91.
Zell wakes up early one June day surprised to find Seifer already up before him, which is odd, because Seifer is never up at dawn unless he's been up all night. He's standing at the kitchen counter eating toast when Zell shuffles in, and he waits with an air of politeness as Zell makes a cup of tea and tries to rouse himself. He's always been a morning person - at least, more of one than Seifer - but lately he hasn't been sleeping very well. He doesn't have to think hard for the reason why, either.
"Are you going to the cemetery today?" Seifer asks, the first thing he's said to Zell in days, since their last conversation in the back room of the shop. It's not like they ever talked a whole lot in any case, but Seifer definitely knows how to stretch a silence out when he's making a point.
"Yeah."
"Can I come with?"
Zell regards him for a moment. He goes up to visit his Ma's grave fairly often, at least once or twice a month, and Seifer has never gone with him, nor expressed any wish to do so. Rather than a lack of interest in going, Zell rather had always figured it was due to a desire of not intruding too much - which was just silly, really, because they had only gotten where they are now because of Seifer's intrusions into his life.
"Yeah, sure. Of course."
They stop at the market on the way out of town and Zell buys as many flowers as he and Seifer can carry between them - he's got a lot of graves to visit. They drive up into the hills behind Garden in Mr. Halverson's old truck, and Zell makes his rounds. Seifer waits by the truck as Zell wanders around, taking his time, and finally finishes his circuit back at Ma's grave. They sit in the grass and listen to the warm breeze whistling through the trees, and Zell tries to wrap his head around the notion that she's already been gone for a whole year.
Around noon, Quistis shows up, with Fiona in one hand and a picnic basket in the other. The toddler runs around redistributing Zell's flowers at her own artistic discretion while they eat sandwiches and fruit. In the afternoon, when they head back into town, Selphie is waiting for them at the house with batches of homemade cookies and a cheerful enthusiasm to see him that Zell just can't bear to disappoint. Nearly the whole day is gone by the time he and Seifer manage to escape home that evening.
"So, who planned all this today?" he asks, later, getting ready for bed. Seifer just looks at him puzzled. "I know it wasn't you… too sweet."
"It was all Trepe's idea."
"And you went along with it why?" Zell says, only too late hearing the bitterness in his tone. Seifer gives him a studying look.
"I thought it was a good one," he answers, like that's obvious. "Your friends just want you to be happy… you should let them help you."
"Well, I don't want to be pitied," Zell says flippantly.
"Then learn the difference between an act of friendship and an act of pity."
"You're a total hypocrite. You don't let anyone help you, not even me, and all I want to do is help you," Zell argues.
"I have accepted the fact that I am beyond help," Seifer replies with an air of grace, pulling a tee-shirt over his head. Zell scoffs.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It doesn't matter," Seifer says. "Selphie and Quistis went out of their way to do something nice for you today so that you wouldn't be miserable, and I let them because I thought it would be good for you to see how much they obviously love you. Quit acting like it's some kind of burden to have people care about you."
Seifer's point is valid, and Zell finds he can't muster a counter argument; he's grown so used to the other man's cool nonchalance over the years that he almost forgot how normal people show affection. Suddenly he feels like an ungrateful brat, and it must show in his face, because when Seifer looks back at him he rolls his eyes.
"Are you gonna cry?"
"No," Zell spits, which is a lie, because he really feels like doing just that.
"Good, then I'm going to bed."
Zell follows suit a few minutes later, feeling rattled and raw. He just wanted to get through this day without a breakdown, but when he crawls under the covers next to Seifer and the other man is waiting with open arms to pull him into an embrace, Zell knows it's futile to resist.
92.
"Nida asked me to marry him," Quistis remarks suddenly.
"What? Really?" She nods, and Zell chews on the thought for a moment as they make their way leisurely down the street. "I mean… I guess it's always been kind of obvious that he's had a thing for you, but… wow."
"I said yes," she informs him next.
"Really?" Zell blurts, and then immediately backpedals before Quistis can get offended, "I mean, never mind… scratch that. I always say the wrong thing. Congratulations."
"You're more surprised that I said yes than that he asked?"
Zell shrugs, not knowing how to answer, and she laughs. "This is the eighth time he's asked me over the last four years," Quistis remarks.
"Shit," Zell says with a grin. "Yeah, that sounds like him." Nida might be persistent to the point of stupidity sometimes, but he definitely has guts - Zell figures most men wouldn't have the courage to propose to a woman like Quistis even once.
"The first time was right after I found out I was pregnant," she explains. "He said he wanted to be there for Fiona and I, but I was… well, I figure it's time to let him."
She trails off with a shrug, and silence falls between them. Zell thinks that it's probably a perfect moment to finally ask her whether or not Nida is Fiona's father - if there's such a thing as a perfect moment for that. He doesn't say anything, and lets the moment pass.
"Congratulations," he says again after a couple of minutes, as they come around the corner toward the house. "I mean it, really… I'm happy for you."
"So you'll come to my wedding, right?" Quistis asks, smiling and squinting at him in the bright sunlight. "I want you to be there. You and Seifer, I mean, I want you both to come."
"Just name the day."
"It's Friday."
Zell pauses. "This Friday?" he says to clarify, and Quistis nods. "That's, uh…"
"Fast," she finishes for him. "It's not going to be anything special. Most of Nida's family is in Dollet… we're just going to the courthouse to sign the paperwork, and then maybe go out to dinner afterward. All the same, I want you to come."
"Of course," Zell assures her, and she beams at him before reaching out to grip him in a tight hug. It occurs to Zell that she was actually nervous that he might say no, and he feels a little wretched for all the times he's been cold to her lately - the feeling only lasts a few moments, though, because when she lets him go she looks happier than Zell has ever seen her look, and it's hard not to share the feeling.
93.
Zell is drunk, and he doesn't like being drunk, but he consoles himself that at least he's not as drunk as Seifer. Or Quistis, who had to be carried home by Nida, not bridal-style, but on piggyback after she fell in the street and broke the heel off her shoe. Seifer is still laughing about it as they walk home through the quiet Balamb streets in the early hours of the morning.
"Thanks for coming with," Zell says as they get back to the flat.
"You say that like you think I'd have refused," Seifer replies.
"Well… I mean, you're not exactly sociable."
"You really think I'm a complete asshole, huh? Like I would do something so fucking rude as to not go to Trepe's wedding," Seifer says, following Zell into the dark apartment.
"I didn't mean it like that," Zell says defensively. "Never mind."
He walks into the kitchen but doesn't turn the lights on, and stands there for a few moments, lost in thought. He should go right to bed; it's late and he's been drinking, but he's not tired. Seifer comes over to stand beside him eventually. "What's on your mind, Dincht?" he asks after some time.
"I dunno," Zell says softly. "I guess… I never figured Quistis as the marrying type, y'know? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's happy…"
"You have a gift for understatement, Zell. I never saw Trepe so happy as she was today," Seifer remarks, and Zell decides to take his word for it - Seifer has a knack for seeing a lot further than he does. "They obviously care about each other a lot."
"It's just, they're not exactly mad and passionate about each other, are they?"
"Not all loves are mad and passionate," Seifer says quietly. Zell thinks about that for a moment, and then laughs.
"Like you're some kind of expert!"
Seifer only shrugs, and they fall silent again. Zell's mind starts to wander. It's not that he's not genuinely happy for Quistis - far from it. "I just gotta wonder what she pictured," he says eventually, "you know? Like when she thought about her future, was married with a kid at the end of it?"
"What you picture is not always what you want," is Seifer's answer, and Zell supposes he's probably right about that, too. "What about you, what did you picture? Was it this?"
Zell knows what he means - the little flat, the unglamorous job in the junk shop, the quiet domesticity of his life with Seifer - no, none of it is what he imagined his life would be. "Guess I never really thought much about it before… you know… everything that happened. What about you?"
Seifer shrugs again. "Who knows? Glory… fame…" He pauses. "Or infamy, maybe. I probably pictured myself changing the world. Well, I've done that, and honestly, this quiet kind of life beats that shit by miles and miles."
Zell giggles, not really because anything Seifer has said is funny, but more out of relief. If someone had told him, six or seven years ago, that his future was with Seifer, he'd never have believed it - but now, suddenly and for the first time, Zell is confident that he's living exactly the life he was meant to. Seifer stares at him until the laughter subsides, but he doesn't say anything for a long while, just stands close beside him in the dark kitchen.
"I want to make something really, absolutely clear to you, Zell," the other man says finally, and all of a sudden he sounds much more sober. Zell turns to look at him, but the dim glow of the streetlight outside the small window above the sink isn't enough to illuminate Seifer's features. "I don't think I made the wrong choice, when I chose you back then. I don't regret it and I never have regretted it. I'd make the same choice again," he declares. Then he pauses, but not long enough for Zell to recover his wits and make some kind of response before continuing, "in fact, I wouldn't change a single thing I've done over the last six years if any of it meant that I wouldn't be standing exactly here, next to you, right now."
"Fuck," Zell manages.
"Okay… that's one response."
"I don't know what to say when you come out with that shit," he adds, rubbing his forehead. His mind is whirling - not because he's drunk, because he's really not that much, but because this conversation has taken an overwhelming turn he wasn't prepared for.
"Agreeing with me would be cool, for a start," Seifer says.
"I do, yeah, just…"
"Just you don't wanna say it."
"You drive me nuts, you know that?" Zell huffs, and Seifer turns to face him finally, making Zell realize how close they're really standing - almost too close to actually focus on Seifer's expression, which is partly amused and partly annoyed, among other things. "Every time I think I've almost got you figured out, you go and throw another wrench in and… I just don't know when I'll ever understand you," Zell blurts, refusing to look away; he's not embarrassed, because chances are Seifer already knows all this anyway - he usually knows more about Zell's mind than Zell knows himself.
He leans forward a little, and his gaze drops down from Zell's face to a spot lower - he's staring at the necklace again, the little shard of silver that peeks out from under the collar of Zell's button-down shirt. "Are you gonna admit you want this back?" Zell asks.
"Nah," Seifer replies, but he reaches out to slide a finger between Zell's skin and the metal plate, his touch warm. "I like it better on you…"
"How drunk are you?"
Seifer shrugs, but his touch travels upward, over Zell's jawline and the side of his face. He skims his fingertips through Zell's hair, brushing a few long strands away from his forehead. "So I drive you nuts, huh?" he remarks, and when Zell nods, Seifer smirks a little. "Good, that was the plan."
"You're full of shit," Zell mutters, but when Seifer leans closer, grazing his lips over Zell's temple, he doesn't feel the slightest urge to move away. "Seifer, you are drunk," he declares.
"So are you."
"I am not," Zell argues. The other man sighs, his breath warm against Zell's cheek.
"You're supposed to lie. So, you know… this is okay," Seifer whispers, and whether he means the closeness, or the confessions, or the touching, Zell doesn't know - not that it matters.
"It's okay anyway," he whispers back, and there's some relief in just saying it aloud. "It's all okay."
94.
Quistis stops by the store late the next afternoon, on her way to pick up Fiona from the sitter's. "Wanna walk with me?" she invites Zell along, and it's a beautiful summer day, so he's glad to step out of the quiet, drowsy atmosphere of the shop to accompany her.
"How was your weekend?" he asks conversationally; in lieu of a honeymoon, she and Nida had spent a couple of nights at the Balamb Grand Hotel, which was as close to a high-class getaway as you could get without flying off the island. Quistis sighs, and puts her hands up to her cheeks as though she's bashful.
"Oh, it was amazing," she declares, "I laid on the beach, got a massage, ordered room service… I slept in every day without once being woken up by a toddler asking me to get her a snack or some juice or turn on the TV or to braid her hair. It was practically paradise."
She's joking, and Zell chuckles. "That's your idea of a dream honeymoon, huh?"
"It's the little things, Zell."
She seems happy and relaxed, so he doesn't tease her about it. They walk in comfortable silence through the streets of Balamb. "How about you?" she asks after a bit.
"Me?"
"How was your weekend?"
"Oh… pretty much… nothing special," Zell replies with a shrug.
"I was watching you and Seifer the other night. Stumbling home all drunk…" Quistis teases, but her tone is mostly affectionate. "You guys were cute together."
Zell thinks about some of the things Seifer did to him that night, and he definitely wouldn't describe any of them as "cute".
"I know you probably don't like that," she goes on, shaking her head, but smiling. "Look, I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but… it's nice to see you being happy, you know? I know things haven't been easy over the last few years, so… it's a nice change."
"You're embarrassing me," Zell mutters, and she punches him playfully on the arm.
"I know, I'm trying to!"
Zell thinks about her words for a couple of minutes as they walk together. "To be honest, Seifer is really easy to be with," he admits. "I think I'm the difficult one in the relationship. You'd think it'd be the other way around, huh?"
"Hmm… maybe, but I suspect he'd say the same thing about you," Quistis says sagely, and since she's probably right, Zell decides not to embarrass himself further by pursuing the subject.
95.
Summer rolls away into fall and the rainy season, although it doesn't mean the days get any cooler - just wetter. Zell finds he doesn't really mind; rainy days spent in bed have their appeal. Still, the shop isn't going to open itself, so in the early afternoon he makes an effort to drag himself out of bed, only to be thoroughly hampered by Seifer.
"Where are you going?"
"Work," Zell says, making a feeble attempt to dislodge Seifer's arm from around his waist.
"It's pouring rain outside, who do you think is going to be out shopping?"
"I've got other stuff to do," he mutters, because it's the end of the month so there's always inventory to be checked, not to mention parts shipments that will be arriving next week, and the new floor in the back room is only half-finished - Zell doesn't know how he ended up being responsible for all of that.
"Do it tomorrow. It's already the afternoon, the day's practically over," Seifer counters; Zell knows he's mostly joking, because the other man wouldn't really stop Zell from going if he thought he actually wanted to get out of bed and go to work. He really doesn't want to, though, so he gives in with very little resistance.
"What's with you lately?" Zell asks after a while, as they both lay there - not sleeping, just enjoying the silence. When Seifer raises an eyebrow in question, Zell elaborates, "You're awfully clingy."
Seifer gives a kind of half-shrug but he doesn't make the slightest move to disentangle himself from Zell, and Zell laughs. "Not like I'm complaining or anything," he adds.
"Really? You sound a little bit like you are."
"It's kind of… a change."
"Yeah," Seifer agrees, and Zell isn't sure he's going to elaborate. After a while, though, he goes on, "I just had this sort of… sudden… realization."
"Yeah?" Zell prompts.
"It's stupid."
"You're stupid, tell me."
Seifer shakes his head. "No, it's kind of… I don't know how to explain," he says.
"Try using words," Zell suggests, half-teasing, but Seifer only stares past him, apparently too lost in thought to indulge in teasing.
Eventually, he asks, "what was it like for you?"
It doesn't immediately hit Zell what he means, but after a few moments of thought, he understands - Seifer asked him this once before, years ago, but he wasn't really prepared to answer the question then… he's not sure he is now, either.
"I guess… you're right, it is really hard to describe," he answers, thinking about that dark, shifting, in-between place they all went to… that place he might have been lost in, but for the faint echo of somebody calling his name; to this day he can't remember who it was, or maybe he never knew in the first place - everything was so jumbled together, nothing was clear. He's spent so long trying to forget it that it's almost hard to recall details now that he actively wants to. "Like… the worst nightmare I've ever had, but forever."
It was much more than that, of course - as if every bad memory, every pain he'd ever felt or ever would feel, were all happening simultaneously, as if nothing existed in that place except what could cause suffering and despair. Zell had wondered more than once if that was by design, if Ultimecia had intended that anyone who tried to follow her through there would be trapped in a little slice of their own personal hell - Seifer had said that the experience was different for everyone. But he doesn't know nearly enough about the mechanics, or logics, if there are any, of time compression, and he has next to no desire to learn about it, either.
Zell doesn't exactly know how to put any of that into words, but it's probably not necessary - he's sure Seifer knows what he means. "It just… felt like it would never end," he says after a while. "I mean, I know it was… only a few days had passed by the time we came back. But it felt like weeks, months." Squall and Quistis had piled on the GFs in the weeks following their return, which Zell had figured must be out of desperation to erase the memories of whatever they encountered in their own experiences in that place - though he never asked either of them if that worked. "You actually were there for weeks," Zell remarks after having a sudden thought. "It must have seemed like… years and years."
"I guess I'd resigned myself to the fact that it would never end," Seifer replies, shrugging again, like the idea of spending eternity stuck in an endless loop of pain and suffering was no big deal. "It was hard to come back to reality… you know that, anyway. I doubted myself, everything I saw, for a long, long time," Seifer explains, his voice quiet against the background noise of steady rainfall.
"But not anymore, huh?" Zell says, because that seems to be where Seifer is headed. The other man smiles a little.
"It occurred to me that this time… the years we've been together, it's already longer than the time I spent in that place," Seifer murmurs, "so… that must mean this is the real, you know, reality, right? This life that I'm… spending here with you… this is where I actually exist."
"You're denser than me sometimes," Zell scoffs - but really, it's all he can do to make some kind of response under the crushing relief that washes over him. "If you were gonna dream up some kind of imaginary life, would it really be this mundane?"
"I told you it was stupid," Seifer replies, but he doesn't seem annoyed, nor does he seem reticent, the way he has been before when this subject came up. He seems - and Zell's not 100% on this, because he's not sure he's ever actually seen it before - but he seems happy, as though laying here in bed on a rainy day and telling Zell all about his fucked-up mindspace is all he could want. "Spent nearly six years trying to decide whether or not you were real… always afraid you might just vanish from right in front of me if I said the wrong thing or looked at you the wrong way… I wasted a lot of time, didn't I?"
"Is that what he did?" Zell blurts out before he can think twice about asking, and he hesitates, feeling self-conscious as Seifer watches him with a curious look. "I mean, the… whatever version of me existed there, the one she created. He just showed up all the time, and then vanished, just to fuck with you, or what?"
Seifer stares at him for a long time, as if he's never actually given the matter thought before. Zell, on the other hand, has thought about it so much since the first time Seifer told him about his role in the other man's version of hell that the curiosity nearly drives him mad sometimes. "It wasn't all the time," Seifer says after a long pause. "Sometimes it felt like I was alone. Sometimes there were others… Rinoa, a lot. But she was… scary. Better when you showed up."
"But you know that that's not me, right? This is… this is reality, you know? That me that existed in your head or… I dunno, wherever it was, that wasn't real."
"It was real to me, I experienced it," Seifer says, and his brusque tone takes Zell by surprise, but he doesn't seem offended - just serious. "But I know what you mean. You're not him. I get it."
"Well, it took you long enough… I could have told you that from the start, if you'd asked," Zell says, as though it should have been obvious - and, well, it should have been, if Seifer were anyone else. Still…
"You know, it's like you said, though," he continues after a long interlude of silence, listening to the gentle, steady thrum of rain against the roof above them. "Everything that's happened, the choices that have been made, I wouldn't do it differently if I did it again. I'm sure we both could have done a lot better, but… Well, there aren't any regrets on my end, okay?"
"You really mean that?"
"I don't say things I don't mean, stupid," Zell mutters, feeling embarrassed despite himself. "While I'm at it, here's another one - I won't be doing any vanishing acts, so feel free to say or think, or… or look at me however you want, okay? Without… without any… fear," he concludes, red-faced and mumbling. He would have thought they were at a point where this kind of stuff didn't need to be said, but then again, maybe it's time to stop basing their relationship on unsaid things.
Seifer evidently is in agreement, because a grin lights up his face, half-buried in the pillow next to Zell; his hair, which he usually keeps short, is a little overgrown now, long enough to fall down over his eyes and to cover the scar that cuts between them, which is so faded nowadays that it's hardly noticeable from a distance of more than a few feet. Zell tries to remember a time when waking up and seeing Seifer's face next to him didn't feel natural, but it feels like another life.
"That a promise?"
"Yeah, it is," Zell says, defiant in response to Seifer's laughter.
"Alright, then, I'll hold you to it."