, get dressed so we can have a proper midnight snack in the kitchen."

~*~*~

more later ^^