Team Bonding | Dissidia Fanfiction | (2022-2024)

✨Snack Date✨

Bartz and Lightning sit down for their snack date, which—of course—isn't actually a date. Or is it?

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"Y'know, I heard that Materia gets the best fruit from Lix—my hometown."

Bartz watched, cheekily and intently, as Lightning's eyes made caterpillar movements from the fruit tray, to the napkins, all the way up to Bartz's megawatt stare. Some random indoor breeze pushed a curl into the nook of her collarbone. Her black tank top hugged and curved around her like it was second pair of armor.

Slowly, lazily, she twisted a cracker between her fingers, held it up to the skin of her lips. "Oh yeah?" she breathed, her voice the ever icy gust. "Where'd you hear that?"

At her response, Bartz tingled from head to toe in electricity. Smile growing, he plucked a fat grape from the tray and shoved it just high enough to kiss the lights. "Heard it through the grapevine," he said, casual yet chirpy. Then he popped the grape fast into his mouth, noticed how Lightning's brows inched lower, and nearly spit the fruit back out as he doubled over in laughter.

"Cute," Light mused. Her smile was subtle, tugging bigger as the joke poked pockets in the air. "Real cute, Klauser."

Bartz had to chew and swallow at record speed, so he could let his laughter waterfall all over the table. "You fell right into that one!"

He didn't know why he found his own desperate attempt at a joke so funny. Or maybe, it wasn't the joke that was funny at all, but how Light's face had contorted in such thoughtful rhythms. Maybe it was her reflexive smile once she understood.

Oh.

It was then when Bartz realized he wasn't laughing because anything was funny. No, that wasn't it at all.

Behind his laugh-born tears, Bartz peered over at Lightning trying to bite down her curling mouth. Her head shook in tiny, amused bits, and suddenly the room—no, the whole damn tower—felt like a breezy flower field in the thick of spring.

I'm just really happy, huh? Yeah, that's it.

He and Lightning, well . . . They never really did stuff like this. Never did they sit so close at the table. Never did their hands graze in the same fruit tray. Never did the world seem so bright when she smiled at something he said.

No, they never, ever did this. And yet, it was the most amazing Bartz felt all day. All the dirt covering his laughs, all the nervous aches burning his ribs . . . Nope. Gone with the soul-saving winds.

"You pull those jokes straight out of your ass or something?" Lightning quipped, sliding the cracker between her teeth. "Or were you waiting to throw that one on me since lunch?"

Bartz's giddy breathes melted into something more chocolate, more smooth. He gave a little shrug. "You know I'm just naturally that clever on demand." In a slick flash, his position shifted to a pose between slacked and expectant—a hand on his cheek and an elbow jabbing the table edge. "What about you? You were joking with me earlier. Tell me another one."

"No thanks."

"Aw, come on."

"I don't give out jokes for free like that," Light spat, mirth sprinkling diamonds. "I tell jokes whenever the hell I feel like it."

Bartz shrugged again. "Fair enough."

Only a few seconds flittered by. Lightning bit into a grape. Bartz went for a miniature cheese.

"Do you feel like telling one now?"

Now Lightning just lost control of whatever knot she was holding. Her head slipped and tipped forward. Silent laughs bounced her core. Damn, the whole scene just made Bartz feel weightless—like he could dance along ocean ripples—like he could never, ever fall. He was smiling so much it hurt. Ow. A lot. But it was a new and fresh kind of pain. One that he wouldn't mind feeling more often.