Santiago was a dog who wore his scars just as his owner did: loud and proud. There was half of his right ear missing from a rather unfortunate meeting with an over-sized robotic heap of scrap metal, a sizzling burn down his back from an accident with fireworks before Seifer managed to make it out to Dollet to reclaim him, and no matter how much he ate, he never seemed to gain any weight at all.
Seifer, because of all that and something else that he couldn't quite place, felt a sort of brotherly bond with the dog. It was all too evident in the mornings, when the pair of them occupied the tasteless couch in their modest Timber hostel, a bowl of bran cereal between them, blank, not-yet-awake stares fixated on the miniature TV set. Whatever was on wasn't even in a language that either of them understood, but Seifer still roared with laughter whenever a girl went skittering off a pole and into a river or a man ate too many pies too quickly and started to retch into his hands.
"DISGUSTING." Fujin sniffed, palms planted firmly on her hips as she surveyed the scene from the safety of the doorway. She didn't have to look to know that Seifer wasn't even dressed yet, his graying cotton sweats loose and untied and still wearing stains from his days in Balamb.
"Fu! Fu, get over here," Seifer chuckled through a mouthful of crunching oats. "I dunno' what the fuck is going on, but they got this girl in a harness and I'm preeeet-ty sure they're gonna' drop her from this airplane."
"Awroo," Santiago offered helpfully, and his translation of the TV woman's frantic screaming was much better than Seifer's snorted laughter.
"WORK," Fujin reminded him, earning the customary languid groan. Seifer's arms sprawled over the back of the couch and he hung there, as if crucified on its cardboard backing and checkerboard upholstery.
"Gonna' be workin' all my life, Fu," intoned Seifer, drumming his fingers against one of the staples in the fabric. His other hand draped over the dog, scratching his ears in a way that made all of the droopy flesh on his head lift and drop again. It was like watching an octopus swim, the way his jowls went sweeping and slopping. "Always gotta' take out time to stop and smell the roses."
Fujin stomped to the set, turned off the power with one angry joust of her spindly index finger, and called their attention towards the window with a curt gesture. Snow frosted the thin glass pane, turning the view into a blurry rumor of a landscape. Even the naked oak outside was hardly visible beneath the fat, lazy flurries that coasted across the window and dressed its black branches in glistening crystal. "ROSES. OUT OF SEASON."
"Huh." Seifer tried to take that with the best nature that he could. "Guess it's too late to start singing 'Let it Snow'?"
There was a smile hiding in her voice that Seifer hadn't seen for years, but it didn't make her look any less intimidating as she ordered, "HURRY. LATE."
"I hear ya." Seifer loped over to the minuscule dresser and lazily pawed through its depressingly scarce contents. There would be, he promised himself as payment for the willpower to actually struggle into a shirt, time for roses later.