Fandom: Kingdom Hearts II & Final Fantasy VIII

Primary Pairing: SeiferHayner

Notes: Story 3 of 3. Sequel to "For What It's Worth" (FFVIII)

Standard Disclaimers Apply.

A/N: Ugh. I feel lame this week. It's taken me forever to find time to sit down to write this chapter. And I don't want to hear 'formatting' and 'hard drive' in the same sentence for AT LEAST two months. I need time to recover. Other phrases I'd rather not hear are 'car insurance', 'unpack', 'snow' and '100 flyers.' My printer is going to cry.

What can I say? It's been a busy week, but I'm going to try to get back on track with the over-indulging of my creativity now.

In So Many Words

Chapter Two: Junker

Hayner was starting to think he'd missed his calling in life. Forget struggle battles—he should just be a spy. The way he snuck around after Seifer these days was positively Double-O-Short-Stuff…or at least that's probably close to the offensive nickname that Seifer would come up with for him…after Seifer'd killed him when he got caught. He decided it was a damn good thing that he knew his way around the tunnelways, because otherwise it would have been hard to follow Seifer without being caught in the long, narrow corridors. Now he found himself awed by the fact that there was a gummi hangar down here in twilight town. He didn't know why this surprised him. Sora visited often and he had to land somewhere, right? Right. He shouldn't be shocked. Why it was that he'd lived in Twilight Town his whole life and didn't know about it though was anyone's guess. Twilight town was strange like that—you could spend your whole life exploring and never stumble across a thing like this, but when you need it, it's always right there. Hayner figured that was just life's little way of seeing if you were paying attention and didn't give it any further attention. More importantly than that was Seifer, leaning to one side like he was trying not to look particularly agitated even though he always looked agitated.

A man entered through a side door and Hayner blinked. His hair was, amazingly, the same shade of red as Cherry Dimetapp. He made a face instinctively. Cherry Dimetapp—ew, gross. He imagined this guy must be Reno…and from the looks of him…hey, was this guy drunk?

Hayner leaned forward a little, squinting his eyes. Human beings are weird like that, they squint when they're trying to listen better even though they can see perfectly fine, but he still couldn't make out what was being said. A few words were exchanged. Reno sighed melodramatically, but then nodded towards hangar #3 and Seifer followed. Hayner hurried, but snuck up to the door, just barely managing to hold it open behind them so he could peek through. He paled at what he saw. The gummi was a total junker: technology that had been old as long as Hayner knew, the metal frame was dented in like the ship had been on the wrong side of one too many grappler fights, and it looked like someone had come along and hijacked anything of value so quickly that the weapon rings were busted and the nose tilted to the left. No wonder the guy was only asking twenty-five thousand. Well, Hayner figured, he could rest assured that Seifer wouldn't be going anywhere in the immediate future. You'd have to be either a complete idiot or desperate to…

"Will it fly?" Seifer asked.

Hayner's jaw dropped. He'd forgotten who he was spying on here. It was Seifer, and apparently he wanted out of Twilight Town pretty badly …either that or he had a death wish.

"Oh yeah," Reno answered. "It'll fly." He sounded confident, but the way he wore that smirk made Hayner wonder if flying wasn't the only thing it was capable of…and probably barely that. "Just ah…don't move the crates tied down in the right side of the cargo bay."

Seifer quirked a brow slightly. "Dare I ask?"

Reno seemed to contemplate this a moment before saying, "Just don't do it and everything's gravy, okay?"

A few moments of silence passed between them. "Twenty-five?" Seifer asked as if he was thinking about it.

Hayner couldn't believe his ears.

"Twenty-five," Reno answered with a smile and nod.

More silence.

"I've only got nineteen," Seifer answered.

"I'll take it!" Reno replied cheerfully. They both knew in reality it was only worth twelve—and that was if you dismantled it for parts.

Seifer gave a curt nod. "Half now, half when I come to pick it up in the morning," he said. "I don't trust you to not take what's left of it between now and then."

Reno stuck his tongue out at the broody blonde. "Paranoid much?" he asked. "But fine fine, as long as I get my munny. I'm going to send my partner to pick up the cash tomorrow. There's no way I'm getting out of bed before noon if I can help it."

Hayner believed it. The Dimetapp-haired, goggle-wearing drunk would probably still be in the middle of tonight's bender at sunrise if the way he swayed slightly when he walked was any sign, but more importantly than that…was Seifer really thinking of flying that death trap? And for that matter, did Seifer even know how to pilot a gummy ship. It's not that he was worried it was just…okay, so he was worried. He may be an asshole but that didn't mean Hayner wanted him to die. There was just something about a world without Seifer that didn't sit right.

That's when he made his decision—hiding behind a pile of crates as Reno and Seifer left the gummi hangar—he would sabotage Seifer's ship so it couldn't take off. Yeah, that would work! Okay, so he didn't know the first thing about gummi ships. How hard could it be? The thing was practically falling apart already, right? Right. Of course, everyone knows when someone says 'how hard could it be?' they're just looking for trouble, but it's easy to forget such things in the heat of the moment—at the very least, it makes a half-decent excuse…

…and Hayner was going to need one.

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To Reviewers:

AgentOz: As usual your comments make me laugh! He may very well get his ass whooped but…not until Seifer finds out, at the very least.

popthetarts: So glad I could convert you in that case! You needn't worry—I usually update very quickly—been a little slow lately because life went all crazy-like, but at worst you should be able to expect a new chapter every week—more than that when I can make it happen. (Which really depends on how much time I have to kill at work—when the weather's bad, we're slow.)

Rest assured everyone I am shooting for plowing through this fic with the speed of the last two, but I find I've had a lot going on lately and I'm in the process of moving things from one hard drive to another…one file at a time, which is an incredibly tedious process (I need order in my life damn it!) so my progress on this story is directly related to the weather in the Tristate area: when it snows or is unnaturally cold, I have more time to kill at work. 'nuff said.