Mending Broken Wings
By Astarte
I find myself drawn to him for some masochistic reason. Its not just because he's about the most gorgeous guy I've ever set eyes on, its mainly because he's so different from anyone I'd ever met. I've never seen someone as mean and cold as Squall Leonheart in my life. He's so beautiful to look at with that auburn hair and those stormy coloured eyes but I've never seen him smile. I've never seen anything but that grim frown on his face. I almost swear that he doesn't know how to be happy.
It makes me want to sock him in the jaw sometimes. He can kill the cheeriest mood simply by walking into the room. He always has this… this… horrible aura pouring off of him that makes everyone miserable just by standing close by. He knows exactly when to say the right thing to make everyone feel bad. Why does Squall have to be such a complete and utter jerk all the time? Just when you think that there might actually be some kind of humanity in him, he opens his mouth and says something awful. He always gives me this urge to kick him in the shins.
Zell just wants to be friends and he's such a sweet guy but Squall brushes him off like poor Zell meant nothing, less than nothing. Selphie gets treated like an inconvenience that was forced on him. You'd think that being happy was a crime or something. He treats Quistis even worse, if its at all possible. He acts as though he'd rather hug a malboro than be in the same vicinity as her. Its something I don't really understand. The other SeeDs are so nice but he is so cold. When you look at him, it feels as though there's nothing inside. He acts as though he has a shard of ice piercing his heart.
He behaves as though he doesn't care about anyone, not even himself. He seems to exist solely to follow orders and nothing more. He doesn't seem to have friends or hobbies or anything that would put him in contact with other people, except as a part of his job. He goes out of his way to push people as far away as possible. Its as if he was trying to make us hate him. He certainly puts a lot of effort into it anyway. The moment anyone tries to get close to him, something horrid pops out of his mouth and he gets this cold icy gaze in his eyes. He keeps treating us like the enemy and I wish I understood why. Nobody is like that for no reason. There are always reasons, even for being an utter creep.
Take just now, for example. Everyone was worried about Seifer, even Zell who can't stand him. Everyone, apparently, except Squall who just stood there and casually said that he figured that Seifer was already dead. He said it so coldly, so indifferently, that it made my blood just boil. I know I shouldn't let him get to me but he seems to know exactly how to make me instantly furious. Its some mysterious talent that he has. He knew that we were worried about Seifer and Squall seemed determined to crush all our hope. You'd think he couldn't care less.
Yelling at him didn't help any though. He just got this confused look on his face as if he couldn't understand why I was so mad at him. I don't think that he did either. I really don't think that he understood what upset me.
I've been watching him for a while now, as he stares across the room, lost in thoughts that only he knows. He's so stuck inside his own shell sometimes, hardly ever telling us what he's thinking and why. If you ask, all he'll do is pause, stare at you for a moment with those lovely storm coloured eyes and say "Whatever."
I'm still watching him, wondering how people like him can exist. He's so similar yet so different from Seifer. Seifer always made me feel happy and carefree. When I look at Squall I just feel sad and depressed.
I suddenly see the flash of a hundred different emotions as they speed across his face. He hides them behind that rock hard exterior but not before I finally caught a glimpse behind that shell. I finally saw a tiny piece of the real Squall, the one he tries so hard to keep locked up. What I just saw made me too sad to remain angry.
I saw hurt and resignation and hollow aching hopelessness. It never occurred to me before but I think I know why he's always so mean to us. I think that he's just trying to be helpful in some peculiar way. He is trying to protect himself but he's trying to protect us too; protect us from hope. He sees hope as dangerous, as something to be avoided at all cost. How damaged does a soul have to be to believe that hope does not exist, that despair is all that there is? It makes my heart hurt just to think about it.
Did Squall have hope once? Did he believe and get crushed? Does he actually think that he's saving us from a similar fate? Is he trying to avoid that experience from ever happening again? I wonder if that could possibly be it. I remember pain. Losing mom was agonizing, trying to understand why she wasn't there and why she wasn't coming home anymore. Squall's an orphan, most of them are. Did something awful happen to him when he was a little kid?
Did he wait at the front door for someone that was never coming back? I remember that. I remember it even though mom's face is fading from memory, I remember the incomprehension of it. I remember not being able to accept that she was gone. I remember. I guess that might be the essential difference between us then. I was able to get past the heart-stabbing pain if it and he couldn't.
He lost hope. I never did.
I believe that tomorrow will be better than today, that one day there will be peace, and that everything will be alright. I believe in joy, happy endings and True Love. Squall can only see more of the same; more pain, more hurt, more war, more killing and nothing else. Squall only sees emptiness, suffering and hopelessness. He's afraid to dare imagine anything else, for fear of being crushed again. Better never to feel again, Squall? Is that it? No feelings and no hope means less pain? He's wrong because I saw it in his eyes that one brief second. He's still in pain and all that nastiness and isolation didn't make it go away.
I guess I can't really hate him or even stay angry with him. Mostly, I feel sorry for Squall. He lives in a world of cold greys, where nobody cares about you, love is only a fairytale, and death is the only thing that you can really depend on. So lonely. Hyne, I can't imagine living so empty and alone.
I can't let it just go like this, even if he makes me so mad sometimes that I'm tempted to sic Angelo on him. Misery loves company, I once read. It explains why he's so frustratingly depressing. I read something else once, though. Joy is infectious, Love the great healer. Nobody should live like this. Nobody. Not even the Squall Leonharts of the world.
I'm determined to be there for him and prove that friends are worth having. I want to see him smile, even if it's only once. I want him to feel joy and embrace it again. Everyone needs a friend and I'm determined to prove it to him. Eventually, I'll either win him over or we'll kill each other but I'm determined not to give up. I know it's petty but I'm horribly competitive and I want to win this contest of wills. Maybe one day he'll even like me.
He'll fight me on it I'm sure. He'd rather that I just ignore him. Dad always said I cared far too much about things that should just be left alone. He said that all the time. When I was a kid, I'd find birds that had hurt themselves flying into the glass windows and try to save them. I'd be so crushed when they almost always died.
"Some things are just meant to be, Rini," He'd say. "You care too much about things you can't change."
He said it again when I protested what was being done to Timber. I was so angry about the monumental unfairness of it all and everything I said fell on deaf ears. Seifer told me that he wouldn't listen to me but I tried anyway. I came up with every logical argument that I could think of to prove to him that it was wrong but…
"Timber has been annexed, Rini," He said, "Fairness has nothing to do with it. Stop driving yourself crazy over things that you can't do anything about."
I know that he'd say it about Squall. I know he'd tell me that he's just a jerk and that I'm wasting my time. Since when was helping someone ever a waste of time? I'll never understand that attitude. You can't care too much and things like this should never be just left alone. I don't think I could even if I tried.
Timber needs me, my friends need me, and Squall needs me most of all. Anyone that's that broken definitely needs someone and I seem to be the only one who's not likely to give up on him. I've never broken a promise that I've made, not in my entire life. I swore that I would see Timber freed from occupation and I swear that I'm not going to give up until Squall learns to hope again. I promise.
Fin.