Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any songs or video games. Got it? Good. Oh, and yes, I know the song "Eyes on Me" wasn't actually performed by a woman named Julia Heartilly. It was performed by a woman named Faye Wong. So, Mr. Corporate Lawyer, please do not believe I misattributed those lyrics, because I just attributed them correctly here. You happy now?
A/N: Gracias to my wonderful betareader, Carie Valentine, as well as my equally wonderful reviewers, cerespallas, jellybean-kitty, and x Euphoria. Now, go forth and read!
Content Warnings: Swearing. That's it.
Eyes on Me
"Do your demons, Do they ever let you go?
When you try do they hide deep inside, Is it someone that you know?
You're just a picture; You're an image caught in time.
We're a lie, you and I; we're words without a rhyme.
There's no sign of the morning coming; You've been left on your own
Like a rainbow in the dark."
--Dio, "Rainbow in the Dark"
Seifer Almasy had always looked up to Commander James Melbourne.
He was the only man in the world whom Seifer truly respected; the man deserved it, after all. It was Melbourne who had pulled a three-year old Seifer off the streets fifteen years ago, saving him from a fate of scrounging for food in the waterlogged muck that clogged the alleys of his hometown, as his parents had done until the soldiers came. It was Melbourne who, as the small village that had been the only home Seifer had ever had went up in flames around him, had pulled the young boy from the raging inferno's path.
It was Melbourne who had given him a home after the commander's anti-authoritarian beliefs had captured Seifer's interest three years ago, bringing him back into the man's life. It was Melbourne who had taught him to wield a gunblade against the forces of tyranny and oppression.
It was Melbourne who had given Seifer a reason to live.
Maybe that was why, in the odd dream that had overcome Seifer as he crouched, shivering, in the pouring rain outside a Galbadian military compound, he had imagined that he was Melbourne. Maybe that was why he, the eternal rebel, had chosen to follow the commander's every order like gospel.
Maybe that was why, over the screaming protests of every belief he had ever held, over every emotion he had ever felt from fear to love to hate, over every twinge of guilt that shot through his brain like a bolt of lightning, he had resolved to do as the man told him.
Maybe that was why he had resolved to kill Rinoa.
He had loved her, or at least he thought so. No, he was sure of it. What he had felt for Rinoa, he had never felt for any human being before. Most of his girlfriends had just been one-night stands that were a little tougher than most to get into bed, or worse, tools that he used over the course of a difficult mission. But Rinoa had been different. He had been content just spending time with her. Sure, he would have liked to have had sex with her, but she hadn't been ready, so he hadn't pressured her.
It had been going so well...until the day she saw him run an unarmed Galbadian soldier through the heart. After that, she had run away, and he hadn't seen her again for months.
He remembered the next time he had seen her very vividly...
Seifer slumped dejectedly against a column in the high-ceilinged underground ballroom. He knew she was here, not because "his heart told him" or any other stupid, sappy reason, but because Melbourne had ordered him to find her. He knew it, and he fucking hated it. She was the last person he wanted to see. Ever.
But, he had to see her. Orders.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. How had it come to this between them? HE didn't know. It hadn't been HIS fault. SHE had been the one who had left.
Fuck her.
He didn't notice the silver-haired woman standing next to him until she awkwardly put a hand on his shoulder. He jerked, surprised, and looked around wildly. Then, his eyes alighted on hers.
"Damn, Fuu," he gasped as his body relaxed. "Don't...DO that!"
"SORRY," she mumbled, casting her eye downward downward in embarrassment. He sighed.
"Forget it."
She drew closer, staring up at him. "THINKING?"
"Yeah."
"HER?"
"...Yeah."
She stood in silence for a moment, and Seifer's mind wandered, focusing on the song playing in the background. It was some shitty peacenik song about love and money and other assorted bullshit...but it didn't matter, because a fierce urge to just forget everything overtook Seifer at that moment, strong enough to make him want to dance to anything...if only so he wouldn't have to do something else.
Hardly knowing what he was doing, he seized Fujin's wrist and pulled her away from the column, onto the dance floor. They stumbled awkwardly for a few seconds, crashing into another pair. Seifer ignored the venomous looks they shot him and kept moving.
Fujin wouldn't be comfortable with this, he knew. Hell, she was as tense as a tightrope right now. But he didn't really give a damn. The scared-rabbit look in her one visible eye actually almost made him want to laugh.
"SEIFER," she gasped, looking somewhere over his shoulder. He cocked his head even as his feet flew randomly on the polished stone floor.
"What?" he smirked, following her gaze. "Don't you li—"
And there she was.
Raven hair, dark as midnight in Trabia. White dress, riding up her hips with a sort of innocent sensuality. Rosy cheeks, against a pale but not unhealthy face. Spinning, dancing, twirling.
Spinning, dancing, twirling with Squall Leonhart.
Blood rushed to Seifer's head, and he could hear it pounding furiously against his eardrums. He took a blind step forward, releasing Fujin and leaving her staring after him, an almost-worried expression on her cool, mousy face. She was talking with that dickhead, he realized. The fucking slut was talking, she was laughing, she was flirting...
And then Leonhart was leaving, walking away, leaving her standing alone amidst the tumultuous crowd. Seifer felt a rush of savage, vindictive satisfaction as he saw the confused, even hurt look on Rinoa's face. Suddenly, the rage that had consumed him mere seconds before had faded away, and he could hear the music once again. It was different now; heavier, more fast-paced, something he actually would have liked to dance to. But he had a job to do.
He wasn't ready to face her yet. Luckily, she wasn't the only one Melbourne had sent him to retrieve.
So, he turned his back and pushed his way through the crowd, calling out, "Leonhart! The commander wants to see you. He says it's urgent."
Squall turned around to face Seifer and nodded curtly at the blonde soldier. "Why, thank you, Almasy."
"Almasy, can you hear me?"
Seifer's eyes creaked opened to face a sudden onslaught of unforgiving halogen light. He howled, raising his hand to cover them, and felt something...wrong.
Something running from his forehead and across his nose, between his eyes. Something long, something stinging, something different.
What could it be?
"Where...where am I?" Seifer coughed, surprised at how difficult it was to talk.
What the fuck happened to me?
"It's alright, you're safe now," said the voice, vaguely relieved in a detached way.
It was a voice Seifer knew well.
"I need you to tell me everything," said the vaguely relieved, detached voice of Commander James Melbourne.
"Squall...talk to me."
He trudged along through the dense forest as Rinoa hurried after him, batting aside the branches before her face and pushing through the hundreds of tiny green leaves that tickled her skin as she moved. She took a breath and said, her voice suddenly much sharper, "Wait!"
He stopped.
Rinoa stumbled forward into him, nearly knocking them both to the ground. Embarrassed, she quickly patted herself down and looked back up, glaring into his eyes.
He stared back for a moment, his blue-gray pools taking on the cloudy, tempestuous look that had grown so familiar to her over the past few days. Then, he abruptly turned away.
"Squall..." Her voice was suddenly soft.
What's wrong, Squall? Please...tell me.
He sat down heavily on the grassy, overgrown ground, snapping bits of underbrush as he did so. She eyed him warily as he lowered his head to his hands almost angrily.
The wind blew a leaf into Rinoa's face as she waited. She reached up and snatched it out of the air, her attention still solely on the man before her.
Finally, he broke the silence. "Rinoa." It was just one word, but it was something.
"Yes, Squall?" She suddenly felt very small.
An eternity seemed to pass before he spoke again, his voice oddly hoarse. "Do you know how many people I've killed?"
Her breath hitched, and her mind started to buzz frantically. What? How would I know that? Why would I need to know that?
Before she had a chance to formulate her response, he answered his own question.
"Thirty-six, Rinoa. I've killed thirty-six people." She was struck by how tired his voice sounded, like that of an old soldier who'd seen too many battles over his long life.
And he's only seventeen.
"...Why are you telling me this?"
He sighed. "Because, Rinoa, if I hadn't stopped my blade from coming down, if it had just gone two feet further, you would have been the thirty-seventh."
Too many people have died.
He had never believed such a thought would cross his mind. Since the day he had first taken up Revolver against its former owner, that lying, corrupt, sadistic Galbadian governor, he had reveled in punishing the bastards that had taken everything from him.
Well, that wasn't quite true. At first, maybe it had been. But over time, he had come to view the deaths as a distasteful but necessary evil, a means to an end. He had accepted the burden of guilt for his sins, so that others would not have to bear it.
The means become the ends.
Thirty-six faces swam before his eyes, and he shivered, pulling his black sleeping bag closer around him and ignoring the slowly fading pain in his side that had briefly flared up again with the increase in pressure. The full moon rose above their tiny campsite beside the still surface of the great Obel Lake. They were half a day's walk from Timber here, but he had judged it to be unwise to travel too much at night; the ravenous Wendigoes were known to inhabit the Timber region. So, they had set up camp for the night.
As he shifted, his eyes fell on the blue sleeping bag resting mere feet from his own. The soft, regular breathing that came from within the canvass told him she was sound asleep, and somehow, the simple knowledge of her presence so close to him calmed his restless mind and quelled the demons that dwelt within.
He drifted off into an easy sleep, a shadow of a smile teasing the corners of his lips.
The wind jerked the burning white banner to its full length, the flames quickly devouring the odd black swirl that served as the symbol of the Dollet royalty's oppressive regime. Squall felt the heat pass over his arm and face like a wave as the ashes, glowing red, flew past his head. He looked around, confused.
He stood atop a vast stone structure, all columns and archways carved with fantastic designs. A dragon reared up on a wall behind him, its sightless eyes set above a mouth that released its stone breath, breath that seamlessly turned into a phoenix's tail feathers before twisting downward and forming the body of a long serpent that curled around to bite the dragon's neck. He blinked, and realized that, nestled safely beneath the serpent's undulating length, its spine formed a door.
The wind grabbed his long, dark hair, whipping it against his face, and he suddenly realized just where he was.
Three stories below where he stood atop the Presidential Palace in Deling City, a crowd started to cheer, clapping rhythmically and taking up a chilling, demonic chant that seemed to pull Squall's insides into a knot. Except his insides weren't there; the hand releasing the blackened bit of cloth that had once been the Dollet flag was not his...
Vinzer Deling stood atop the Governor's Mansion in Galbadia City, his right hand curled threateningly around the front of the Dollet governor's silk shirt, his lip curled in a vicious snarl as he looked upon the small, sweaty man that had caused the Galbadian people so much grief. He bent down, snatched up the black machine gun that lay at his side, and pushed the man further toward the edge of the roof.
On the ground, the crowd repeated, over and over:
"Kill. Kill. Kill."
The chant grew louder. "Kill. Kill. Kill." It rose up in a twisted crescendo as people climbed on top of cars and rushed forward, hoping to get a better look. "KILL! KILL! KILL!"
The governor's fear swept over Vinzer just as the heat from the burning flag had. Vinzer raised the gun, pointing at the man's face even as his eyes pleaded, Please, don't. Just stop, I'll do anything...
And, for a moment, something happened that had never, in any of these crazy dreams, happened before.
Squall felt what Vinzer felt.
He felt Vinzer's heart race, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He felt him shiver with a sickening sort of delight as the governor cringed, begging at his feet. He felt goosebumps form on his skin as his fingers tightened on the trigger.
He felt it all, and it was...intoxicating.
Then, Vinzer—or Squall, it was hard to tell the difference now—pulled the trigger, and the crowd below burst into a thunderous cheer.
Squall awoke to find his sleeping bag pressing down on him with a suffocating amount of force, the dark cloth saturated with his sweat, giving it weight that it had never had before. He gritted his teeth and violently yanked it off, raising himself up on one knee as he flung it into the trees. As it disappeared into the dark labyrinth of a forest, his gaze fell on the blue sleeping bag next to him, and he froze.
It was empty.
For a moment, he felt his heart go cold, his blood stopping in his veins as though someone had plunged a hand into his chest and seized hold of the red muscle. His thoughts swirled confusedly, colored by an inexplicable emotion that was almost utterly foreign to him, a raw, dark panic. He stumbled forward and crashed to his knees, feeling blindly through the folded cloth to confirm his fears, that even after all he had irrationally done to protect her, somehow, she was gone...
And then he heard it.
Like a first ray of sunlight lazily piercing through a stormy veil, the soft, lilting melody drifted through the trees, flooding his icy veins with warmth. He didn't know why he was so relieved, why he had cared so much in the first place. All he knew was that the voice he heard then was, unmistakably, hers.
"Whenever sang my songs, on the stage, on my own,
Whenever said my words, wishing they would be heard,
I saw you smiling at me;
Was it real, or just my fantasy?
You'd always be there in the corner
Of this tiny little bar..."
He stumbled forward as though a hook had caught him in the ribs and was slowly reeling him in, drawing him lightly and easily through the the branches like they were merely insubstantial twigs. The wind caught his hair, blowing it backward as he suddenly emerged by the shore of Obel Lake.
"My last night here for you;
Same old songs, just once more.
My last night here with you?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
I kinda liked it your way,
How you shyly placed your eyes on me.
Oh, did you ever know
That I had mine on you?"
The moon shone down on the peaceful, smooth mirror of a lake, casting an impossibly perfect, completely round image. Squall's eyes roamed the vast expanse, briefly overcome by its sheer, natural beauty. And then, his eyes fell on her.
"Darling, so there you are,
With that look on your face,
As if you're never hurt,
As if you're never down.
Shall I be the one for you
Who pinches you softly but sure?
If frown is shown then
I will know that you are no dreamer."
She sat by the edge of the lake, her thick raven hair unfurled behind her, caught up by the light wind that seemed never to disturb the lake's surface. The moonlight fell on her ivory skin, giving it a haunting, unearthly glow. Unseen, Squall slowly approached her from behind, his footsteps sounding dull and hollow next to the angelic sound of her voice.
"So let me come to you,
Close as I wanna be.
Close enough for me
To feel your heart beating fast,
And stay there as I whisper,
'How I loved your peaceful eyes on me.'
Did you ever know
That I had mine on you?"
As he drew nearer, he saw her reflection in the lake. Her eyes were closed, her mouth moving slowly as she sang, her soft, clear voice as far as possible from the angry chants of his dream. At last, he was close enough to reach out and touch her on the shoulder...and he stopped, entranced.
"Darling, so share with me
Your love if you have enough,
Your tears if you're holding back,
Or pain if that's what it is.
How can I let you know
I'm more than the dress and the voice?
Just reach me out, then
You will know that you are not dreaming."
He could have said something then, could have stopped her, but he didn't. It was completely irrational, foolish, dangerous, senseless, but...he wanted to hear the end.
"Darling so there you are,
With that look on your face,
As if you're never hurt,
As if you're never down.
Shall I be the one for you
Who pinches you softly but sure?
If frown is shown then
I will know that you are no dreamer..."
Her voice faded softly away into the night, her tiny rosebud lips closing, and Squall released a breath he had never known he had been holding. Startled, her eyes opened as she twisted her head around, and two chocolate pools met two blue clouds.
In the dark sky above him, a ball of brilliant flame streaked along; a shooting star that disappeared into the horizon almost as soon as it appeared.
"Squall?" she asked faintly, and Squall felt an odd thrill run down his spine.
"...Yeah."
"Why are you up?" Her head tilted quizzically to one side.
What should I say? That I saw her gone and panicked? That I was worried something had happened to her? That her voice was more beautiful than anything I've ever heard in my life?
The silence stretched on uncomfortably for a moment. Then, he shrugged. "Just couldn't sleep, I guess."
Her lips curved upward in a soft smile. "Seems there's a lot of that going around."
"Whatever."
She swung full-circle on the ground to face him, the soft smile giving way to a look that seemed almost...sad. She gazed up at him for a moment, then closed her eyes.
Squall shifted, feeling strangely awkward. "That song sounded...good," he finally offered, not knowing what else to say.
She opened her eyes and gave him another sad smile. "Really? I'm glad."
"What was it?"
"It's called 'Eyes on Me'." Rinoa looked down, her fingers playing with a blade of grass at her side. "My mother wrote it for her ex-lover, a Galbadian soldier who went missing during the first months of the war."
"Your mother must be a very talented person."
A few moments passed when the only sound was the light breeze flowing through the forest. Then, she looked up, and Squall was startled to see the crystalline tears that had formed in her eyes. What...?
"She's dead, Squall," Rinoa said, her voice trembling slightly as she struggled to keep it under control. "She died in a car crash when I was five."
Oh.
"Hyne, Rinoa...I'm sorry." He had a sudden urge to put his arm around her, but he seemed rooted to the spot.
She shook her head fiercely, the tears slowly dripping down her face. "It's alright. I...I barely remember her now. It hurt so much then, but...time heals all wounds, right?"
"I guess." He finally regained control of her legs, slowly sinking to the ground beside her. "Did she...did she ever find that soldier again?"
She let loose a shaky breath and shook her head again, more slowly. "No. They always just assumed he was dead. That was why she married my...father." Her smile returned, but it was shockingly bitter this time. "Always a marriage of convenience, of course. She did all she could to forget about her love, and he helped her put out her first record. She never even told me what that soldier's name was."
Squall noticed her fingers unconsciously caressing a tiny platinum band, suspended from her neck by a silver chain. "That ring..."
She wears it so much like I wear mine...
She nodded. "Yeah, it was hers. The last thing she ever gave me."
As their eyes met again, Squall was struck by how lost the wet chocolate orbs looked. It's almost like looking in a mirror, he thought sadly. Rinoa...I understand, more than you know. Cautiously, slowly, he reached up and laid a gloved hand on her shoulder.
Without warning, she spun and buried her face in the fur lining of his coat, unable to hold back the salty torrent of tears any longer. Instinctively, Squall reached around and pulled her closer, softly stroking her hair.
How long they sat there, he would never know. Eventually, though, her sobs vanished, replaced by the light, rhythmic breathing of sleep. He reached carefully under her legs and lifted her as gently as he could manage, carrying her through the trees and back to her blue sleeping bag. As he lowered her softly to the padded bundle of cloth, he lightly brushed the last of her tears from her now-peaceful face. His gaze lingered on her slight form.
She's beautiful, he thought. He immediately berated himself for ever allowing the sentiment to cross his mind. Don't even fucking think about that, Squall. Tomorrow, you'll reach Timber. And then...you'll never see her again. Don't let yourself get attached. She'll just leave you in the end. Just like everyone else.
But, as he stepped away to search for the black sleeping bag hiding among the trees, he couldn't help but briefly glance back at her and whisper, "Goodnight, Rinoa."
His attention was already on the task at hand, far removed from her. Maybe that was why he didn't notice when her left eye creaked open slightly, fixing on his retreating form.
Maybe that was why he didn't hear her when she softly replied, "Goodnight...Squall."
A/N: HA! I've done it! I have actually written a sappy romance scene! I thought it was impossible, but...there it is! It probably sucks, but as Mr. Leonhart would say, "Whatever." The point is, if I can write THAT, I can write pretty much anything. Except poetry. I'm no poet. Right, so, what was I saying? Oh yeah, so that was a pretty slow chapter. The action will pick up again soon, though. I promise. Review if it pleases you; it would certainly please me. Peace,
--Against Everything