"Estranged"


Author's note: "Estranged", named quite randomly after that Ambeon song, is a long-time idea finally finding its place: how do a group of people, banded together by a high-stress situation (e.g. saving the world) cope with their happy ending, especially if their lives were centered around that situation? What you also probably will notice is that this did, in fact, start up as a shipping fic, but after a certain point (I call it Chapter 5) it evolved into something different altogether.


Prologue

The sky, grey and monotone above, appeared as a visual reflection of the ambient hum of silence, heavy and droning underneath all the other, smaller sounds. Even his uneven footfalls, echoing with the crunch of the gravel under his boots, seemed to blend in.

Rinoa's warm body was pressed against his, her shoulders offering him whatever fragile support they could. Not that he could protest. He didn't mind at all. He barely felt her presence.

Everything around them registered in his head as afterthoughts. Irvine, sitting on an overturned, crumbling column, smoking. The flowers, some bent, some broken, but all around, bursting through the cracks in the stone below and spreading out. Bleeding through the cracks. He moved, not feeling the movement and witnessing his surroundings shift, as if he was just sieving through the world, in perpetual motion but perfectly still.

The elongated scratch of the gunblade being dragged along; its tip, the blunt side, sliding on the stone.

They went in through the non-existent door, the threshold just an ominous reminder of what once was inside. He shrugged her off. That was enough. She could help him out there, where he wouldn't mind her. But in here, in this place, he wouldn't have it. He knew what her face must have looked like, confusion and annoyance rolled into a singular contortion of features. He didn't care.

Hyne, he just wanted to fucking sleep.

In the orphanage, the smell of dust and moss and wet stone reminded him of some random night in the rain, where he had promised himself he'd be okay. He'd be okay without her. Except, he never had been. He had never been okay. He had been too afraid.

Later. Dwell later. Sleep now.

Zell, sitting on the steps. Edea by his side, one hand over his shoulder. Hushed voices making words he couldn't care for. He passed by them, hand still around the handle of his weapon. Clang. Clang. Clang. Three steps and then, that dragging sound, following him all the way across the familiar path of his room.

The distance was a lot shorter than he remembered. But, then again, he was a lot taller than he remembered. It all evened out.

There was a door, hanging off of rusty hinges. He pushed it. It swung and crashed against the wall – it used to do that. He lifted one arm to stop it's back-swing.

There, the bed. Dirty sheets, the quilt torn and possibly moth-eaten, but there was a mattress and a pillow, and that was all he needed.

The gunblade crashed onto the ground. Squall climbed into the bed. He pulled the covers halfway, and closed his eyes. One thought.

I'm done.