Fandom: FFVIII/Kingdom Hearts

Pairing: Seifer/Zell (and possibly others)

Notes: Sequel to "First Snow"

Standard Disclaimers Apply.

For What It's Worth

Chapter 1: The Down Side

Zell cursed under his breath and paced. 'Why am I doing this again?' he wondered. He was sure it was going to somehow blow up in his face if it hadn't already. He hated Seifer. Hated him. Passionately. Seifer called him 'chicken-wuss' all the time and to add insult to insult the large blonde had taken lately to a new insult: 'chocobo head'--a joke about Zell's hair which stuck up in the front like the feathers of a bird. It wasn't his fault! Short of shaving his head, Zell couldn't do anything about the rebellious hairs, and he just didn't think he'd look very good bald.

He looked down at his gauntlets, the metal badly warped from bending against one Iron Giant too many. He'd bent it back into shape, but it didn't fit as well as it used to and Irvine had promised him and Ehrgeiz and 20 hot dogs if he went on this mission with Seifer and made it 'last longer than it has any right to by sheer coincidence'…which meant he had to find ways to make their car break down in the middle of nowhere when they just happened to have enough food and water for weeks, or 'accidentally' drive into a ditch, or 'conveniently forget his junctions' back at the tent. The up side? A free Ehrgeiz and a huge plate of his favorite food. The down side? Seifer Almsay.

Sufficed to say, after being delayed by his commanding officer seventeen times--and having to admit that Zell outranked him just about as many--Seifer was livid. They were nowhere even remotely near where they were supposed to be and it was all that stupid Dincht's fault. Fucking chocobo head. Sure, technically Seifer should be thrilled to even be accepted back into Garden after the Ultimecia fiasco. He knew that, he did. It was just that Zell had always, always gotten him so irritable that before he knew it he was spewing off random insults and pacing when the smaller blonde wasn't looking. It had been that way since they were kids. For the longest time, Seifer had been the only one to remember that, but now every time he made such a comment Zell bristled. What the hell was Squall thinking, putting them on a mission together anyway? He was confident he and Zell would never, ever learn to play nice.

"Stop pacing and check the food," Zell griped, finally having enough of the back and forth motion from where he'd been sitting on a dead log taking an inventory of their things. "I'm getting seasick just watching you."

"Well," Seifer sneered. "I wouldn't want to upset your delicate sensibilities." He tried to sound confident, arrogant even, but he was so annoyed it just came off as a little prissy. Damn.

Zell lifted his head to glare at him. Seifer glared back, demanding, "how much longer are we going to be eating chili for anyway?"

"Obviously, until we find, buy, and/or kill something else."

Seifer continued to scowl at him, and so wasn't paying due attention to what he was doing and cursed when his fingers--bare of the gloves he normally wore because he'd just been at the nearby stream washing his hands and face some ten minutes before--came into contact with the side of the pot. "Shit!" he hissed, pulling his hand back.

Zell jumped instinctively and Seifer brought his hand to his lips, nursing the burn by sucking on his fingertips. Zell's tense shoulders relaxed and he rolled his eyes. "I guess dinner's done," he said dryly.

"Chicken-wuss you…!" Seifer started up again but for once Zell didn't go all cute and ballistic over the insult, just squatting in front of Seifer and grabbing the injured hand with a "let me see."

Seifer, sitting on another conveniently placed log, looked down at the martial artist as if he'd grown a new head as he poured a potion over the burned flesh. From this angle Seifer couldn't see those stupid upright hairs that made him think of a chocobo in the front. The back of Zell's neck led into a strong back and from there a slim waist. He chose not to think about anything beyond said waist. In fact, why was he thinking about Zell's physical features at all. 'Just looking for something else good to make fun of him for is all,' he decided. 'But I can't call him a bubble butt, that's for damn sure.'

Wait a minute, hadn't he just told himself he wouldn't think about things below Zell's waistline? Right, he had. It seemed to gay. Never mind that he was currently 'dating' Squall Leonheart--just because he happened to be a little gay didn't mean he had to act like it. But as the potion sped up the healing of his burned flesh he realized, much to his disdain that Zell Dincht smelled nice. Now Seifer wasn't exactly monogamous. He had a tendency to sleep with whoever was convenient at the time…but there were some lines he just wasn't willing to cross.

"Idiot," he said, regaining his equilibrium, "you should use another potion and see if it'll fix your chocobo hair."

Zell whacked him in the arm, though not nearly as hard as they both knew he could before saying, "even if you'd said something useful, I can't," he declared. "Since I just had to use the last one on you, jackass."

Seifer blinked, perplexed but determined not to show it, and decided to settle on being angry as Zell ladled out two servings of chili. "Moron!" he demanded. "You wasted our last potion on a little burn like that? What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Like I had a choice," Zell snapped back, rising and shaking a bit in anger. "That's the hand you hold your gunblade with. Be more careful, you jackass!"

Seifer blinked, stared. Zell knew what hand he held his gunblade with? He cursed under his breath and reached a hand out to take a bowl of chili--with more care than he'd handled the pot at least.

"Nice to know you care so much," he said, attempting an arrogant drawl but not quite pulling it off as well as he intended, seriously unnerved by the way this conversation was headed.

"Of course I care, bastard. If you can't fight well I'll be the one who has to pick up your slack." Zell didn't look him in the eye as he said so, as if it wasn't even worth it to look at Seifer and blew on a spoonful of chili to cool it.

Disoriented by the conversation, Seifer looked down at his chili and didn't say anything sarcastic--or for that matter anything at all--for a good long while. Zell had managed to say a good few full sentences that didn't make Seifer want to antagonize him. That, Seifer decided, was the down side of this arrangement.