Invitation
Author: Amber Michelle
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Pairing: Sephiran/Zelgius
Theme: 09 - body language
Rating: T
Word count: 1288

Notes: Modern AU, set during high school or thereabouts.



............................................


"You have to learn to say no," Zelgius said, pulling the refrigerator open. Cool air ruffled his hair. "That Japanese politeness stuff isn't going to work on someone like Marcia." He reached past a carton of organic milk for a slab of white cheese and hoped it wasn't frozen again. It always crumbled when it was like that. "Just lie."

"Hmm." A page turned. He could imagine Sephiran rolling his eyes. "Lie about what? I don't know anyone."

Zelgius slid the cheese onto the kitchen island by the cutting board, grabbed the butter dish, kicked the door closed just because his mother always told him not to. The thing was ancient - a Kenmore in ugly greenish yellow, and it froze everything, or the food went bad because it wasn't cold enough. They kept the butter in the door, and it was soft around the edges. "What are friends for?"

Sephiran's eyes flicked up, over the top of his English-Japanese dictionary. He couldn't do anything casually; a normal person would lean back on a counter and slouch, but his back was straight as an arrow. The island counter hid is feet, but they were probably crossed precisely at the ankle, left over right. "Cooking," he said. Zelgius snorted. The other boy's eyes moved down, and he lowered his book a few centimeters - not enough to show a smile. "What are you making?"

"Grilled cheese." Zelgius pointed at the drawer behind Sephiran - no, the second one down, in the white tray - and described the cheese cutter he wanted: white handle, with a wire across the top, hadn't he ever seen one before? No. "No? You haven't--"

"My mother cooks at home." Sephiran pushed the drawer closed with his hip, closed the dictionary with his index finger between the pages to mark his spot. His hair caught on the handle. "She didn't use cheese. Or milk." He turned around to untangle it. "It's a sandwich, is that right?"

He pronounced the word like there was an oh at the end of the sand. Zelgius found the cupboard with the bread by feel, pulled it out - five slices left, just right - and watched him turn forward again, hiding a sliver of flesh between the top of his jeans and where his shirt hiked up in the back. "Yeah." The shirt was pulled straight, down over the hips, and he ripped the cheese wrapper more than he meant to and cut too many slices. "It's really easy. Mom uses spices when she does it, but cheese and butter is good enough."

Sounds very bad for you the other boy muttered, and Zelgius smeared butter on the bread. They could eat healthy when his parents cooked. He wasn't going to cut vegetables or rip up greens - if he sliced anything it'd be that bastard Jarod for his smart mouth. That sonnovabitch deserved more than having his head flushed. He said so again, for the fifth time today, Sephiran told him, and his comeback was drowned when he pulled a pan out of the cupboard and started an avalanche of clanging steel and teflon. He lit the burner, left it there, spun the spice rack by the fridge, but he didn't know what his mom used to make sandwiches.

"What are you looking for?" Zelgius cut a block of butter and dropped it in the pan, watched it melt into bubbly white and yellow, browning around the edges. He watched the other boy's thin fingers comb into his hair, fold it back behind his ear, and when he leaned back it was like he reclined in a chair, his back slightly arched-- He arranged the cheese and bread on a paper plate and took it to the stove. "Just ask me, I can probably tell you faster."

"The word 'fairy,'" Sephiran said.

Zelgius almost dropped the plate. He flipped a slice of bread into the pan, buttered-side down, laid three slices of cheese on. "And you wonder why I'm still pissed off."

"Why?" When he looked over his shoulder Sephiran had tilted the dictionary to his chest. "I just don't understand the usage. I thought cross-referencing might help."

"Don't worry about it."

"But--"

"He's an asshole."

"Wh-- yes, but--"

"Next time some girl tries to drag you on a date, just tell her no. And tell Jarod to fuck off if he doesn't want the team bending him over a rail, got it?"

The answering y-yes was faint, but Zelgius had to flip the sandwich over before it burned, and by then Sephiran was hiding behind his dictionary again, shoulders slightly hunched.

He turned back to the pan and chewed the inside of his cheek. It wasn't like Sephiran was spineless; he wasn't weak, or he would've been intimidated by Jarod, and Marcia would've had him on a leash in less than a minute. He just-- he was so damned non-confrontational. And clueless. And he dressed in button-down shirts he ironed himself, and wore his hair long and silky, like a mane or a veil, soft to the touch and ticklish in the wind when it curled across the car seat to brush Zelgius's arm. And then he ran around the house in undershirts that shrank in the wash because Zelgius was an idiot with laundry, and jeans slightly too big because his hips were so slim--

Zelgius flipped the burner off. "It means you're feminine." He heard the book close again. "Or other stuff, but that's probably what he was ribbing you for."

"I see."

He glanced over his shoulder. From the stove, Sephiran was framed by the bright rectangles of the windows in the dining room, the light turned a rosy orange by the sheer curtains. It blushed Sephiran's pale face, his lips, the white tile on the counters and the metal glint of the knobs and handles. His eyes, cool and green, framed by dark lashes, were slanted toward the refrigerator and the small mirror on the freezer door in its magnetic, blue mesh frame. He held the corner of the book to his lips like a fan, and for a second Zelgius could see it - a fan instead of a book, the bright whiteness of a silk kimono instead of the scoop neck of his t-shirt. It would suit is thin frame, those straight, clean lines and a slip of fabric for an obi.

"I have been accused of this before," Sephiran said when he didn't respond. "Also of being... indecent? It doesn't matter."

Zelgius rolled the spatula handle between his hands. Butter flicked onto the stove top. Mom would kill him. "Because you don't like girls?"

The other boy's gaze moved to him, slightly narrowed - or it could have been the light. "I like girls. When they're not like Marcia, or that Mia."

Zelgius watched the corner of the dictionary creep up to hide his mouth. That curtain of hair looked so black from his angle - like real silk. "What about boys?"

"Hmm." Sephiran's head tilted, the shadows on his face shifted, and Zelgius's hands twitched to take the book and toss it onto the table in the other room. He watched the angle of Sephiran's hips shift when he leaned back against the counter again, and the book lowered a fraction - enough to show a curve to his mouth. "Boys too."


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Edit:
After some thought, I think what bothers me about this attempt, besides my opinion that the pairing only works in canon situations, is the seeming stereotype Sephiran embodies by being a)slightly feminine (which isn't MY fault, thank you designers), but also b) in the way he is supposed to have interacted with other people. What I had in mind - a gulf between how he's trained to act and how he's expected to act by the people in this environment - comes across as him being weak. My fault for not depicting it right. It's a little harder when doing so from a distance (vs. actually writing the scene.)

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, ignore me. It's something I talked about in a locked entry on the other journal. :D