To Trust A Cop

Beta: working on it
Notes: Thank you for your swift comments and encouragements. You’re the reason I write ;)
I’m not abandoning anything. I will not leave an unfinished story, not to say it won’t take time writing it. Writing is something I do in my spare time and sometimes there is no energy left after days of hard work ;)
So I apologise for the long time between chapters... sometimes a very long time...

Anyway, the next, happy reading!


29

Closing and locking the apartment door, Squall turned to Nida and met the pleading look with iciness.

“You don’t get home until late, what am I supposed to do?” he whined.

“Find a job,” Squall said sharply.

The day and night had been awkward. Since he had been too tired to do more than draw and hardly that, Nida had been let free to roam the apartment and ask questions and tell stories once he had returned by the afternoon.

Squall didn’t care about where the man had been the last years. He didn’t care about the so called hardships or that nice girl or that hot boy the man had met. He didn’t care about Nida having been to the other side of the country basking in the sun on warm beaches.

Of course, the dark haired man had never really understood silence. Or subtle hints. Or any of Squall’s all silent ways of trying to shut the man up. Since Squall only had the one bed and no spare madras, they had to share. Strange how… awkward and wrong it felt even if they only slept foot to head.

The brunet didn’t get much sleep that night. His head spinning too much about the whys and ifs and what was to come. His stomach was a worried knot about the same reasons.

By the morning he found his kitchen invaded and Nida cheerfully trying to make breakfast. The man wasn’t a klutz in the kitchen, he cooked better than Squall did. Still the brunet wasn’t and didn’t get hungry.

During the overly long time spent under the shower and in the bathroom Squall managed to figure out why it all felt so wrong. He detested the man.

Nida was weak. Hard lessons of life hadn’t taught him anything. The brunet had a hard time dealing with the other as their possitions were reversed.

“I can’t find anything today. Shouldn’t I have a key when I’m staying with you?” Nida asked pleadingly.

Squall put away the keys.

“No, I don’t trust you and you know why,” the brunet bit out and walked to the stairs leading down.

“Right, sorry. I’m different now.”

Squall didn’t believe the man

“I’m done with all those stupid things and all that. I’m trying to start a new life,” Nida tried to convince him.

Deep down Squall wanted to believe him. He still had… something for the man and it disturbed him.

“I could come by your work when I’m done?”

Squall stopped and stared into the dark brown eyes. Nida cringed. It made Squall feel weird. He had been able to tell the man off with a gaze before, but not in this way.

“I let you stay, alright? Don’t expect so much so fast.”

It wasn’t what Squall had wanted to say. But he just couldn’t sneer when the other looked so… pathetic. The dark haired man gave a slight smile.

“Yeah, sure, sorry. I’m just… I haven’t seen you for so long. You just took off and didn’t leave any references or anything,” the older man explained.

Squall just shrugged and continued out in the cold day. He wanted to remember it was Nida who bolted, but he wasn’t about to nag about details. Nida followed him to the garage. At seeing Gilgamesh, he gave a whistle.

“Beautiful. Is it an import?” He circled the bike to inspect it.

Silently Squall led the motorcycle from its protecting home.

“Wait a moment. You’re not driving that during the winter, are you?”

Squall glared into wide dark eyes. Closing the garage and putting on the helmet, he effectively ignored the other. Straddling the bike made him draw a quick breath. A night of tossing and turning had done nothing for sore muscles or a burning backside.

He would have loved to just stay home in front of his drawing desk with a cup of hot chocolate. The youth didn’t feel at ease. He needed to get away from the man to think and to do so he had to get out of his home.

Squall didn’t know how long he cruised around the city. Driving familiar roads that led nowhere but around and around. The thought that kept nagging him the most was what Almasy would say. Not that Seifer had any say in the matter. It wasn’t his business who Squall let stay in his apartment.

Still he couldn’t quake his insides knotting in nervousness at the thought of the two men meeting. Almasy would probably show up the day after tomorrow or the day after that. Depending on what his work demanded.

Squall stopped on a parking lot overlooking a park. They just had to be elsewhere until Nida was gone. The brunet frowned. Strange. Something about that thought felt weird; he just couldn’t pinpoint the reason.

The sun barely reached high enough to give a sense of daylight by now. It was bitingly cold and for once it didn’t settle him like it used to. When he was a child, snow and ice and the silence of winter had been comfortable. He could go out and walk around for hours and hours.

It was a safe haven when his current home was upside down. But the difference about then and now was that he could always return and sneak off to his room or bed and hide away. He couldn’t now.

Cruising about the city again, he found his way to the rich parts. Squall thought about going to Teo, just to get out of the cold. But his stomach forbade him. He wasn’t yet ready to meet the man. Circling around until his fingers felt like frostbite and his feet like ice chunks, Squall stopped beside a café.

Parking the bike where he was sure he could see it if choosing a window seat, Squall entered the bright building. A small bright place with that fluorescent light and those colours that struck him so odd and… fictional. Like stepping into one of those tv-shows he had happened upon in school or in one of those earlier homes.

The brunet wasn’t surprised at the many stares he got, what with him being completely dressed in black leather plus his many belts. There was a huge gang of teenagers mixed girls and boys. Some grown ups looking to take a break from their desk jobs. And cops. He got especially intense stares from those. Not something uncommon. He didn’t fit in there. He was someone to keep an eye on.

Squall ignored them and took a seat where he could watch his bike. While waiting for the waitress, the brunet took off jacket and gloves and regretted it soon after. The warmth of the café made his hands tingle like crazy.

“What can I get you?”

“Hot chocolate.”

“With or without cream?”

“With.”

She went for his order without getting an eye from him. He got his order without looking at her. It must have pissed her off because the mug was put down a little harsher than he thought necessary.

What was he supposed to do with Nida? Was they still… together? Surely Nida couldn’t believe that? Squall saw them as separated long ago anyway.

Taking a sip of the hot chocolate, the brunet decided it was enough. The man would get a job and then Squall would kick him out. Simple as that. Everything else… well, he would just have to deal with it when it reared its ugly head.

Suddenly the seat in front of him was taken and grey-blue eyes glared across the table. It took a while before he identified the blond since he was dressed in uniform. As Squall recognised the man, he just made a growling sound and turned to the window to ignore the pest. Seifer chuckled and leaned back in his seat, stretching his arms on top of the sofa.

“You have a fever or something?”

Squall glared confused at the blond who just smiled.

“Since you’re at this side of town,” Almasy explained.

Squall just frowned and sipped the chocolate. Not to his surprise another cop soon joined them and Squall gave the officer a warning glare to even dare take a seat beside him. A brown eyebrow rose either in question or offence. The brunet didn’t much care since the cop had wit enough to take an extra chair and place it at the side of the table.

“We know you?” the darkly haired cop asked.

Squall gritted his teeth. It was that sort of question with that sort of tone that insinuated that Squall was someone dirty. That “they” knew him from the records. He turned to glare into amused green eyes.

“Just a friend,” Almasy waved it off before taking his mug of coffee.

It didn’t make the suspicious and insinuating expression disappear on the other.

“So what’s your name? You study close by?” the stranger asked.

Stupid. Couldn’t the fates have left him alone for just a little while? Then again. He practically asked for it by stepping inside here.

“It’s Squall and he doesn’t study,” Seifer filled in since Squall declined to answer.

The brown haired officer nodded and gave his own coffee some focus. For an awkward and entirely strained moment it was silent around the table. Squall noticed more cops coming and going and cursed himself for not noticing it earlier. It was probably one of those stops they visited regularly.

“So what are you doing here? You’ve met with Quistis?” Almasy asked while leaning on his elbows at the table.

“No,” he answered without looking away from the window.

Wasn’t a guy allowed to just sit in a café doing nothing else than drink a cup of chocolate? Some silent gesture must have past between them, because the stranger officer got up and left without a word. Once they were alone, Squall could practically feel the burning stare.

“Something up?” the blond asked lowly.

Squall just frowned. What was he to say? That another man was living with him and that he didn’t want them to meet because he just knew it would turn ugly.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” the cop persisted.

“Nothing.”

Squall stared into green eyes just to make it clear. Instead he felt what he had feared. Like he was a book the other was reading. Like the cop could see every thought or hint of them and put everything together.

“You okay? You don’t need any medical treatment?”

Squall blinked rapidly at that before a blush exploded from neck and up. It made the bastard chuckle.

“Guess there’s something else then?”

“It’s nothing, I’m just drinking chocolate,” Squall growled while fighting hard to make the blush vanish.

A blond eye brow arched in the way that suggested the man didn’t believe him.

“If you say it so…”

Squall frowned as that kind of lame agreeing just unsettled him.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had a desk job or something.”

“Oh? Thought I was some captain or the sort?” the shark smile glimmered and Squall frowned deeper.

“I don’t know. I just see you working less than normal,” Squall snorted.

“Because I take the occasional day off? Compared to other workaholics?” Seifer grinned.

“Almasy!”

The stranger cop called by the door. The blond made a gesture and sighed.

“See you around.”

Squall only nodded before he watched the cop leave. The squad car drove away with the blue lights on so he guessed some kind of mission had come up.

The brunet sighed. Disturbing enough some of that tense knot called a stomach had eased up. Maybe it was because of the chocolate since he hadn’t eaten very much the whole day. Deciding to return home and do his homework earlier than planed, Squall paid the bill and left.

*****

“So this guy completely flips out and starts screaming and waving his hands…”

Squall tuned out the other as he recognised the story to be another one of those stories. Where Nida either had been an amused watcher of the whole spectacle or somehow just was the guy to save the day. Or else was the one doing nothing wrong.

Somehow Squall had pictured his holiday differently. Outside the snow was coming down slowly in huge snowflakes. His kitchen looked like a mess and even though the man had promised to clean up after himself, Squall just knew he would have to redo it. Suddenly his hand was taken and he flinched when snapping his attention to the other.

“You’re listening? You had that expression again,” the older man smiled.

The brunet shrugged off the hand from his own and rose to take away his dishes.

“You got a job yet?” he asked instead.

“Come on Squall. It’s been like a day or something. Besides it’s still holiday. Not many people working right now,” the man defended.

“Two days.”

“One. I’ve only slept here once,” Nida sniffed.

“Two days, one night,” Squall rectified while irritation rose.

“Yeah, yeah, always was the picky type,” the other snorted while crossing his arms and stretching his legs.

Squall made a demonstration of putting down his dishes in the sink and putting away the juice and milk to then leave the kitchen. Like hell he was going to wash the dishes when the idiot had promised to do it.

The brunet instead took up his math that he was behind with. He felt guilty for not having looked at any of his homework for nearly three days now. However, Nida followed him with his hands in his pockets. The brunet tried reading the same sentence three times before sighing silently and starting to flip through the pages. He was not going to let the idiot disturb him.

“You reading math? What for?”

The man slumped down at the bed and tried reading over Squall’s arm.

“The dishes,” Squall growled and the other made a bothered sound.

But he still rose and stretched his back.

“Should I like… leave?”

Squall looked up at that. Nida didn’t want to meet his eyes and instead looked at his watch.

“I said you could stay a couple weeks.”

“Yeah, yeah. I just mean… it’s like late and I thought you wanted some privacy or somethin’,” the dark haired man made a general direction towards the door.

A brown eyebrow arched and Squall gave the other the kind of look that asked what the fuck he was ranting about.

“Just, shouldn’t that guy or someone else come around?”

Squall’s whole body clenched in a very discomforting manner at the same time his jaws clenched so hard he heard his teeth grind.

“What in Hyne’s name are you babbling about?” he asked darkly.

The man took a reflexive step backwards and squirmed at the place.

“I just thought… That guy from before. You said you two weren’t, like, dating so I just…”

Nida snapped his mouth shut so fast his teeth clicked as Squall rose. The brunet slowly stepped up to the man.

“Thought what exactly?” he growled.

Squall wasn’t stupid. He knew what the dark haired man was after. He didn’t do that business when prompted to, he wasn’t going to start with it this lifetime.

“Nah, nothing. Just being stupid,” Nida said lowly and scratched the back of his head.

He had the modesty to have a slight reddishness to his cheeks. Squall sat down again and irritably took up his book. Hyne, he shouldn’t have gone along with this.

“Um… I’ll start on the dishes then?”

As the brunet didn’t give a response, the man went out in the kitchen. With a heavy sigh, Squall put down the book and looked out through the window. How had he ever been able to live under the same roof as this goofball? Sure, he hadn’t been much more than a kid back then but Hyne!

How could so much change during… what five years? Six? Had it really gone six years? Squall frowned to count the exact date and it had actually been fife years since they last saw each other. It felt both longer and shorter. He couldn’t see any difference in the Nida then and now, but personally it felt like looking back at a stranger.

It made him kind of pleased. To know that one of them had matured. At least he hoped he had matured to something better. With another sigh, the brunet raised the book again.


Author’s Note: Alright. I might have just blown a roadblock out of the way. I’m closing in on the real story here or… nah. I’m just getting closer to the part where I wanted to be in the beginning. :-p