FICLET: Remember How to Dream ~ FF8 ~ Seifer/Squall ~ General

[batsutousai]

Title: Remember How to Dream
Fandom: Final Fantasy 8
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: General
Pairing: pre-Seifer Almasy/Squall Leonhart
Warnings: post-canon
Summary: Seifer considers himself lucky to have found somewhere to settle where no one wants him dead or tortured for his part in the Sorceress War, but even towns in the middle of nowhere need SeeD's help sometimes.

A/N: Every winter season, I send out cards to anyone willing to give me their address, and I decided three winters ago to start adding fic to the cards. This year's prompt was coffeeshop.

-0-0-0-

The problem with having failed the SeeD exam multiple times and then going on the become the knight of a sorceress who was looking to destroy the world, was his job options were pretty much slim-to-none.

Raijin and Fujin, being the best friends a guy could have, had managed to find a quiet little town in the middle of nowhere, where the locals didn't know and didn't care who Seifer Almasy had been before coming to town. Especially once he managed to prove that there was one thing he could do better than anyone else: He could brew a mean cup of coffee.

The coffee they served in Balamb Garden's cafeteria had always been either so watered down so as to make it useless, or so thick it probably could have been used to fill in the potholes that always seemed to show up along the road to Balamb Town after there'd been an exam or a large mission. Seifer, having grown up in the Garden, had learnt to live with their coffee, at least until he had a proper drink while out with Raijin and Fujin one holiday week.

He'd bought himself a machine, after that, and learnt to brew coffee he could stand. Which he'd never advertised, both because the coffee machine wasn't technically allowed in the dorms – there wasn't actually a rule against it, but similar kitchen appliances had been banned over the years, and Seifer had never once doubted that, should it get back to the administration that he had a coffee machine in his dorm, it would be confiscated and added to the banned list – and because he didn't want to be making coffee for every fucking cadet and SeeD in Garden each morning.

His trusty old machine had got lost somewhere between his reported death and when he'd finally made it back to Balamb Garden after spending a month in D-District and the Sorceress Trials, which honestly hadn't been a surprise. He'd been happy to get back what few belongings had survived, and grateful that no one had attempted to kill him while he'd been there to collect them, though the looks he'd been getting had implied plenty of people were tempted. (Also not a surprise, if he was being honest.)

At any rate, he'd settled down in the little town and bought himself a new coffee machine. And, somehow, it got around town that, not only did he have a shiny new coffee machine – a few other people had the same crappy model as Garden had, while others swore by machines that were older than Seifer was – but that he had some sort of...coffee-fu. (Seifer strongly suspected Raijin had a hand in that phrasing.)

The first month or so after that news broke, Seifer would regularly find himself getting offers of help in exchange for a cup of coffee. Which, well, he was still a bit at odds with himself, not certain what to do with his life, now his dreams of being either a sorceress' knight or a SeeD were well beyond his grasp, so it was nice to find himself with something he could trade for favours.

Eventually, Fujin suggested they open a little coffee house, but Raijin was more interested in a restaurant, as opening one was on his list of things to do, right next to spending his days fishing.

They ended up – with the approval of their neighbours – opening a little stand with a couple of tables out front not far from the mines, where most of the townspeople made their living, and Seifer sold coffee in the mornings, while Raijin and Fujin teamed up to serve soup and sandwiches for lunch. Some mornings, a couple of their neighbours would come by with baked goods, and Seifer would offer them with the drinks, then pass the earnings back to the baker. Some afternoons, Seifer would hang around and offer coffee to those who came for lunch, tempting them away from Raijin's own homemade juice options and laughing at the fond curses his best friend yelled his way.

It was nothing at all like the life he'd once envisioned for himself, but Seifer had already lived his dream, only to find it was a nightmare; there was, he'd learnt, a great deal to be said for the quiet life.

~~ It wasn't the first time he'd seen SeeD in the area, in the three years he'd been living in the quiet little town, and he doubted it would be the last. The monster infestation in the mines was hardly a secret, and while Seifer and his friends could have handled it themselves, once upon a time, once of the concessions Seifer had been forced to make to be allowed to walk free was to give up his gunblade. And, while he'd hardly given up weapons entirely – he always carried a handgun and a few knives, because he wasn't an idiot; he knew there were plenty of people who would happily see him dead, and their town might have been relatively monster-free, but they did show up occasionally – he was no longer the fighting force he'd once been.

When he knew or heard that SeeD was nearby, Seifer always took care to keep his head down more than usual; there was, after all, no point in picking at old wounds. Which had always worked out well in the past.

But, then, Seifer considered as he stared at the man with a scar that mirrored the one along his own nose, who was standing on the other side of the counter from him and looking as perfect and unreadable as he had the day Seifer had collected his things, it's never been Squall who's come out, before.

"One coffee," Squall said, setting a handful of gil on the counter between them. He gave no other reaction to Seifer being the one to have opened the wooden shutters of the stand, as though he didn't recognise him.

Which, well, that thought burned, and it took Seifer a moment to gather himself, to keep from snarling out an old, familiar insult. Being able to turn away and focus on his coffee machine helped, but he still heard himself say, as he handed over the coffee, "Be careful not to burn yourself, Ice Princess."

Squall raised one unimpressed eyebrow, then turned and walked away before Seifer could really process that he was an idiot, and he settled for calling himself names as he collected the change Squall had left.

Squall returned a little over an hour later, sweaty and speckled with monster gore and looking so familiar that something in Seifer's chest ached. He gave the all clear to the crowd of miners loitering outside the stand, and they all roared their thanks as they hurried to the mine to make up for the past two days of not being able to work.

Which left Seifer and Squall alone.

Seifer squeezed his eyes shut, then called, "Sorry!" Because he knew he owed Squall that much, especially since Squall hadn't seemed to recognise him. (Stupid GFs.)

When he chanced a glance at his former rival, he found Squall had moved closer to the stand, a furrow between his brows that Seifer knew meant he was confused.

Seifer cleared his throat. "I– What I said, earlier. This morning. I–"

"Seifer," Squall interrupted, just the slightest hint of amusement in his dry voice, "who taught you how to apologise?"

"...what?"

Squall raised an eyebrow at him. "It needs some work."

"You remember me," Seifer realised.

Squall blinked, some emotion too complicated for Seifer to really parse out flickering across his face in the space between one breath and the next. "Ah," he breathed, then gave that irritating little half-shrug he'd been using against Seifer since he'd accidently broken his collarbone during a training match when they were six and seven.

Seifer huffed, torn between a weirdly fond sort of relief and a familiar irritation. "You haven't changed at all."

Squall tilted his head ever so slightly to one side. "You have," he decided, and Seifer didn't really know how to feel about that. "It...suits you."

Seifer cleared his throat, uncertain how to respond to that. "I... Thanks?" He shook his head and cast a glance at a streak of violently blue blood on Squall's wrist. "Do you want to borrow my shower?"

Squall blinked again, slow and maybe a little bit surprised. And then his eyes seemed to soften, just a little, and Seifer knew, from years of watching him, that that was akin to a grateful smile for normal people. "Whatever," he said.

Seifer rolled his eyes, then quickly set about closing up the stall and leading Squall back to his home and directing him to the bathroom.

When Squall got out, looking damp and more relaxed than Seifer could remember having seen him in...pretty much ever, probably, Seifer held out a mug of coffee for him.

Squall blinked, clearly surprised, and then his faced relaxed into the smallest of smiles as he accepted the mug. "Thanks," he murmured against the lip of the mug, before taking a sip and closing his eyes, something that looked a little like bliss spreading across his face.

And Seifer, for the first time in four years, thought there might just be one dream worth reaching for.

.