Standard disclaimers apply.
A/N: FFVIII has a special place in my heart as my first gaming fandom and one of the foundations of my childhood. XD It's been a good nine years, and it's kind of funny that this is my first foray into FFVIII!fic, but oh well. One of my best friends challenged me, and I, err, attempted to rise to it, and SeiferxQuistis is fun anyway.
For the Beta theme set.
Mind Your Manners
Walking
They're both much too stubborn to move aside when they pass each other in the hallways—too proud to cede the space of even a foot or two, and never mind if it means banging shoulders.
Waltz
As petty as it sounds, Seifer thinks he hates Squall the most for his two left feet—they get him an extra twenty minutes with Instructor Trepe twice a week, just so the idiot can learn to freaking dance.
Wishes
He sees the star streak across the sky as clearly as anybody, but for better or for worse he doesn't waste his time on it—shooting stars come out once in a lifetime, and they're always gone way too soon.
Wonder
The headmaster always complains about what a bad apple Seifer is, how can she stand him sometimes, but each time Quistis only smiles and bites back comments about his just being special (…ly retarded).
Worry
Seifer knows what to do when he sees her sigh and cap her pen, pulling off her glasses like they weigh as much as the world—that's the only time it's okay to come up behind her and drop his coat around her shoulders, still nonchalantly, as if it means nothing.
Whimsy
She remembers he had a penchant for putting icky things like frogs and snails in drawers—particularly hers—when they were children; now she listens to her more sensitive female students screaming on the other side of the classroom door, and thinks fondly that it had to be one of those things that didn't have the good sense to change over the years.
Waste/Wasteland
The planes unfold infinitely on every side—Quistis looks around at all the empty space, and thinks of him, and suddenly understands how easy it is for someone with almost no sense of direction to get lost in such a huge world.
Whiskey and rum
She's careful to wipe her lipstick off the rim of the glass before she takes off for the night, making sure to leave no traces, because she knows they've already broken protocol in so many ways.
War
"What comes after?" she's wanted to ask him many times, but she never does; after they've built you up like a weapon, you stop being able to imagine things like that.
Weddings
"I can't imagine you becoming somebody's wife," he tells her one day, in casual conversation, and is privately delighted to watch her face slowly contort into a scowl, "because the idea that somebody deserves to suffer that much—it just breaks my heart."
Birthday
He marks the date off on his calendar with a red pen; one day of exemplary behavior out of three hundred sixty-five won't kill him, will it?
Blessing
He can never describe, even to himself, just how much he would like to steal her glasses and throw them down a well somewhere in the wilderness; he's absolutely certain she doesn't need them, and, goddammit, she looks a hell of a lot prettier without them anyway.
Bias
She's always prided herself on being able to take the high road when it really matters, but when he asks her in his cocky drawl if he's her favorite student, she has no second thoughts about coming to his seat and slapping him on the shoulder—hard.
Burning
She tears her hand away from the teakettle, eyes stinging; little Seifer—who admittedly isn't so little anymore, he hasn't had to incline his head to be able to look into her eyes since he turned eight a couple of weeks back—inspects her fingers gravely, then looks her square in the face and calls her stupid for not waiting for Matron.
Breathing
Sometimes he stays awake for hours, so that she has to reach out for him and tell him to stop thinking; sometimes he still has to be told to remember to breathe.
Breaking
"Can you please stop babying him," and here he has to take a deep breath to keep from doing something stupid like screaming or tearing out handfuls of his own hair, "because goddammit, he may be an idiot but for Hyne's sake he's not five years old—and don't look at me like that, I am not jealous!"
Belief
When he puts his hands over her eyes and asks her if she trusts him, she sighs and says she might as well, since everybody's got to die sometime.
Balloon
Quistis is especially hard-edged with him, and sparing with her praise, for all the raw talent everybody says he possesses; it wouldn't do to make his head swell any more than it already has, now would it?
Balcony
They stand on opposite sides of the balcony with their respective drinks in hand; it's something of a contest of wills to find out who'll end up closing that last bit of distance.
Bane
"I'm really running out of reasons to stick up for you," she mutters, combing tired fingers through her hair, in the same breath that he winds one arm around her waist and asks, "Don't I make it worth your while?"
Quiet
They are easiest with each other on nights when they're both too tired to even speak, and the only sounds that punctuate the air still feel like part of the silence—the rustle of his coat as he shrugs it off, the soft clink of cups against one another as she prepares tea for two.
Quirks
Quistis walks in to find the room a mess and a note pinned to the door—"Gone fishing," it says, "back in time for dinner"—and thinks with a sigh that he just had to have so many peculiar idiosyncrasies.
Question
Seifer knows she has all the answers; he just chooses never to ask her, since that would mean owning up to the many things he can't for the life of him understand.
Quarrel
Selphie eyes the pair of them from across the quad, elbows Zell in the ribs and whispers, "Hey, you have to buy me lunch for every time we hear her tell him to shut up, okay?"
Quitting
She's always telling him he should stop—because his room feels like a gas chamber, because he's breaking so many rules, because he's not even responsible enough to throw away his collection of cigarette butts—but the only problem she really has with the smoking is that it gives him an excuse not to talk to her.
Jump
He draws up beside her, asking with a smirk if she's got cold feet; she glares and refrains from telling him that she looks down because she's more afraid of the sky.
Jester
There are a lot of tiny, nonsensical things that he does during class, purely in the interest of throwing her off guard—crossing his eyes, faking sleep, screwing up his face in odd ways when no one's looking—that force her to swallow her laughs and wonder if he could do worse than endear himself to her.
Jousting
She sighs when she sees the bandage wrapped around Squall's head—and again when it's removed and leaves behind a jagged red line—because she knows whose signature it is, of course.
Jewel
This is nearly the end, and he knows she'll be watching so he polishes Hyperion until the blade gleams diamond-bright; what he can't admit, even to himself, is that maybe—just maybe—his heart won't be in it.
Just
He knows she won't cry when they pass his death sentence; she probably won't even bat an eyelash because she'll have such a good understanding of all the arguments and counterarguments leading up to the final verdict, and that's what gets him the most.
Smirk
"Seifer Almasy, you boob, don't give me that look," Quistis mutters, aiming a pillow at his face and missing by a mere inch, "especially this early in the morning."
Sorrow
"I don't think I'll be seeing you again," he says, with an odd quirk of the mouth, and looks like he'd shrug his shoulders if the handcuffs weren't so tight; she bites her lip, averts her eyes, and prays her voice doesn't crack when she answers, "Whatever."
Stupidity
She thinks of telling him, time and time again, that he could pass the SeeD exams easily if he wanted to—but she knows he'd just tune her out, scoff at her for being preachy.
Serenade
He says in quite an audible singsong voice that he loves her, that she's so beautiful—and that's how she knows that she'll probably have to carry him home, because after having a bottle of wine to himself he's too wasted even to realize he's suddenly loose with his compliments.
Sarcasm
"I actually mean it this time!" he insists, but his words are slurred and he doesn't catch the rolling of her eyes as she throws the bottle away with one hand, pulling his arm across her shoulders with the other.
Sordid
The orphanage is only half-there now, the other half having been reduced long ago to rubble, but when she runs her fingers over the stones, when she breathes in the traces of the sea, she finds everything full of echoes.
Soliloquy
Quistis tells him tartly that he likes the sound of his own voice far too much; it shuts him up, at least for a while, although he grumbles in his head about what a lunatic she is when it's that time of the month.
Sojourn
When he wakes up, she's standing framed in the bathroom doorway with her back to him, already in full uniform and buttoning up her collar; she catches the movement of his head in the mirror and her reflection smiles.
Share
Seifer won't ever confess this to her, he thinks, unless he's about to die, but one of his fondest memories is of her cutting an apple at the orphanage, and giving him the bruised half with a worm in it.
Solitary
He used to take long walks outdoors and stay out there long after dark, she remembers—she used to find him asleep under a certain tree all the time, and always just left him there because he'd be embarrassed if she woke him up.
Nowhere
"Will you quit messing around and let me drive?" she snaps at him from the passenger seat, but Seifer turns the radio up and ignores her—he's sure he'll get them both home in one piece, once he figures out just where they are.
Neutral
Quistis sorts through the folder, laying papers aside until she comes to a few pages fastened together and marked with his name; she sighs, and pulls a red pen out of her breast pocket.
Nuance
"I'm fine," she mumbles, head pillowed on her folded arms, glasses askew; he knows from the tone of her voice not to come too near, and goes instead to put the coffeepot on.
Near
Right now there's nothing she wants much more than to run toward him and take him in her arms and scold him for being such an idiot, but it doesn't seem that even her voice can reach him now.
Natural
He throws her a towel and tells her she'd better wipe off her makeup soon, since it's been a really long day and "that shit's gonna seep into your face if you keep it on too long."
Horizon
"I want you to take my car and go for a drive," Quistis orders, very much the instructor as she drops her keys into his hands, "and don't come back until you've cleared your head, understand?"
Valiant
He's come a long way from tying a blanket around his neck and waving a wooden sword around; sometimes she can't help wondering if he remembers his old dreams.
Virtuous
"Can you not look at me like that?" he mumbles at her through the bars of his cell, and turns toward the window so she doesn't see his face.
Victory
"I'll meet you at six and not a minute later," Quistis tells him crisply, and drops the rose into the vase on her desk without missing a beat.
Defeat
He knows she doesn't buy his charm or his sarcasm; he thinks it's kind of sick and masochistic that he still gets so much amusement from trying.