And I was ridin' by
Ridin' along side
For a while till you lost me
And I was ridin' by
Ridin' along till you lost me
Till you lost me in the rear view
You lost me I said
Way up north I took my day
All in all was a pretty nice day
And I put the hood right back where
You could taste heaven perfectly
Feel out the summer breeze
Didn't know when we'd be back
And I, I don't, didn't think
We'd end up like, like this...
-Tori Amos, "A Sorta Fairytale"
Part two of the plotbunny from hell. I could've left the first part as it was, but I've proved time and time again with one-shots that I can't leave well-enough alone, so here it is. Hope you enjoy. I make no apologies for this part. I can't write smut for shit, but I gave it the ol' college try. (What does 'college try' imply? That you swallowed a pill some frat boy was doling out that you were reasonably sure wasn't aspirin, made out with a member of the same sex that you copied notes from in History class and fell asleep in the middle of Aisle 5 at Wal-mart...or, er, that you...I only did one of those things.)
I was really tired.
Hope you enjoy it anyway.
This chapter is for sissyhiyah. Just because.
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The next few weeks are a kind of dream neither one could have ever hoped to have dreamt before. They train hard, they sit through their classes and take dutiful notes, but there are now the accidental touches, the lunches eaten with their shoulders touching, the looks in class and the stolen moments in the Training Center. that are a world separate from any they have ever had.
They have mornings to look forward to, and a waiting affection that neither can ever remember having before. Quistis has never had someone waiting for her, making plans with her, and Seifer revels in the smile she wears only for him, the way she meets his lips as eagerly as he when he pulls her aside between classes. He guards her affection like a dragon wraps around its gold, and Quistis soaks up his attentions like a plant long in the dark.
Sometimes they sit in the Secret Area, just holding hands and talking.
Sometimes, they do much more.
They should have known it would be too good to last.
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"I thought you'd be happy for me," she says, standing in the doorway of his dormitory.
At one time he would have pulled teeth to have her standing in his room, looking at him imploringly- now he wants her nowhere near him.
She looks both wounded and warmongering, a duality about her that has always fascinated him about her. She can demolish a house with a well-placed cast, can break a man's neck with a flick of her wrist, but underneath, underneath she has an underbelly of made of tissue paper.
It's dangerous knowledge with him; he's always had the dual desire to protect her or tear through her.
Currently, he's leaning towards the latter.
"Happy for you? What, happy that you've joined the ranks of Garden's elite lap dogs?" he snaps.
"Which, until a day ago, you were trying to join yourself, as I recall!" she shoots back at him. "If you could have only followed orders-"
"Followed orders of that simpering moron Seagrey, who wanted to lead our offensive uphill?" he spits.
"If you haven't noticed, Seifer, that simpering moron Seagrey was among the names called today," she replies nastily.
He glares at her, and she looks immediately sorry. She takes a tentative step towards him.
"Seifer, it's fine, next time, when you retake the exam-"
"You just can't wait to be one of them, can you?" he sneers. "All 'yes sirs' and salutes already, already on your knees just gagging for an order to follow. Then again, I already know how good you can be on your knees, maybe you should just-"
It's out before he can stop it, and he regrets it instantly, but then her hand is sweeping across his cheek with a resounding crack, and there's no taking that back, either.
She's hurt him, hurt his pride, and he's done the same, and that's all they really have, isn't it? Not a world that was handed to them, but the world they've build for themselves, the fragile shell of their identity, their integrity.
She's breathing hard and there are tears in her eyes. He wants to apologize, wants to hold onto her and say that he didn't mean it, but there is a wall so thick between them now it's almost visible. Hell, it is visible- she's wearing it. He wants to ruin this for her; wants to drag her down so they're on the same level again, so that he can reach her, reach out to her-
"Enjoy your ivory tower, princess," he says, and he spits the last word with as much venom as he can muster. It isn't much, but judging by the crumpled look on her face, it's enough. She turns and walks away, and he thinks he catches her wiping that ornate sleeve across her eyes as she walks away.
The sight stings worse than the right side of his face, and that's saying something.
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Xu pats Quistis's trembling back as she sobs, her comforting touch both clumsy and unpracticed.
Quistis doesn't say anything.
But then, she doesn't have to.
Xu knows it's the boy, knows it's Almasy. She knew the second Seifer flunked his SeeD exam and Quistis passed with flying colors that it was over, would be over between them- knew that all that tenuous happiness, those fragile smiles of Quistis's would come tumbling down like a house of cards. And while every instinct lurking in Xu's synapses wants to tenderize Almasy's face, she stays and awkwardly pats her friend's back instead.
She can pummel Almasy later.
Ironic, she thinks, that they can summon shields out of thin air that are nevertheless tangible enough to stop a bullet, that they can deflect a cast or throw a hold, but they have no defenses against each other, against the kind of damage that flesh and blood and feeling can do.
Xu doesn't say anything, and it's just as well.
Words of comfort would feel as alien on her tongue as another language. Orphans don't know the language of the coddled, and anyway, Quistis's ears aren't trained for sympathy, having never heard it before.
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"RETAKE." says Fujin firmly.
"Instructor Green's a dumbass, ya know. If SeeD were as simple as just followin' orders, they'd all live through their missions."
Seifer is standing in the Quad with his hands jammed in his pockets, staring out into nothing.
His friends hover two tentative paces behind them, glancing worriedly at each other behind his back.
He knows they're trying to help, and he bites his tongue against telling them to leave him the hell alone.
"It doesn't matter, man," says Rajin. "This next time, we'll all make SeeD together, ya know?"
They don't know about Quistis- during the past few weeks, he'd wanted to keep her all to himself. And now, well, now there's no point in bringing it up at all.
"Yeah. You're right," says Seifer. "It doesn't matter."
Turning around, he walks past them back into Garden.
But that's the thing, isn't it? It matters. She mattered.
(Too much.)
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Days pass and he sees her in the halls from time to time
(watching for her)
and she's wearing that calm, cool composed mask that he knows is both her legacy and a complete and utter lie.
She walks past him without a word- doesn't even look in his direction, and he hates that she can look so calm when his own insides are turning themselves inside out.
Their paths have diverged now; he sits through classes and she is on missions almost constantly.
Word is around Garden, (probably emanating from that stupid new fan club of hers), that she's now top in Junctioning, and has Shiva as her near-constant companion on missions.
She is a model soldier, a model SeeD.
Cadets cluster to her. Instructors hold her up as a model example. 15 confirmed kills.
All he can think about is the girl who played hooky with him one night to ride a Ferris wheel.
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He keeps to himself, and so does she.
He screws Galanna Valentine up against the wall of the Secret Area, and pretends it's her. But it isn't her, isn't her voice, isn't her golden hair in his fist, and when he comes, it's dull and empty, tainted with the lie.
She avoids the Secret Area, pretends it doesn't exist.
They both tell themselves that it's better this way.
Neither believes it.
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She is an Instructor now. His instructor. He can practically taste the irony on his tongue as he grinds his teeth in the back row. 36 confirmed kills. Evidently she's killed enough living things now to teach others to do the same.
She gazes across the classroom with eyes as cool and distant as ice, and he is not sure if the frigidity of her gaze is due to the fact that she has forgotten him, or because she remembers.
He can't decide which would be worse.
Then she turns her gaze to Squall Leonhart, and he knows he has found a new, fresh hell worse than either previous option.
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Gravel crunches under his boots as Squall's last hit forces him back- the clang of swords is sharp in the air.
A storm is coming- it raises the hair on his arms and the ozone tastes almost metallic on his tongue.
(Let it come.)
Squall's gunmetal gray eyes are on him, his gaze even, always even, betraying nothing and Seifer hates him more than ever in this moment. He hates his indifference, his calm stoicism, how Squall can shut away the world when every nerve inside him feels on fire on the time, feels like he's being torn apart piece by piece, second by second by the disparity between what he has always dreamed and what has always been instead-
Grinning, he crooks his finger at the boy and front of him.
(Come and get me)
He does.
Fighting is the only time he feels alive these days, feels vindicated and filled with purpose. The Instructors note that he is driven, ambitious (often to his detriment) but the truth is that all he wants a direction for all his anger, he wants somewhere for it to go that doesn't lead directly back to him, that doesn't cycle itself day after day in his head like some festering sore.
And so he buries it in the boy in front of him.
The way Quistis watches him in class is only one reason he opens up Squall's skull.
The look of fury that (finally) lights in his opponent's eyes (matching his) is more than worth the sister scar he gets in return.
She does not visit him in the infirmary.
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He has a girlfriend.
She is beautiful and rich and has a chip on her shoulder that's almost as big as his. She is fun and careless and utterly naive about the world of mercenaries. She thinks war is a way to get back at Daddy for not tucking her in at night.
She has no fucking idea how big the world really is.
She giggles when he compliments her and wears short skirts that billow around her thighs as she twirls. She hates her father and misses her mother. She still thinks the worst thing that can happen to you in your life is to die; he knows differently.
The worst thing in life is to live when nobody wants you.
She understands nothing about his sordid little life- she likes the way his cadet uniform fits him and she likes that playing around with a Balamb Garden soldier pisses daddy off.
He likes that she doesn't know anything about the critical zones of the body, likes that she doesn't have a clue about the fifty ways you can kill a Grat.
She is not a blunted war orphan whose instincts have been sharpened to serve a sentinel purpose. She does not tell knock-knock jokes or worry too much about everything or even attempt to make him behave himself.
She is nothing like Quistis Trepe, and as she lies beside him in the grass, her pulse fluttering in her pretty neck and her hair fanned out beneath her like a raven's wing, he hates himself for wishing differently.
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Adrenaline pounds in his veins, and the latest blow from Leonhart yields a trickle of blood down his side.
He looks at them all in turn, searches them for understanding
(he finds none within himself.)
He looks into her eyes, those same sea-blue circles that once gazed up at him from the grounds of the Training Center with hope and (something more?).
"Am I still your favorite student, Instructor?"
She is a lioness as she stares him down, golden and singular in her wrath. "Not anymore."
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It is raining in Balamb.
Sheets of water cascade down the sides of awnings, and the streets are filled with the dull roar of thunder as it rumbles in the distance. What had been such a clear, starry night has quickly dissolved into a cloudy cluster of storms.
It matches his mood perfectly.
The Silver Hook is one of the few dry places to be had. It is a small bar smattered with old furniture and a blazing fire in the corner, lighting the hanging steins and glasses with a warm, flickering glow.
He is sitting at the bar, spinning a beer bottle by the neck and waiting for the rain to let down enough to get home. He is fresh off the docks, and his jacket still carries the faint scent of fish in the collar. Fortunately, the smell is drowned out by the other smells in the room: heavy cologne, the smell of cheese curds bubbling in a vat of hot oil in the corner, and of course, the ever-present stink of maraschino cherries.
The bell rings, and a figure ducks in. He pays no attention as the newcomer sidles up to the bar, dropping a thoroughly soaked newspaper down on the bar that evidently doubled as an umbrella.
"Three fingers of Odine's, please, chilled," says the voice, and now the stranger has his full attention.
Seifer watches out of the corner of his eye as Quistis Trepe shakes back her hood, flipping a sheath of dry blonde hair out from the collar of her coat. "Make it two."
Her eyes are on him, then, perfect cerulean pools just as bright and clear as they were when she was a cadet. She pierces him with that gaze, holding him perfectly and completely with just her attention.
(He is a cadet again, kicking her chair.)
"Seifer Almasy," she says. "It's been a long time."
There is no longer that tremor in her, that hesitation; she has been hurt and she has survived it, and the scars have made her brave. She has broken her heart and broken her bones- what more can he do to her, broken as he is himself?
His hair is longer now, wet and plastered to his face. But the smile he answers her with is the same, self-satisfied smirk he used to wear (if a little dimmer), and she is glad to see it.
"Instructor," he says. "Here to touch up a few cuts?"
"It's Quistis," she corrects him, accepting her glass from the bartender. "And it seems to me you have enough to be going on with already, don't you think?" Taking the other class, she slides it down the bar towards him. The look in her eyes is unglazed- clear and blue and endless as the sea; she is unjunctioned. It is possible that she remembers everything.
"Shouldn't you be at a certain celebration?" he asks. Balamb is practically pulsing with camera flashes and orchestral hymns- the heroes are home, after all.
Technically, he should be celebrating, too- the Garden Council has decided to spare his and Edea Kramer's heads in the interest of glossing over a very messy international mop-up of government fuck-ups.
Besides, no one wants to admit how powerful the Gardens have become...
Somehow, he's not in much of a party mood.
"What's all this, then?" he asks, gesturing to the glass in front of him. "A victory toast? You come here to gloat, what is it?"
She smiles. "Let me guess, Seifer Almasy doesn't drink with old enemies?"
(They are cadets again, dancing around the mats, looking for openings.)
He narrows his eyes at her.
She raises her glass towards him in half a toast. "How about an old friend?"
He looks past that smile and he knows; she remembers everything.
(So does he.)
He raises his glass, his smile more than mocking but less than cruel. "To old friends, then," he says.
They both drain their glasses.
He buys the next round.
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Quistis has bought this round, and somewhere between the fourth and the fifth, they tell their stories.
He talks about working on the docks, about Rajin and Fujin coming around to visit, about old wounds healing. It comes easier than he expected, but then, Quistis has always been easy to talk to, because he knows she understands.
Quistis talks about traveling the world, about Squall and Rinoa, Irvine and Selphie, Zell and what's-her-name, about her being the Card King and about Ultimecia's 'death'. She talks about Time Compression, about being lost in time as it unraveled and restitched itself second by tedious second, about waking up alone in the flower field and feeling like her heart would burst.
He listens. He understands.
And then there is silence between them, not awkward but impatient, and he wants to tell her he is sorry, but he isn't sure for what or which thing to be sorry for.
She wants to tell him that she missed him, but isn't sure in what way you're supposed to miss someone that wasn't a has-been or a might-be, but was only ever an 'almost', always on the brink of becoming something more.
What he says instead is, "Shouldn't you be celebrating? Why are you here, with me, anyway?"
The fire crackles in the hearth. In the corner, glasses clink together, and people murmur in corners, hiding from the rain.
And what she says is, "Because the only time I ever felt alive…was when I was with you."
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He isn't sure how they get to his house, but it doesn't matter, because she's got him backed up against the wall with his pants around his ankles, his jacket pulled down around his elbows and his hand inside her blouse and her teeth in his neck as he hooks her thigh high on his hip, pushing her skirt up to her waist and exposing those creamy thighs to the dim light of the hallway.
It's the Secret Area all over again, except this time, their hands are more certain-
- and this time, he knows exactly where he wants it to go.
She's gotten his underwear down without his notice and is reaching for him, but he doesn't want it this way, doesn't want it rushed when he's wanted this (forever) and he lifts her up and carries her to his bedroom where he (prays) is almost certain that there aren't any old dirty heaps of clothes piled on the bed.
She lets out a little gasp as he deposits her on the mattress, but before she can catch her breath his body is flush against hers, his mouth devouring her as he pulls the last few rain-soaked clothes from her body and trails his tongue against her skin, sweet rain-water and the salt of sweat and that own taste that is uniquely her filling up his senses as she arches into the mattress, twisting her fingers in his hair and gasping his name.
He sits up and brings her with him, and when she settles down over him, when he's finally (Hyne, finally) inside her, when they are eye to eye and flesh to flesh, and for the first time he is with his equal, his match, (his), she bows back and he is treated to the sight of her beautiful form silhouetted against the fluorescent lights behind the door, he knows that this is where their paths have always led, where things were supposed to go, where this was supposed to end. She strains against him and meets him halfway every time, and it is perfect and right and-
He says her name, breathes it as he feels her come apart around him, as he unravels himself-
"Quistis." He says, speaking for the first time since they stumbled through the door.
Startled, she looks into his eyes and he knows she is here with him completely, belongs to him in this moment, (soaks him up) and she whispers as she sags against him, as he draws his arms around her (a dragon guarding gold, reveling in that small smile on her lips) the smile she wore (she wears) just for him.
"Call me princess," she whispers.
He does.