FicWad

On the eve of my twentieth birthday, our squad announcements were posted in the barracks. And what a birthday present that was! Nobody knew it was my birthday-well . . . maybe Kiros, I don't know; I told him later, but I think he knew then . . .

Anyway.

Galbadian squads are made up of 'compatible persons' in groups of three to seven. They were listed all alphabetically, on these neat little posters all around the barracks, and for my birthday, I went and saw who I would be spending the rest of my foreseeable military career with.

Loire, Laguna. My name was followed by , Ward and Seagul, Kiros. For a while, I just stared at the poster, blinking stupidly, before a soft voice murmured right at my shoulder, "I don't think staring at it is going to make it change."

I jumped just about seven feet in the air, spun around, and fell over my own feet to tumble into the wall. A couple of people chuckled at me-younger cadets and lower ranked soldiers that were passing by. Kiros, well used to my bits of frightful jumping by now, just shook his head a little and started to walk off with that look in his eyes that meant 'follow me for a good time!'. I'm pretty sure everybody in the damn battalion knew that look on his face, even if it was only ever directed at me . . .

From about half-way down our hall, we could hear my roommate playing some ungodly loud music on the amp system he had set up in the dorm. Kiros chuckled at my misfortune, unlocked his door, and invited me in; Ward wasn't in-Heavensent!-so I shut the door and just kinda grinned at Kiros for a while as he shucked his uniform for the comfortable cotton boxers and T-shirt underneath.

That was a very nice sight. I could get used to a sight like that. I had. I'd be getting more used to it, too, now that we were a squad and all.

"They'll be posting rankings soon," I muttered inanely. He was taking his time helping me out of my own uniform, humming to himself as I rambled quietly. "Think you did well on the inspection? I don't think I did that well. They'll probably make me an Ensign or something. Private. Ew; Private Loire-."

"Have I told you that you talk a lot?"

"Nearly every damn day," I said with a grin. He shook his head a little, laughing.

"Good. So long as we have that covered." The uniform finally gone, we laid ourselves out on his thin little bed and stared at each other for a while. We didn't do this often-not just because we didn't have time to, or because we were worried about what would happen if somebody saw. Those were big parts of it too. I think it's mostly because laying like that was way too much like cuddling, and Men Do Not Cuddle.

Not even men who are having a secret military liaison. Ooh. Scandalous.

"I think I did alright," he said in reply to my earlier question. I hummed and nodded, too busy staring at his left eyebrow and contemplating what he'd look like with a piercing or tattoo to really pay attention to talk about ranking.

"You know-," I started, then stopped, just because I felt like running my fingers over that eyebrow. My train of thought took a convenient detour into a boggy marsh, and I just kept running my fingers over the side of his face until he laughed softly and kissed my palm.

"If we aren't the same rank, this is going to be an abuse of power," he said, and I couldn't really remember if that had been what I was going to say. Probably not. Kiros was always much more . . . eloquent than I was. He always knew what to say, even if nobody else wanted to hear it.

"It's an abuse of power anyway." I made a big show of puffing myself up, even managed to roll him under me and glower down at him. He was laughing too hard to be threatened by my amazing Loire Manliness, but he obligingly consented to my straddling his hips and sprawling over him a bit.

After a while, though, he hit me and said, "I can't breathe."

"Suffer, soldier," I grumbled in my best impersonation of our old DI. "Ya can't breathe through three inches of Balamb mud, either. Adapt."

Adaptation came in the form of Kiros stealing my air for his own purposes. Not that I was complaining or anything. Having Kiros suck the air out of my lungs was turning out to be an even better birthday present than finding out we were in the same squad.

The door opened. It had this annoying habit of doing that whenever we were in the middle of something. Luckily, Ward's a pretty cool guy. And perfectly willing to ignore the fact that Men Do Not Cuddle.

"Am I gonna have to put up with this sorta thing after you idiots get your ranks?" he grumbled, and it might have been affectionate. It was hard to tell. He always talked in this dull, deep monotone. Kiros managed to get me up a bit and sat up, so I was kinda wrapped around his shoulders or something, and he was under me just right that if I shifted my hips a little it was basically like we were grinding.

You have no idea how annoying my libido is when things like that happen. It gets all manic and . . . screamy.

"Are we going to have to put up with your complaining? You could knock." Kiros' smile was right against my ear, and it must've looked all nice and maybe a little pressed, but I could feel it and it felt like that smile he got right before he threw me against a wall behind a building and sucked my lungs out.

I like that smile, can't you tell? Just not when other people are in the room. Makes it hard for Kiros to want to suck my lungs out.

"Why would I knock to my own room?" Ward made noises of rifling through his things, and I really wanted to turn and tell him to bug off 'cause I wanted to get some foreplay on with my boyfriend.

All intentions of telling Ward to leave stalled when I realized I kinda . . . well . . . /had said that out loud/. Not loud enough for Ward to hear, but loud enough that Kiros flinched and looked at me curiously.

Ward left, I /think/, and Kiros was still just kinda staring at me with this startled and confused Caught In the Headlights of a Train look on his face. Finally he said, "We're /boyfriends/?"

"Uh," I muttered intelligibly.

"Aren't we a little old to be calling each other something like that?" It took a second for that to formulate in my brain. He wasn't chastising me over the fact that I'd made the assumption concerning our relationship so much as the term I'd used to do so? What the hell else did he think I'd call him? My devotee? My /partner/?

"Lover would work." I'd think he could read my mind, if it weren't for the fact that he'd told me several times that I had this habit of saying really stupid stuff out loud.

"But lover involves . . . and we haven't even . . . I mean, I'd like to, sure, but we keep getting interrupted, and even when we got really close when we were in the city, but that chick passed by and then she-."

"You talk a lot," Kiros interrupted, and kissed me. He laughed softly after that, and grabbed my hands. "And you're not the brightest light bulb out there."

"Hey!"

"What I mean is: why can't we call each other lover even though we haven't had sex?" He made it sound all clinical and /icky/. I don't know what I'd rather him say, personally; but my libido seemed very keen on getting stoic, goodie little Seagul to say 'fucked' instead.

He was staring at me again.

"That was out loud again, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Yes it was. Why, might I ask, does 'your libido' refer to me by my family name?"

I shrugged. "No reason. Probably because that was all I knew you by when I first saw you and started wha-you do not need to hear about that, so I'm gonna stop right now before I shove my foot any farther down my throat/." Kiros chuckled, and I was glad /one of us thought this was amusing. I just felt like an idiot.

"I think I'd like to hear that story some time," Kiros murmured, and it was always really hard to concentrate when he talked like that/-all silky and sultry and /knowing he'd get what he wanted, either in the short-term or long-run.

Damn greedy bastard, that Seagul kid. He grinned, nuzzling my neck and chuckling a little as he said, "We need to teach you how to shut your mouth, Loire. Honestly. You're going to end up muttering something really inappropriate in front of an officer or something one of these days."

He trailed away into a soft noise as he tilted my head back and kissed my neck. He kept doing that, and it was kinda annoying.

The trailing off, not the kissing. I liked the kissing. But the getting all quiet thing was a little annoying, because you just knew he had something else to say, but he wouldn't say anything because he didn't have it in him or something. I think it had something to do with being a youngest child or having very strict parents or /something/, but whatever it was, it was damn annoying.

Except he always got real intense when he'd do that.

And intense meant I might get him out of at least two articles of clothing before we were interrupted again. So maybe the trailing off thing wasn't all bad.

Some indeterminable amount of time later, I was forced to pull myself away from sleeping Kiros-hardest thing to do ever in the world/-and then I had to go change because I had more training. I thought it was dumb, that we had training /right before ranking was to be announced, but since the brigades were made up of all different aged cadets and recruits, and some transfer officers, I guess . . .

When I got back from that, well into the start of the night and feeling sorer than if I'd been sat on by a behemoth, I stumbled into my dorm to find Kiros sitting on my bed. He was dressed all casual, a small smile on his lips, and said that he was going into the City with Ward and would I like to come.

It . . . wasn't quite a date. But I figured, that was the closest we were gonna get, as long as we were in the military.

I smiled, and agreed, changing in front of him.

And that, I think, is when everything began to change.