Title: Before the Dawn
Author: Esther
Pairing: Seifer/Squall
Rating: K
Summary: Squall thoughtfully watches dawn approaching - and he's not alone..
Disclaimer: I do not own Squall or Seifer or any of the other characters from Final Fantasy VIII, but I'll return them nice and clean AND in their original wrapping. No profit made, everything belongs to SquareEnix. "Before the dawn" is a song by Evanescence, and it's their copyright.
Notes: My first fanfiction! It's a short, absolutely unsuitable-scenes-for-children-free (I'll save that for later lol) Seifer/Squall fic, loosely based on "Before the dawn", a wonderful song performed by Evanescence, and I really wanted to get this one finished and stayed up all night to GET THIS DAMN THING DONE! Well, here it is. Have fun reading and, if you want to, review, but be constructive with your critics, because I can't improve my writing if you keep telling me it's just shit. Kaay?
If you find typos...congrats - you may keep them, and I apologize in advance for my (sometimes) miserable English, I'm a stupid blonde, fate, I guess..
He was standing on the balcony and watched the horizon, where the dark blue of the sky slowly began to fade into a dull grey. A light breeze came from the mist-shrouded sea and he shuddered when it cooled his face and blew long strands of brown hair into his eyes. He brushed them aside and watched the dawn approaching, this being his favourite time of the day, when the Garden was still peaceful and quiet. Only a few hours, and the corridors would be full of students and their laughter and chatter, which couldn't be ignored even if the wooden door of his office was praised to be soundproof to a certain degree.
After being Commander for a while, he could tell the time just from the noise outside. Sitting over his paperwork, he could hear the noise getting louder between the lessons, when students passed by and complained about their results, and the relative silence in the lunch break and after 10 pm when everyone was supposed to be in bed.
Yeah, supposed to.
It happened from time to time that someone – mostly Quistis – looked at him, studied his face, said "You work too much, take a vacation..." and patted him on the back. Whereupon he used to shrug and turn away. He couldn't possibly tell anyone, not even Quistis, that the dark shades under his eyes didn't come from working too much and getting too little sleep because of it, but that he didn't sleep as much as he should because he was sometimes sitting in his office all night, not able to go to bed until the dawn began to break.
Relationships between superiors and students were forbidden. Especially this one.
And because of some words written on a paper – though it had an official seal on it – he had to wait for the moments before dawn, to be himself, not bothered by reports that waited to be signed.
Sometimes, he felt helpless during daytime, when he briefed Seifer's team, having him right before him, and still not able to do anything but watch…and he deeply hated to call him "Cadet Almasy"…but he had to. Relationships between superiors and cadets could influence their work habits - was the official reason for the forbiddance. He knew that it was true, but sometimes he felt like ignoring the damn rules. Until now, he had always sticked to thinking about it – the consequences were too bad, and he didn't want to give it all away, because he wouldn't be able to see Seifer in the mornings if he had to go.
Shaking his head, he thought – not for the first time – that he had no clue how this was going to end. It was weird, not to know what came next, his entire life had been more or less…predictable, there had at least been a small hint at the events to come, and this time…there was nothing but uncertainty, and, in a weird way, it felt just good.
"Something wrong?" a low voice asked from behind, then arms were wrapped around him.
He gratefully leant back into the warmth of Seifer's body, escaping from the cold breeze that was still blowing from the sea. It felt comfortable, like everything else was so far away, like nothing else mattered.
Squall rested his head on the blonde's shoulder and smiled. "I was just thinking..." he said quietly, looking up into Seifer's eyes. They sometimes reminded him of the sea when the sun was shining on it; or was it the other way round? He didn't know, and he didn't care. Seifer was here…at least for the next few moments, and he didn't want to waste them. Still smiling, he raised his head and gave him a deep kiss, which Seifer responded, causing the butterflies in Squall's stomach to flush.
Together, they watched the sun rise on the horizon, regretting that their time for today was over so soon, but also already waiting for the next hours before dawn.