Longing.

Chapter 3.

Seifer awoke to Selphie banging two saucepans together outside their tent; he groaned and pulled his pillow over his head.

“COME ON, UP, UP, UP we’ve got to move on today and we’re not gonna get anywhere if you lot sleep all day.”

“All day?! The fucking sun’s not up yet!” The familiar voice of Zell argued.

Seifer heard a soft groan behind him; he rolled on to his back. Squall lay rubbing the sleep from his eyes; he looked tired and annoyed.

“What time is it?” He asked.

Seifer tried to get his sleepy eyes to focus on the watch on his wrist.

“5:30.”

“Hi guys, you awake?” Selphie’s head appeared in the doorway.

She got daggers glared at her from both directions.

“Selphie why the fuck do we have to get up at this time in morning?” Seifer asked wryly.

Selphie looked sheepish. “Well you remember when we found this site yesterday?”

“Yes.” Squall replied slowly. Why did he have the feeling this going to be something stupid and all Selphie’s fault?

“Well it turns out this is private land and the owner has given us one hour to get out or he’ll set his dogs on us.” She ended surprisingly cheerfully. “So get dressed.” She disappeared again.

“Great. Trust Selphie to fuck things up again.”

Seifer dressed quickly trying to keep his eyes to himself.

________________________________________________________

Once on the move again, Selphie (cheerful as always) skipped along at the front singing happily leading the six zombies through the countryside. She promised soon they would stop for breakfast she was sick of Zell whining about not having had any hotdogs and Quistis and Squall had both insisted they weren’t properly awake unless they had a cup of coffee. Despite her intentions to make this a back to nature trip she had allowed Quistis to bring coffee. She had been a miffed however to discover the reason why Zell’s backpack was so heavy was because he had at least a dozen tins of hotdogs and packs of buns. They soon stopped beside a quiet stream so Seifer could do some fishing.

Zell sat happily cooking his hotdogs over the fire while everyone else minus Seifer sat roasting marshmallows supplied by Squall.

“As nice as marshmallows are for breakfast, do you think we’ll be eating fish sometime this year?” Selphie shouted to Seifer as she stuffed her sixth marshmallow into her mouth.

“Shut up okay, I had one it was this big.” Seifer held his arms up wide.

“Yeah right course ya did.”

Seifer turned back to the stream muttering curses under his breath.

Squall picked up the bag of marshmallows and sat beside Seifer.

“How’s the fishing going? badly?”

“I don’t think they like the bait whatever selphie says they don’t seem to have a sweet tooth.”

Squall looked puzzled. “What do you mean? What is the bait?”

“Well I didn’t bring any bait with me so I had to use the only thing available.”

“Which was?”

“Marshmallows.”

Squall bit back a chuckle. “Marshmallows?! You expect to catch something with that do you?”

“DON’T tell the others, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Squall looked amused. “You want a marshmallow?” He offered.

Seifer reached for the bag only to have his hands knocked away by Squall.

“You’ve got fish hands now.” He took one from the bag and held it to Seifer’s lips.

“But I haven’t caught anything.” Despite his protests he still took the marshmallow from Squall’s fingers.

“You never can be too careful.” Squall smirked offering Seifer another.

“If I didn’t know better I’d you were enjoying this.”

<He’s flirting with me again. Fine if that’s way he wants to play it. > Seifer thought.

The next time he was given a marshmallow he made sure to brush his tongue across Squall’s fingers suggestively.

Selphie glanced towards Squall and Seifer with a smile.

<Awww, those guys would make such a cute couple. > She turned back to the fire still smiling.

“What are you grinning at?”

She turned to see Quistis standing over her. Selphie nodded her head towards the couple still grinning insanely.

“Is that what I think it is?” Quistis matched Selphie’s grin sitting down beside her.

Selphie nodded. “Squall’s had a thing for seifer for ages; I’ve had to listen to him whine about it, hopefully not for much longer through.”

They both sat spying on the couple for several minutes when a shadow covered them from behind.

“Why don’t they just fuck and be done with it.”

The girls looked up at Zell in surprise.

“That was eloquently put.”

“What you know about that?”

“Oh come on, they hardly hide it, always drooling over each other making me wanna puke.” He folded his arms looking bored. “I mean look we’re standing here spying on them only a few feet away and they don’t notice because they’re too busy *staring into each other’s eyes*”

Selphie looked at him in disgust. “Well I think it’s sweet.”

“Oh they’re coming over, quick look busy.”

Zell looked puzzled. “Why?”

“We don’t want them to know we were watching them.”

“If they didn’t want attention drawn to them they shouldn’t be so obvious.”

“Hey.” Seifer said sitting beside Selphie. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Nothing.”

“What do ya mean nothing?”

Choosing to ignore the last comment Selphie asked. “So how’s the fishing going?”

“I’ve given up; I’ll never catch anything.”

“Well maybe if you focused more attention on the fish you’ll get a better result.” Selphie scowled at Zell.

“Excuse me?”

“You know you and lover boy over there flirting like crazy.”

Seifer shrugged casually. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, you’ve practically got your hands down his pants.”

At that point Squall sat down beside Seifer.

“Now where did you get that idea?” Squall said as he lazily rested his head on Seifer’s shoulder.

“You’re delusional Zell.” Seifer added but at the same time reached up to stroke Squall’s hair.

Zell gave a disgusted snort and walked off. Squall and Seifer burst into hysterics but Squall still didn’t sit up.

“When you’re quite finished boys. I think we should move on.” Selphie stood helping Quistis up. “Let’s go.”

“But like it here.” Squall put on his best child’s voice.

“We’re going that way.” Selphie pointed to a dark woody area.

“But it’s scary in there.” Seifer said joining in.

Quistis rolled her eyes “Will you two ever grow up.”

“No.”

___________________________________________________________

On the road again, everybody was livelier after breakfast even if it did only consist of coffee and marshmallows. Quistis and ellone talked about their memories of the orphanage, Irvine and Zell picked on Selphie and Squall and Seifer trailed along at the end talking about everything and anything.

They were just counting how many times Seifer had failed the SeeD exam when Quistis burst into laughter and started waving what seemed to be photos around.

“What ya got there Quisty?” Seifer snatched them from her hand before she could protest.

“Oh no don’t show them to Squall!” Ellone cried slapping her hand over her mouth.

Seifer flipped through the photos smirking at each.

The first read Squall aged 18 months, the baby in the picture was naked, the second read *Squall aged 4 years* again he was naked. The photos continued till the age of ten when suddenly then was an instant photo of squall in the shower at the age of 17 with a look of horror on his face as he desperately tried to hide his groin from the camera.

“QUISTIS! You told me you destroyed that photo!” Squall lunged for the photo in Seifer’s hand.

“No don’t let him take them!” The girls shouted.

Seifer was able to use his height advantage of 6:2 compared to squall’s 5:8. He didn’t mind when Squall clawed all over him desperate to get that photo back.

Seifer was able to hold his own until tripped him up. They were both rolling about on the grass with the girls screaming encouragement to Seifer. Finally Seifer with the incriminating photo between his teeth pinned Squall to the grass with his hands above his head.

The girls cheered rushing forward to take the photo from Seifer’s teeth.

Seifer looked down on squall with a satisfied smirk. “You give up?”

To Seifer’s surprise Squall flashed him a flirtasious smile his eyes lowering to Seifer’s crotch. “I don’t know, got a pretty nice view from down here.” Seifer grinned he just thinking of a good comeback when Selphie interrupted.

“Guys! Are you gonna stay there all day we’ve got things to do.” she pried Seifer’s hands from Squall’s wrists forcing him to sit up.

Squall glared daggers at Selphie. If looks could kill she’d be dead and buried.

“What.” she replied innocently. “Look there’s a place I had in mind to set up camp there’s a water fall and everything, you’ll love it trust me.” with that she skipped off again encouraging the others to follow.

Seifer stood helping Squall up. “Come on we better do as she says or else she might sing at us.” Together they followed Selphie.

End of chapter 3

tbc.

Author’s notes.

I make this chapter a little longer to make up for the two short ones and I know my punctuation & grammar is terrible so please stop telling me.