Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ One in a Million ❯ At The Lake ( Chapter 5 )

Title: One in a Million

Author: I_nv_u50

Pairings: SquallxZell

Warnings: Shounen ai

Disclaimer: Everything but the plot belongs to Squaresoft.

Chapter Rating: I'm guessing PG13, Squall gets into some pretty heavy thinking here XD

Squall: Is that my fault or yours?

I_nv_u50: Hey, I'm not complaining. At least now you've got your stubborn self to admit you're in love with him, maybe now you'll do something and stop bitching at me to do it for you!

Zell: (blinks) Wow … I never knew you felt so strongly about it …

I_nv_u50: (sniffs superiorly)

Squall: (snorts) Hmph.

Author's Note: Well, here you have it. The final chapter! … Just kidding. Actually, it only starts now. Btw, to give you warning in advance, I'm experiencing some difficulties writing new chapters. I've got about 3 or 4 more after this. Hopefully I can start up again in time, but I can't be blamed if I can't >.>

Anyway, enjoy, and please review!! ^^

When they were all ready to set out, Selphie a bouncing mass of hyperness and sugar, and Zell and Irvine almost as bad. Zell because he was slightly less excitable than Selphie, and nervousness wasn't helping. Irvine because he had consumed large amounts of caffeine to be able to keep up with his ecstatic girlfriend.

Upon finding out that another girl was coming with them, invited by Squall, or rather, on Squall's behalf, Selphie got curious and promptly started trying to find out who the unknown was, teasing Squall while the others watched mercilessly.

She didn't discover who it was though, until the limo pulled up in front of a nice suburban house, and Selphie turned to Squall, wide eyed with astonishment. "Rinoa? You invited Rinoa?"

Squall just stared back, unmoved and unmotivated to give an answer, until Selphie turned back to Irvine with a sheepish grin. "I guess I shouldn't have been worried after all."

Irvine just rolled his eyes at her, and promptly got clouted for it. Before he could respond to the typical abuse, the door to the house opened, and Rinoa rushed out, hopping a few steps to drag on a shoe as she ran to the limo, scrambling to climb in.

Irvine groaned, and looked at Squall. "Now look what you've done," he whined, trying to escape as Selphie leaned across him to hug Rinoa.

Zell stared at the two girls, a dawning look coming over his face. "Do you two know each other?"

"Rinoa's my sister." Quipped Selphie as she relaxed, leaning on her sister, and lying across Irvine's lap. Irvine just looked resigned, he had obviously been expecting this from the moment they had pulled up outside Selphie's house, but the others just stared at Squall.

He ignored them, staring out the window, wondering why he had agreed to come, and how to keep himself entertained while the others played frisbee and had fun in their own ways.

He really should have known better.

The minute they had a good game going, the bright pink frisbee hurtling through the air, more often than not aimed wrong, he wandered off by himself to enjoy a little time alone. Then his plans were ruined, as Zell grabbed on arm, and Ellone grabbed the other, in an almost mutual plan to make Squall join in, and they dragged him off to the main area of play, though the frisbee frequently escaped the boundaries.

"None of that now…" Zell teased Squall, holding him in place so he couldn't make a break for it. Squall scowled, and for a second, Zell could have sworn he saw a pout emerging, but then Squall blushed and looked away, the pout disappeared without fully coming out.

Zell backed away to where there was a larger opening in the rough circle they had made, to where the frisbee was most likely to go wrong. He watched squall out of the corner of his eye, partly because he wasn't so sure that Squall wouldn't try and run off again, and partly because Squall interested him.

He watched with amusement - the kid was obviously trying hard not to show he was actually having fun, now caught in a playful argument with Ellone, discussing the throws and fouls of frisbee.

Squall confused Zell, to put it simply. Nearly always a closed book, Squall had let himself open up around Zell, presumably more times within this one week than most people saw in their entire lives.

So why him?

And then there had been that kiss …

That kiss … Zell still got little tingles running up and down his spine, just remembering it. He had no idea that fifteen year olds could kiss like that, or that such inexperienced kisses actually turned him on more than the over-pushy fans that had sometimes stolen kisses from him.

The fact that the kiss had been so eager, so ardent, and so earnest made Zell wonder if there was more that Squall wasn't letting on.

The frisbee came hurtling out of nowhere, closer to Squall than him, but Zell prepared himself anyway.

Squall sidestepped to catch it, before flinging immediately in Zell's direction, but it was thrown too quickly to judge it correctly, and it went over Zell's head.

Zell backed up a little, jumping in the air to catch the frisbee; his arms raised to full extension, and exposing a smooth, tanned section of skin, revealed by the natural lifting up of his loose tank top.

Squall's mouth went dry at the sight, and he started to inch away from the game, hating to feel something he couldn't control, but unable to tear his eyes away, even after Zell landed, the shirt settling in place. He aimed the throw, and tossed it toward Selphie, who shrieked and almost fell over backwards, unexpecting.

Squall took advantage of the commotion and laughing to sidle away completely from the main open space that they were playing in.

He had never been to this region of the park forest before, and he set off to explore on his own, curious to what he might find.

He was in an open glade, glancing around with scant interest at the beautiful vegetation, when a slight noise behind him made him whirl around defensively, only to relax when he saw it was just Zell.

'Just Zell..' he thought bitterly. Yea right. If it was 'Just Zell', why was his heart beating so fast? Why were his thoughts swirling, unable to forget the smooth skin he had seen? Why was his breath so shaky? Why was he tensing up again?

It was just Zell.

That, he realized, was the problem.

And he fervently cursed Zell mentally, even as the oblivious target grinned at him.

"Hey baby. Why'd you go off like that?"

Squall shrugged, opposed to saying anything at the moment, when his voice might wobble.

Zell just nodded, glancing up at the sky, pretending not to notice Squall's obvious displeasure at the half unwanted company.

"Did you ever take a moment to just relax?"

The question came out of the blue, and Squall treated it as such, staring at Zell in well-concealed curiosity.

"Well?" Zell coaxed the answer, sitting down on a patch of green grass that suddenly looked overwhelmingly pleasant, and watching Squall, who merely looked up and into the sky.

The prompting brought Squall's gaze lower, onto Zell's eyes where they calmly stayed and watched him.

Zell waited patiently, fidgeting with his feet a little until Squall looked away with a half shrug.

"Sometimes," Squall spoke softly, tentatively pushing at the barriers of quiet. "Sometimes I just …"

"Like watching the sky?" Zell also spoke quietly, half guessing the end of a sentence he suddenly wanted to hear.

Squall nodded and shot a shy but big, for him, smile at Zell. "Exactly."

"Wanna watch some clouds with me? Just to relax. Sometimes I go outside and watch clouds, usually just before a big and important interview." Zell laughed. "Seifer hates it when I do that. But sometimes it just needs doing, you know?"

Squall nodded again, looking a little surprised, both at the offer and the information, but the expression disappeared almost as soon as it came; preceding a flickering look of happiness before the mask came back on and Squall sat down slowly next to Zell.

Zell flopped over, lying on his back, with one arm behind his head, and idly pointing out interesting cloud shapes to Squall, who slowly but surely let himself relax enough to lower himself into a lying position to watch the sky with absent eyes as he thought.

With Zell lying down beside him, utterly relaxed and calm, Squall wondered what part of Zell made him want to throttle Zell and kiss him senseless at the same time. The idea entranced and annoyed the hell out of Squall, who was, as usual, left in the dark as his emotions and feelings carried on happily without his presence or permission; and presented the full impact of what he felt when he was least expecting it.

Like now.

Squall knew he felt something, but he hadn't known what, and had been perfectly happy to leave it that way. But his subconscious obviously had other ideas, working hard on the problem while Squall was occupied with other things, and it took this calm, peaceful moment to hand over its conclusion to Squall's as yet uncomprehending mind.

Thus, Squall came to the horrifying, and deathly terrifying deduction that he was in love with Zell.

Understandably shocked by this, Squall sat bolt upright, paling drastically and scrambling to his hands and knees in an attempt to get away from Zell, and thus, that idiotic conclusion.

He couldn't love Zell. He just couldn't. Zell was a guy, for one thing, and even though the fact made little difference to Squall, he rashly admitted to himself that a crush on a guy, and falling in love with said guy were two completely different things. First off, a crush could easily be mistaken for hero-worship, while love, even from an outsider's eyes, could only look like love. And a crush could be forgotten, left behind without hurting, could be grown out of. And love would always hurt.

Red, the color of love, was the color of unbridled passion yes, but it was also the color of blood. And usually, with the arrival of blood, came pain. Torrents and torrents of pain, just waiting to come crashing down on some poor, unsuspecting heart.

That was what worried squall the most.

All his life, Squall had hated being looked after, leaving himself open for attack. Being exposed was a main reason for ambush, and he had tried to prevent his own vulnerability with everything he could muster.

And one of the supposedly greatest features of love was glorying in your vulnerability, because it meant you trusted your partner with everything you had, or could give, leaving yourself wide open for a world of hurt.

What had Quistis said? "The one who knows you best is the one you love, and they can hurt you they most because they'll know right where to hit. They can hurt you deeper than anyone else ever can, because you love them." Squall neglected to try and remember what good things she had said about it. He didn't need more reasons to support this foolish idea.

Zell had sat up when Squall had first scrambled away, and was watching him with concern.

"Squall? Are you ok?"

Squall cursed his frantically pounding heart, his all-too-open eyes, and his ears, which had to be playing tricks on him. Why did Zell sound so different now?

Zell eyed Squall's heaving chest with trepidation. "Squall, calm down. You're going to hyperventilate. Squall? Squall!"
Squall froze, his chest in mid heave, his lips parted in a silent gasp for breath and his eyes wide, shimmering silver as they blindly stared at Zell, almost completely unseeing.

Zell crawled over to Squall slowly, keeping his eyes locked with Squall and willing him to calm down. "Baby, what are you doing?"

That seemed to click Squall back to the land of the living, and he flushed, trying to avoid Zell's now lightly teasing gaze.

"I'm ok…"

Zell waited a few seconds for an explanation, but as no such thing seemed to be arriving, he just smiled at squall, still a bit concerned, stood up, and offered a hand to Squall, who took it with only slight hesitation.

When they were both standing, Zell grinned at Squall. "C'mon then baby, let's go back, hm?"

And Squall, completely enchanted by how blue Zell's eyes were, could only nod in mute agreement.

They met Irvine on the way back, who had been sent to look for them.

"Lunch is ready, you two. What on earth were you doing back there?"
"Watching clouds." Replied Zell easily, safely distracting Irvine's attention from Squall's still too flushed cheeks, and if Irvine noticed, he didn't say anything, exchanging light hearted banter with Zell, teasing and jokingly insulting him willingly, leaving Squall to trail a little behind them. Even as Squall lagged, he shot half confused and half resentful looks to both the backs in front of him, but mainly the one covered by the light gray tank top.

The days passed by agonizingly slowly for Squall, especially now that he knew. Looking in from an outside perspective, Squall could safely assume that Zell was one of the few people who made Squall endanger himself to looking silly permanently.

Zell could tease him, Squall couldn't bite his head off for it, Zell could teasingly complain about him, and all Squall could possibly feel was a tiny glow of warmth that was there merely because Zell had noticed him.

No matter what Zell did, Squall couldn't find it in himself to be angry, even mockingly so, not anymore.

No, he didn't like being in love, and he didn't like Zell for making him fall. All in all though, he supposed that if he had to be in love, better to be in love with a sweet natured, hot tempered, friendly, impulsive hyper-to-a-distraction young man than with someone with less honorable traits.