I do not own FF8 or any of its obvious components. I do not own the lyrics featured here- they are to "Rift," by Imperative Reaction. Good song, by the way.

I am an ANGST MACHINE. Something to be really proud of, I suppose. Another bit of my obsession with Seifer's guilt complex, which likely doesn't really exist. But you know, that's okay. I know there are recurring themes here, so let me clear up a coupla things: I adore photographs. They give me a window to something that happened that I probably missed. And, well... Squall and Rinoa are my favorite consentual couple in FF8. :x

Here I stand all alone,
Drowning in regret.
I have myself to blame again.
No words can ever make amends.

Seifer sat outside his tent on the peak of the mountain and glared at the treetops over the snowscape of Trabia, as if it was all their fault. But he knew it wasn't. It had been years since he'd abandoned the world he knew from the Lunatic Pandora, and abandoned the Pandora itself upon realizing what he'd done. Years. How many years now? He couldn't even remember. Time was immaterial to him, and had been since the day he'd renounced himself, to the horror of his posse. To the best of his recollection, they hadn't cared much after the initial indignant reproach at leaving them behind. (You grand ass. Fuujin cried for months because you left. You were all they had. You weren't there to keep Raijin from being reckless at the wheel trying to calm her down that day. Someone pulled her outta that crash, but it wasn't him- and it sure as hell wasn't you. He's dead because of you, you know. She hasn't let go of you yet. You grand blameless ASS.) ...He hadn't cared much about her to begin with. Fuujin was an idle fancy, at one point in time. He couldn't even remember when. To this day, he saw her face as he'd left. Her rage. What was the word? That word for making promises and saying things that weren't real. You know, the one where you made a world for someone and then ground it under your heel when you were tired. There's a word for that. That was what her face had said. But Fuujin hadn't mattered. Not after he'd met her. Nothing ever mattered after that.

I am the damage,
I am the loss.
I am everything that breaks down.
I am the reason,
I am the cause.
I am the wound, I'll never close.

As crazy as it was, Squall had always felt like a little brother to him. He'd always wanted to watch the kid's back. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't ever make it seem that way. He'd always held the boy in the highest respect he could muster from a punk like himself. Until he saw them dancing. That was the night he'd spiraled into destroying everything. He couldn't help it... he'd always been this way. The holy hell he'd raised a year before that, when Fuujin had mentioned Squall's good looks in passing? Man, did he explode at that. He'd always caused shit for the stupidest reasons. Poor Fuujin's arm had been sprained for weeks because of that. He felt bad for that now, all of a sudden. He knew it wasn't right. You can't just fuck people up like that, not if you want their respect. He'd always kept the respect of his posse, for some reason. He could never figure out why. All he ever did was cut people down. A user. A stomper. He remembered the first time he'd met Rinoa. He'd crowed about getting laid the day after they met, although everyone knew it was a crock. She was the Galbadian president's daughter, even if she was a rebel. Anyone's dick caught within a mile of her would get shot off in a heartbeat. But at least he got a kiss. He'd shrugged her off, though. A week of romantic shit gets on any guy's nerves fast enough, you know? He regretted that now. Leading her on like that. He'd waved her off after realizing he wasn't gonna get anything more than kisses that summer. He was young enough to think it was a lost cause. How wrong could a guy ever get? Hell, he'd even laughed after seeing her cry, even though it hurt him inside later. He hadn't cared when Fuujin found out and beat the hell out of him for it. It didn't matter that Rinoa was pulling pieces of the foundation out, even then. He'd started falling the day he saw her, he knew- he'd started ruining everything as soon as he smelled her hair when they kissed.

These things I never wanted
Tearing through me,
Destroying everything I've done.
My rotten whispers
Speak to no one,
Yet these walls will not fall down.

He fingered his moustache pensively, watching the sun set over the ocean in the distance. Fuujin had known he'd found another fancy. She'd never asked who, as long as she was the one he nailed at the end of the day. Fuujin had been weird like that- she'd always taken "look, but don't touch" to an entirely unfamiliar level. Fuujin had been a sick addiction from the beginning. For all the freedoms she'd allowed him since the day they'd met, she had so many poisoned hooks in him that she made it hard to move. She'd never given him an order or punishment the way she always had with Raijin, but he'd been bound just the same. He supposed there was such a thing as a domino effect for control whores like her. Him to her to Raij. He almost felt sorry for the guy- almost felt relief knowing Raijin was free of her now. But Raijin had brought all that shit on himself. They were confidantes, Seifer mused. Or, they had been. As morbid and perceptive as she was, she'd never figured out who he'd gotten the hots for. It was a good thing for Rinoa that Fuujin had never found out it was her. Things could have gotten really ugly if she had. And Rinoa had never asked for that. She'd never asked for him. Seifer snorted to himself and shook his head. Women were locking him up from every direction, it felt like.

Rift-
It's breaking me down,
And no one ever seemed to see
How much it really meant to me.
It cut me deeper than we knew,
And all the things we ever felt
Are buried underneath my guilt.

He ran a shaky hand through his hair, closing his eyes against the flaring sunset. The only times he had ever been able to shake Fuujin had been around Matron and Rinoa. He remembered being a pup, back at the orphanage. He'd always gone for the wrong women, it seemed, and he chuckled to himself at the bitter joke he found in that. He'd cultivated an inane childhood dream of rescuing Matron from her dreary life of taking care of jerks like that crew and keeping her happy in a big sparklin' castle. Once he grew up and realized she was married, he stopped caring. Once in awhile, throughout his initial obsession with Rinoa, it had occurred to him that his infatuation could be because she sort of looked like Matron. But that hadn't felt right- it had felt more like he had been infatuated with Matron because she looked like Rinoa. He'd hated Squall for winning her over with a bad attitude. He'd wanted to kill him for a long time, because Squall had killed every chance he got to prove himself to her. All in all, he got what he deserved. He was paying for being such a punk... it wasn't Squall's fault that he was a better man than Seifer. He realized that now; it had always been his own problem, not Squall's, not hers. But right now, he ached, just a little. If only anyone had understood why he'd done the things he'd done. Would Squall have turned into such a righteous asshole if he'd known how much it ached to watch her smile? Would Edea have picked him out to be her lackey if she'd known his heart didn't really lie with her the way he'd told her it had when he was little? Would he have been spotlighted as a demon... if everyone had cared that he worshipped an angel? Would he have done the things he'd done if he'd known himself how he'd really felt all that time?

Rift-
It's expanding with time,
And the storm I brought between us
Will burn us forever.
I've lost everything inside.
I have torn apart the threads that held my soul together
One more time.

He remembered the last time he'd been able to touch her. It wasn't under friendly circumstances, to be sure... he winced at the memory of how much his guts had knotted up, seeing the Hyperion at her throat. It had disgusted him to the point of retching, for a split second, when he'd realized he was the one holding it there. She'd bitten him, and punched him, and scratched, and kicked, and busted his eardrums screaming up the side of his face before she'd passed out. He'd known the gang would be up around there looking for her... he'd known it wasn't right, what he did. But he hadn't been able to help it... he'd lain her on the floor and stared at her face for what seemed like hours or years. He could have stared forever, if he'd had it. But he hadn't, so all he could do... all he could think to do, at the time, to get rid of some of this pain... was to kiss her. She had the softest lips a man could imagine when she was that pliable. As a dormant tempest, she was the perfect everything right in that moment. It was even sweeter than the kiss he'd gotten the summer before. And he couldn't stop. He'd had to kiss, and touch, and taste, until she'd awakened. He cracked a rueful grin at the memory, absently running his right hand over his left shoulder. There was still a pockmarked scar where she'd bitten a chunk out of him once she'd realized what he was doing. He wished he hadn't done that. He knew that the one moment in that hall had obliterated any chance he could ever have of forgiveness or love. Even respect had gone in that moment. Her respect for him. And his respect for himself. And if he couldn't respect himself as a person worth the effort it would take to win her back, then he wasn't a person at all.

And all I've had I've lost.
One by one they fall apart again.
My tortured mind cannot revive
The dreams I've thrown away this time.

He could still taste the rage he felt the night he saw them dance together. He remembered how he'd bitten his tongue, and it had split without attracting his notice until his mouth was full of blood. It was a hell of an argument they'd had, when he'd magically showed up in her life again. Part of him puffed up with pride when he remembered how confused she'd looked. She'd been angry at his stunt over the summer, and of course, like all girls, she was pissed off that he showed up out of nowhere to reclaim her. She'd called him a cute load of names that night, and refused to be with him again, but she'd been crying. He'd seen love there, and for some sick reason, he was happy about it- not about being loved, but about having power like that. He hadn't realized until much later, lying next to Fuujin at three in the morning behind the Quad stage, that power didn't mean a damn thing. That he didn't want to be there with Fuujin. That he didn't want the life he had- he didn't want anything but a life with -her-. That want had turned into a need somewhere along the way. He couldn't figure out where. It wasn't like it mattered, anyway. It wasn't something he wanted to think about anymore. It wasn't something that had kept him healthy, or kept him sane. It had been no help at all. Look what it got him. Contempt every time he could catch her eye. Disappointment and pain.

I've almost lost myself,
I've never been so alone.
Your memory never fades.
I don't want what I've become,
But I am left with this.

He stood up and stretched, gazing at the sky that swirled from pink to red to blue to black the further his head tilted. Like a body. Like a deep bruise. He hadn't seen any of them in years now. He neither knew nor cared how many years it had been. He'd been living with the past for so long now, he probably wouldn't recognize her if she came up and slapped him in the face. She probably would, were she to see him and know what was going on right now. As little as she respected him- as much as she hated him- she'd always been the do-gooder of the gang. She'd have found a way to keep him tied to his misery if he'd done this any other way. He closed his eyes against the sky and remembered the last time he saw her. Her wedding dress was a real dream. You wouldn't believe the laces and frills and iridescent flowy junk all over that thing. On any other girl, it would have been an eyesore. But not on her. Squall hadn't looked half bad himself, even in a regulation tux like any chained man would have to wear on a day like that. Seifer couldn't shake the looks on their faces, though, when they'd seen him. He'd gone up to them during the reception and had offered the Hyperion as a wedding gift. All the betrayal he'd seen on people's faces in his whole life couldn't amount to half of what he'd seen on theirs that day. They'd looked like he'd offered them their dead baby on a silver platter or something. He couldn't help but stare at her when the security crew had dragged him off. He'd known everyone else was watching him like a circus freak... but he couldn't take his eyes off her. He couldn't help it when his eyes had busted up in tears while they were opening the door. He couldn't focus on her face when they were dragging him out, and now, by Hyne, he wished he had been able to. He wished he'd had that last comfort before he'd turned himself out of the life of the world. He'd gone home that day, to his shitty studio in Timber, and grabbed everything that was worth it to him. It was a sad armful of crap. He'd crammed it in a duffel bag on top of the Hyperion, and left. He hadn't touched a city since, or seen people except from a distance. Tonight was the first time he'd noticed the sky in years. He unzipped his bag and dumped its contents on the ground next to him, running his fingers over the things as he did. Letters from Matron, photos of his posse, his favorite shirt. Pictures of her. Letters from her. A regulation Galbadian pistol he'd jacked from a dead soldier in Dollet the day he'd failed his comrades in the exam. And a box of bullets from the same trip. He closed his eyes as he grabbed the box and the pistol. He'd loaded the damn thing so many times, he could do it in his sleep now. In retrospect, it had probably been his destiny to swipe it. In retrospect, he could see a million days he should have done this before now. He opened his eyes again, aimed at a jutting rock below his cliff, and pulled the trigger. It stuck for a moment, having not been used since its owner's death, but took the tip off the rock pretty smoothly after that. The report was loud, but not as loud as he'd expected, and the jerk in his hand wasn't half of what he wanted it to be. But that was okay. It was all he needed, now. He swung the pistol back and forth at his hip to cool it down, and closed his eyes. I love you. He'd wanted to say that for years. He'd wanted to show her for years. All of them. I'm sorry. The metal was cool in his mouth... it still tasted a little like sulfur. And the last thing he saw was her smile the day she'd told him she loved him too.

I trapped myself
Inside believing
I would never lose my ground.
I forced you out alone.
My world fell apart the day you left.

ยทยทยท

Rinoa stared numbly at the note on the table before her. She'd received a small package three days ago by Deling delivery post. She hadn't told Squall about it. It would have caused him unnecessary stress, and that was the last thing he needed these days. The two, along with the rest of the old gang and even Mrs. Kramer, had been searching for that man since the day after the wedding. He had been believed to be an impersonator playing a sick joke, until she'd seen him crying when he was escorted off the grounds. She'd always ached inside, knowing that she couldn't make him understand. That she couldn't make his hurting stop, and that he would never tell her why he was hurting to begin with. That horrible thing that happened when they were all fighting... she couldn't forget it, and she couldn't forget his face then. It hadn't been him. He would never have done such an unspeakable thing on his own. She could never fix whatever had happened to him. And they hadn't been able to find him since then, until he walked in on the first day of the rest of her life... and never again. She didn't get to say goodbye. She blinked and returned her awareness to the sight before her. The package gave her a white gold chain and locket pendant in a white velvet box. She'd gazed at the pendant for hours once she'd opened it. It couldn't be real- it couldn't be right. It was a heart encrusted with a small single sapphire in the middle, and wings flanking it at either side. It opened to reveal an even smaller ruby glued to a photo cutout of a day from years ago- the day Zone and his decrepit camera had caught her and Seifer on one of the train bays in Timber, kissing. The cut was right around their faces. It was far too perfect to be real. She hadn't dared to wear this until Squall had left for a mission in Esthar. She hadn't read the note either, afraid that it said angry things, or helpless things. She'd worn the pendant to bed last night, in hopes that it would help her find Seifer somewhere in the ether. She'd had a dream. It was the worst of dreams. She'd cried and lamented things she couldn't understand. She'd tasted metal, and she'd fallen down a mountain, but most of all she'd seen the sky. The sky had been so beautiful. She shook her head slowly, unable to believe what she knew had happened. The letter was the only thing left to watch her now, in the old spiky penmanship she remembered.
"This is the only fix for something I did ages ago- I didn't mean to hurt you. What I really meant to say was I love you. What I really meant to do, every time I saw you, was never let you go again. I didn't mean to make you hate me. I didn't mean to show you anything but what I was from the beginning, but this is the only way I can ever do that again. See me as I am- I'm letting you go free.
Forever,
Seifer Almasy"