A/N: Another chapter finally. I know, it has been a while. The state of the world and the state of my mind are to blame. Here it is. That said, I'm earning that M rating this chapter, reader beware violence ensues. Thank you to everyone who continues to read, I deeply appreciate you.
The sun just colored the horizon when Fujin's eye opened. Her mind was fuzzy but her cheek was not resting on cloth. That cleared her mind in an instant. Her eye slowly roved up the largely bare chest her slightly sweaty cheek was pasted against. Squall appeared to still be asleep, she weighed the pros and cons of moving and potentially waking him. Provided he wasn't already awake and just had his eyes closed.
She cursed herself for using magic as a sleep aid. He was quite pleasantly warm, which made her realize she had half crawled on top of him and she felt the flush slowly rising up her neck and into her face. She took a deep breath and considered.
No, it wasn't shameful, she shouldn't be ashamed. She was always cold when she slept and the last time she slept in the same bed as someone else… Her mind drew half a blank, a dim shadowy memory of someone much larger than her in a small bed with her.
The memory pulled her face into a scowl and she slowly lifted her cheek.
"So you are awake." Squall said and she jumped a little the flush shooting back full force, she kept her eye toward the foot of the bed.
"SORRY." she said impulsively, her lips pressing together as she said it, her cheek pulling away from him, leaving him feeling cool with the absence.
"...I'm not upset." he said, still laying on his back.
"ACCUSTOMED?" she asked him, suddenly curious.
"...no. People… had some weird ideas about Rinoa and I… We had separate quarters." he explained, he wasn't quite sure why he was feeling so defensive about it.
"...BEFORE?" she asked and he looked over at her.
"I barely spoke unless spoken to." He said and she chewed on that a moment before nodding.
"FAIR." she says and they settle into a mutually contemplative silence.
"Did..." Squall started and then stopped. Fujin turned toward him, her mouth in a tight line. He looked her in the eye for a moment... then brought up a hand to rub his nose.
"Nevermi—" Squall muttered, looking away just as Fujin began to speak.
"No. I—" But Fujin stopped when he started.
"I never… um, dated." she admitted. Squall mulled over that admission.
" I thought S—..." he started and she let out a sound that was one part snort, one part gag, and one part laugh. It was a sharp sound and Squall found himself slightly embarrassed. There were several beats of silence as Squall got over the feeling and Fujin almost seemed lost in thought.
"I never... I wasn't… They never, the other students… They always looked at me, just stared at the... It was easier when they were afraid instead." she seemed like she couldn't really get the words out, Squall listened intently, as her fingers came up to touch her left cheek, her jaw so tight he could almost hear her teeth grinding.
"You don't…" Squall's voice was small, hesitating. There was a softness of the quiet air, the gloom hung heavy in the dark city.
Fujin firmed a little and turned her eye back to look at Squall without turning her head, concealing her blind side from him. Even in the dark her pale skin and hair almost glowed. They breathed in the moment before she spoke again.
"I couldn't, or…" she started, searching for the words, slowly gathering them together.
"I didn't really know how to talk to anyone. Couldn't really, it… It felt dangerous. Like, it wasn't something I was supposed to do." She said her gaze slowly falling down to the comforter, then her own hand as she pinched a bit of it in her fingers and rubbed slow circles.
"I think I might know." Squall said, and she rallied on it glancing back at him for an instant going silent, he continued as she sat a little straighter, regaining some of her hardness in silence.
"Or, understand? kind of." Squall's words shook Fujin and she glared at him, her spine tightening then it slumped and her head bowed, chin touching her collarbone then her face rose a little and she spoke again. The pre-dawn hush settling over them like new fallen ash, quieting everything but their voices.
"There wasn't anybody… I could trust who wouldn't… didn't…." She said in barely a whisper. Squall felt his throat close up a little at the pain in her words. They were like a razor she was drawing across her own face. They sat like that. Poised on the edge of something until Squall made a decision. He reached out, slowly, hesitating as Fujin hesitated. Then he grasped her wrist. His palm was hot against her skin. His grip was firm, but not painful. Her hand curled into a fist, tightening until it shook with tension then relaxed. She turned her head away and to his private shock, she kept talking.
"Seifer… He wasn't afraid. And he didn't pity me. Or make fun of me. He made me feel strong, like he was strong. He taught me to be strong. Even if I couldn't… couldn't, couldn't, say it, I could still be it. And then he fought with you, chose you. That stupid feud over and over. I… I..." She bit out. He saw tiny flickers of motion past her chin, little drops falling away. The pride, the anger, and also just a bit of weary, deep despair. She reached her hand across and grabbed his hand with her other one. There was something desperate in that grasp. Squall's mouth was open before he knew what he wanted to say, something to match.
There wasn't anything though. His loneliness had all been his own fault; he remembered how many people who'd reached out to him whom he'd spurned, he'd chosen to shut people out. And after he remembered why, it only made him feel more like a fool. A child's decision, and a petty reason that he had unknowingly clung to for a decade.
"Seifer, We." he started and stopped as her breathing hitched and held. Her breath coming in short gasps of strenuously held composure that deepened toward more normal breaths only slowly.
"We grew up together." Squall admitted and Fujin's head turned, looking at him disbelieving through gritted teeth.
"We went to the same Orphanage. After the first war." he felt like he was catching up to his own words only after they came out of his mouth.
"I had, he was, Seifer was always kind of like a bully. I think. I remember, patches, flashes of it. I visited the Orphanage, again, during the war. We, by accident, kind of went back. All of us had been together. When I say we, I mean Trepe, Tilmett, Dincht, Kinneas, Seifer, and I." Squall found himself explaining. Fujin's mouth fell open, the anger of her confessions lost as his story continued.
"It belonged to the Kramers, Cid and Edea were… well I guess they still are Married…" Fujin let go of his hand to point at him.
"WAIT." she said holding up a finger warningly, and the words caught in his mouth with a questioning look on his face it took several breaths before she continued..
"You're telling me, Literally three quarters of the major players in the second sorceress war were all from one orphanage. Where you all grew up together? And forget about it!?" she said glaring at him in stark disbelief.
"Yes." Squall said, looking uncertain.
"And what, lemme guess, you're royalty, wait, no, Rinoa was royalty!" She said stabbing her finger at him.
"Uh, no. Though she was going by princess as a handle... Her father is Fury Caraway…" Fujin's face fell.
"Fury Caraway's daughter. The estranged one? That ran away from home at sixteen with nearly three million Gil stolen from her father." Fujin said in a tone that expressed how little she was willing to believe this revelation.
"yeah, and she started a resistance group in Timber that hired us right after the exams." Squall continued.
"No, that's too much coincidence. You're pulling my leg. BULLSHIT." she said, shaking her head.
"It's the truth. It's… well there's a bigger story." He said, sitting back up. They sat in silence, each of them thinking for at least thirty seconds..
"Well, I'm awake now. I don't remember you having any good breakfast food in the fridge. I'll be back." Squall said swinging his feet over the edge. Neither of them could really look the other in the face. They'd both revealed themselves somewhat. Squall still felt like he'd badly intruded but Fujin felt both mortified at how much she'd said but lighter at having said it.
Her face was buzzing with painful static from trying not to cry though it was fading now and she needed to chase it away with some hot water so she waited for him to dress from his bag while she walked past him into the bathroom and turned the spigot to wait for the water to get hot. She heard him leave and leaned heavily on the sink with a deep sigh. She'd just woken up and she already felt tired.
She scrubbed her face with her hands pushing away the last vestiges of the outpouring not five minutes before with her thoughts hanging toward what lay ahead. The work waits.
The quick sounds of boots on wet pavement, furious staccato stabbing into the night of Deling. He'd abandoned his jacket two blocks back. The fire that had exploded against his back had consumed it in seconds even despite the steady rain. Timner's ears strained hoping to hear the sound of the boots behind him, at least he'd know where they were. His heart was pounding in his ears, it was all he could hear past the gasping ragged breaths. Every intake burned with the taste of ash and every exhale rose with bile burning his throat. It was shockingly painful to even breath the feeling of being unable to even possibly get enough air. He knew he couldn't stop, Semma had stopped. She'd stumbled, paused, looking back over her shoulder up the empty street.
He'd watched as she leaned against the corner one hand on the brick, one on her knee. A flicker of steel and her head was gone. The goddamn monster standing over her had dropped from the roof like a goddamn thrustaevis.
Then those eyes had turned on him. It dressed like him, but if he'd dropped from that roof three stories up he'd have broken both legs. Those eyes though, they weren't human. Blue, like treated metal, like hard light through morning fog, like antifreeze not a single thought or flicker of a soul in the second their eyes locked. The blood didn't even have time to drip it just gushed as the body dropped to the floor, and Semma became a was.
Timner knew he couldn't stop. He just ran, he needed to lose that thing. He had to get out of Deling, out of Galbadia. No matter what shape they wore they weren't people. Monsters that looked like people. No, SeeD. Had to be, Braids had enemies, lots of them. None of them could afford SeeD. He turned into an alley cutting from Tremalia street to Capatian. Running past bags of garbage overflowing from a dumpster, he nearly slipped in an oily pool along the side of an old model car. He tried to keep to the alleys they were familiar, he'd lived his whole life in them it felt like. Even now they tried to help him, afterall there were only two places they could come from then.
He chanced a glance over his shoulder and caught a flicker of movement. It was all he needed to keep moving. His legs burned. His lungs were full of ash and fire, tiny knives in every breath. He slid into another alley, just a short dead end. The irony wasn't lost on him as he quickly made a decision. He pulled up the lid of a dumpster and threw himself inside as the lid juddered against the metal as it slammed back into place. Liquid sloshed along the bottom, just a quarter inch deep of swill. The smell was indescribable, filth ridden sludge that burned almost worse than the pain of the air. Thick with corruption and the gentle buzzing of newborn flies. His well worn work boots kept it out but he could still feel the maggots writhe around his toes in his imagination.
Stopping moving only made breathing harder, his vision swam, his hands trembled but he kept his mouth shut, listening to the gentle patter of the rain that hid nearly everything. Muffled sound forced him to hold his breath for just a second to try to hear something besides his own painful gasps and then he heard it. Boots on stone. A tiny sound, tinny, metal on stone, just a tap then it got closer. He put his hands over his mouth and nose trying so hard to not make a single sound even as his brain screamed for oxygen. His vision black around the edges narrowing to just a tiny slit of light where plastic met metal.
The tears came next. He couldn't help it. He'd promised his mother he'd stop crying, but like every other little thing in his life. He lied. He wasn't anybody, he could be honest with himself now. He promised Hyne, Edea, anybody who would listen and save him. If he could survive this alley he'd never touch another bottle, another gun, another needle, another pill, or another knife but to make something of worth. If only he could live, ANYONE?
"Come out." the voice commanded. A shiver went down his spine and a sob broke through his hands no matter how hard he tried to hold it in. The voice was from right outside the dumpster. He fell to his knees with a long sound that might have been a laugh, might have been a cry he certainly couldn't tell anymore.
"Come out, now." The voice repeated. Timner looked up at the tiny sliver of light coming between the top of the dumpster and the plastic lid, willing the person to just go away to leave him to the writhing filth soaking through the knees of his pants. The icy water running down his spine from his soaked shirt brough shivers but they magnified well past the cold. His every fiber screaming out contradicting messages, run and fight, unable to do either he did the only thing he could and he sat trembling through the hitching breaths and the hands in front of his mouth frozen, eyes wide as they could be, seeing almost nothing.
He couldn't keep his eyes open, he was going to die here. In an alley. Just like his father told him. You're going to die son, like a dog in the dark! Those words had pushed him so hard, to be somebody. Something cold and silver slipped along the edge of the dumpster above him and he scrambled away from it as the tip of the blade pressed the lid up to the wall, he looked up at the dark clouds framed by the stained brick of the buildings around him but his eyes inevitably moved to the hand that held the massive blade like it weighed nothing. The clouds swirled and shifted and the rain fell on him again mixing with tears and snot.
It was breathtakingly beautiful at that moment. He couldn't imagine why he'd never just looked up into the rain. He had always had his head turned down, to the street, to the ground. Then his eyes returned to the sword blade, no, gunblade. It pinned the lid against the wall with delicate pressure, enough to raise it and hold it, but not enough to pierce it. The top of a face looked over the lip of the dumpster. Those eyes, the same ones that watched Semma slump to the concrete without any feeling, no heat, no fury, no pleasure, no pain. Blue, but gray, colder than the rain, colder than the night, like pools of tainted nothing. They looked right through him like he wasn't even there, like he wasn't even human.
"Out." the voice commanded, and Timner fell back, the vile fluid in the dumpster soaking into his pants and his shirt. He held up his hands, half curled into claws, as though with bare hands he could do what he couldn't have done with a gun, with a blade. He didn't blink even as water hit his lashes he couldn't close them. Couldn't look away.
"Please!" he gasped. His voice sounded so small, so high. He was only twenty three years old. A hand on the lip of the dumpster and the man lifted himself, planting his boots on the lip in a crouch like a terrible gargoyle, the sliver of his blade resting on his shoulder now. No, not a gargoyle, his face was too beautiful, too clean. He was an angel, or maybe a devil.
"Please~! Please… please… " Timner gasped the word broken by his sobs as he held up his hands. He knew it was futile. SeeD could cut through a tank with a normal sword. They didn't bleed, they didn't feel anything at all. Even magic bounced off them. They were invincible, unstoppable. He'd never believed. He'd heard and laughed. Now, with one standing over him, he laughed again. But it wasn't funny. He squeezed his eyes shut as he added to the fluids in the dumpster. What use was dignity? You couldn't stop a bullet with it, couldn't stop a blade with it.
"It's too late for that." The SeeD said so calmly. Somewhere close, something moves so fast, it whistles. And now Timner was.
"FOUND?" Fujin asked as she climbed in the window of the third floor apartment where Squall was already stepping out of a bedroom, closing the door behind him. She was soaked to the bone with the rain outside, but carried herself straight as always. He couldn't imagine he looked much better. The blood on his boots slowly rolled off into the cheap wall to wall carpeting soaking in like it was thirsty.
"They're dead." Squall answered, she nodded. There was nothing more to say, they took the window back out, dropping to the pavement from the third story without more than the tap of boots on concrete.. There were still two names left on their list: Chainer, and Braids. Over the last four days they had run this part of town a dozen times over, hunting. Luckily these last two, they weren't hiding. Finding where they were was the easy part, Braids at least was known to have somewhere acquired a Junction. The others though. After the first three were put in the ground they scattered like rats. Finding them had taken days. Going to ground is a great plan unless your safe houses aren't something you put together on your own, and the two SeeD had been able to find them by talking to contractors. Loyalty bought with gil turned with the same.
Banding together, strength in numbers is usually a good idea as well. Unless you're not fighting someone bullets and switchblades can stop. Five of them had been in one place after they'd pulled another out of his hole. Three died in less than a minute the last two ran and were run down. The sirens in the distance were growing louder. Cutting people down in the streets is not subtle, but the point of this mission was sending a message. Squall could read between the lines just as easily as Fujin.
Squall carefully lifted the gunblade up and settled the tip on the sheath before sliding it away. He'd practiced the motion a hundred times, mostly to smooth the draw. But it was getting easier. He doubted it would ever be comfortable. His weapon was too long for that. But he was distracting himself from the job.
"Just two." Squall said walking out of the alley, Fujin watched him, falling in behind his left shoulder naturally.
"BOTHERED." Fujin said behind him. It wasn't a question, he kept his eyes forward.
"Yeah." He conceded. Fujin made a noise in her throat, but let it go. He knew there'd be more later. He heard her light the smoke before he smelled it. The breeze was never predictable in Deling, it whipped and wrapped around the buildings, pulling and pushing the rain and ash with it. The two of them passed others on the street. Despite the size of the city there were never many people on the streets, twelve hour work days and commutes from the inner city to the industrial zones ringing it took too much time for much of a crowd to build up. Deling embraced a six day work week, which six was pretty much by the job though from what he'd gathered listening to people when they stopped to eat.
Food was pretty cheap outside the sit-down restaurants. Every third corner had something. Deling was a melting pot in many ways, stranded Estharians after the first war, Trabians escaping the tribal life, Balamb natives who got tired of seeing the sun. He chuckled darkly at his own joke and could feel Fujin's eye on him. He made a small motion with one hand brushing it off near his waist and felt the pressure lessen. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned his head toward Fujin only to be met by her hand holding out half a lit smoke.
"HELPS." she said softly. He didn't like the idea of embarrassing himself but he was already coughing from the damned ash all the time, what was the difference. He took a tentative pull and found it no less unpleasant than simply breathing in this town. The flavor was sharp and spicy coating his tongue with a tannin-like parched feeling that crept down his throat, burning then cooling. He coughed out most of the smoke, after a moment took another pull, deeper. He coughed a little but managed to more smoothly exhale the rest. He passed the short burning cigarette back. She took it without comment. He did feel something, like a fuzziness and a coolness that settled at the edges of his mind.
He admitted to himself that he was upset. When it had been during the war three short years ago, it had been easy to fight soldiers that stood in his way. It was what he had been trained for, and he had many excuses for himself. This felt less like fighting and more like murder. The terror he'd seen in that young man's face made his skin crawl. The ones that tried to resist could barely break his skin. There was no contest, they had no chance. It wasn't a fight. He set aside his distaste. There would be time later. It was late again, bodies left cooling in this dark hole of a city. His mouth was dry, he didn't know if it was the smoke or just the foulness of his task.
Squall could feel the anger welling up inside him. He sighed and his shoulders sagged for a moment, swallowing anger felt a lot like swallowing blood. A little was fine, too much and you'd just end up sick. Fujin tapped his shoulder again and he took the nearly burned out smoke and took another inhale before throwing it in a pool before the filter could catch. He let out the smoke in a long sigh.
"DONE." she said and he glanced over his shoulder at her.
"FOR NIGHT." she elaborated at his unspoken question. He hung his head a bit.
"We only have two days." He said straightening his back some before ducking his head again against the wind.
"TIME UNIMPORTANT." He half turned his head but conceded to her decision. She was in charge of this operation. He deliberately slowed to walk alongside her. She walked beside him in companionable silence. Shifting closer as they walked until they brushed each other as they headed back to the block her apartment was in.
They sat on the floor in the apartment in silence. Squall looking at nothing, his face tight. Mouth just barely turned down. The dark maroon of his tank top shirt plastered to his flesh where the polluted rain of the city had dripped down his neck past his coat. One arm rested on his thigh, the other forearm rested on his raised knee. The ashtray rested between them on the floor, Fujin's pack of smokes rested next to it, she pulled a little out of the one that was lit in her fingers.
"It feels different." He said quietly, breaking the cool air of the apartment where they both sat dripping and drying, coats in the bath where they could drip dry. Fujin made a small noise, egging him on.
"I've only… the only missions I took were bigger, battles, wars. It's different." He repeated. Unable to put quite into words. He accepted the smoke when she passed it to him bringing it up to his lips as she spoke, filling the void.
"KILLING. MURDER." She said after a moment's consideration Squall leaned into his knee a bit with the word, turning his head away as if to protect it and blew out a breath of smoke in a long exhale punctuated by soft coughs.
"Yes…" he admitted. The admittance alone cost him something, turning his head to look at her he offered the smoke back, she took it but her hand lingered touching his for a moment. She had an intense look on her face, looking at him squarely. There was nothing accusatory, but seeking.
"KNOW." she said her eye trailed down to his hand, he followed her gaze and made a fist for a moment.
"There's two more of them." he said to change the subject, uncomfortable with the intensity he could feel in the air.
"READY." she added and he sighed, he wasn't sure the smell of spicy smoke hovered between them clouding the air. He took a long moment thinking forward as she watched him out of the corner of her eye, fingers rolling the lit stick back and forth slowly.
"We'll just have to stake that club she keeps showing up at. Seems kinda foolish to keep going to the same place." He looked at her and she smirked and reached over to put the roll right in his lips, making a small noise of protest as she touched the side of his nose, then her own. The strange gesture brought a smirk to his face for a moment.
"BRAIDS. OVERCONFIDENT." She explained, her own smile was predatory but also welcoming, beckoning almost for him to join her, which he did.
"Forces have a way of making you feel like that. But seriously, why a club?" he admitted.
"EXPERIENCE. FAMILIARITY." She says leaning back against the wall, her head making a soft thump as it makes contact. Squall snorts a small plume of smoke out his nose and then starts coughing, passing her the cigarette with one hand while he coughs. Fujin lets out a soft laugh at his discomfort.
"That really hurts!" he gasps out through the fit.
"EXPERIENCE." she says again and he glares at her past watering eyes. She answers back by blowing a plume of smoke out her nose.
"Wh~ack~whatever." He says as his face reddens and her laugh becomes a cackle, reaching over a hand to pat him on the back as he starts to be able to breath again.
Fujin lets out a sigh, smiling and knocking the ash off the roll into the tray, bringing it to her lips and patting Squall on the knee condescendingly.
Squall looked at her in profile a few moments then turned away closing his eyes and hiding a snort of laughter and a tight smile.
"WHAT?" she said looking back at him.
"You're good company." He said and she rolled the compliment around in her brain, her face falling flat for a moment before looking over at him questioningly.
"It's true." he said and she leaned her head toward him and raised her eyebrows.
"Fine, You don't talk for no reason. Or expect me to say every damn thing on my mind." He says scratching at his unshaven cheeks lending him a particularly trampish look.
"FACE." she said and when his lack of understanding was apparent she raised a hand to motion to her own.
"THOUGHTS." she explained and he nodded.
"You also think a lot more than some of them." He added with her explanation, his face rocking between unamused at his memories and quite amused at her erudition.
"TILMETT." Fujin said with mild distaste.
"She's…. I honestly can't tell if she never thinks or is secretly some kind of savant." Squall says with tired honesty.
"SEXUAL HARASSMENT." Fujin adds with a grimace.
"It was like a monthly thing with her… she couldn't keep her opinions to herself." Squall lets out a deep sigh and hangs his head.
"CAME ON." Fujin said seriously looking at Squall who made a despairing noise.
"I believe it." bringing a hand up to his face and closing his eyes.
"...FLATTERING." Fujin added out of the side of her mouth pulling in a breath of smoke.
"...What did she do?" Squall asked looking over.
"CORNERED. SHOWER." She explained. Squall looked uneasy.
"COMPLIMENTS…. OFFERED FRIENDSHIP." Fujin chewed on the inside of her lip as she thought about it.
"... Yeah that sounds like Selphie." Squall admitted stroking his face with one hand then rubbing his cheeks with his fingers.
"This feels so weird." he said seemingly to himself.
"flashed." Fujin confessed much more quietly.
"What? Did she…?" Squall asked and Fujin immediately regretted having said anything.
"SELF. AFTER MISSION. PASSED OUT. ACCIDENT." She said.
"Oh. Oops?" Squall uncertainty commented. Fujin shrugged helplessly, accepting her blunder.
"Well I guess that absolves Selphie a little." Squall ventured to another shrug from Fujin. There were several seconds of silence before Fujin spoke up again, her tone questioning, one eyebrow rising.
"BEFORE?" She asked. Squall scratched his chin.
"Selphie is… Open about people she finds attractive." Squall admitted hesitantly.
"OPEN?" Fujin said in a mocking tone.
"She can get… handsy… and we've had to talk about it before. And seems like we need to talk to her again." Squall said with a bit of regret. He sighed and rubbed his face.
"IRRELEVANT." She said waving a hand through the light haze of smoke that wreathed them. The still air of the room failed to disperse the smoke with any haste. The spicey cool flavor of the smoke lingering, hanging between them.
"...I guess you're right. It's not my problem right now. Quistis can handle it." Squall said more to himself than to Fujin.
Fujin stared at the cigarette for a few moments before letting it rest limply in her lips, not really taking an interest in feeding her addiction in the moment. Squall was similarly lost in thought.
"It's really hard to let go." He said putting his hand over his eyes. Her eye slid over to him, without turning her head, then went back to staring into the middle distance.
"There's so much less, it's such… so… simple. Just you, me, a meal a day, and… murder. I wasn't ever really a normal SeeD, but I guess this is their life." His words were heavy with some directionless resentment.
"HERO." she said and plucked the last centimeters of the smoke out of her mouth and held it up to his lips, forestalling any comment from him.
"I never felt like it." he said sharply, snatching the cigarette out of his mouth and then putting it right back and taking a deep breath that left him coughing. They sat in silence as Squall viciously put out the smoldering butt with a thumb. Grinding the burning cherry carelessly against his skin. The flames left him untouched.
"Everybody said it, you're a hero, you're a hero, Commander of SeeD, defeated the sorceresses, saved the world… got the girl... " His smirk was humorless.
"Rinoa." He said her name like a curse, but also like an appeal. He closed his eyes and his lips formed a thin line. His head shook back and forth slowly.
"SORCERESS." Fujin commented beside him.
"...I'm afraid, I guess." He said opening his eyes to stare back at the wall. Fujin was silent and still beside him. He tried to borrow her firmness.
"...That I'm going to have to kill her." He said. And just like that something he'd avoided saying for years was past his lips and he felt sick. He swallowed against the thick feeling in his throat.
"She was already getting carried away, with the magic, with herself…" he continued as though trying to talk himself into it.
"I really hope she just finds a quiet corner of the world and stays lost. Nobody's heard a word from her in more than a year." he said solidly, pulling his fingers into fists.
"LOVE?" Fujin asked the question and Squall's head snapped around at her.
"Yes." he answered automatically, then a shadow passed over his face. "Or, I think so. I care about her. I want her to be okay. But…" He started then let it drop. Fujin stayed still and quiet for a few minutes mulling over what he had said. Then she reached over and gently rested her hand on his forearm. He let his hands relax and let out a sigh.
"I don't know anymore." he admitted in a voice that was just thickening with pain. Fujin's grip tightened and Squall fell silent a few heartbeats. Just as her fingers were about to loosen he spoke again.
"Looking back. There was just so much… Inertia. From the graduation ball, then the mission, and then everything just spiraled." he started talking and despite Fujin's fractionally tightened grip he kept talking as her eye widened slightly.
"I just never argued. I tried to ignore her and she pushed harder, I tried to hold her back and she pushed past me. In the end I just ended up following her. She initiated everything, every step of the... The relationship was her." his words carried a certain bitterness.
"It felt so real, but I didn't have to do anything. Just follow. After it was all over, I somehow guess I expected something to change. Like she would start listening to me like everyone else had." he said bringing his other hand up to rub at his eyes with both of them.
"I don't know why I thought that." The bitterness fermented into a kind of melancholy.
"She only got more willful, demanding. In Timber they called her Princess. I should have caught the warning." his chuckle was without mirth. Fujin decided this was her moment and pressed her nails into his arm.
"Ow! Hey! What was that for?" he said snatching his arm away with a scowl.
"..." she didn't say anything right away though it was clear from her expression she wanted to. The silence stretched for several seconds as Squall rubbed his uninjured arm. More surprised than hurt.
"Sorry." he said quietly and her jaw worked for a moment, mulling something over.
"I don't…" she started then lapsed back into silence. Squall put his hands on the ground and let the pregnant lull in the conversation gestate. Ten minutes passed while both of them considered all that had been said before Squall pushed up from the floor to his feet shakily. He turned around, standing over Fujin who looked up at him. Their eyes met and held for several seconds.
"I don't know what I feel about Rinoa." Squall said in a voice that was quiet even in the stillness of the late night. A small motion offered out a hand to Fujin.
"I feel like I'm ready to sleep." he said as she took his hand and pulled herself up with it. His eyes were already turning toward the bedroom they shared. It had been strange after that first morning. But neither of them had brought it up again. When Squall had tried to take the floor the next night Fujin had dragged him back into the bedroom and after that they had simply shared the bed. Often waking with Fujin's head on his arm or chest. It was just how things were now. Easier to let them be. Especially when he couldn't remember sleeping as easily.
The rain had mostly abated by the time the clocks struck seventeen only a light drizzle still misted down upon the streets. The place they had headed was in the western part of the city, a fair distance from their flat. The sign was in neon and a far cry from the understated lounges of the city center. The music was audible through the walls as a dull thrum. It advertised a local disk jockey who was mixing for tonight, Live music every other day. Reputable places typically weren't open 1600 to 0700.
Fujin had changed her hair to a side-swept sheaf concealing her patch, head uncovered. Her boots rose to mid calf and buckled thrice up their sides. Her jacket was cropped with her gunblade and its accompanying belt fastened securely at her hip. She wore black gloves that matched coat, boots, and pants, her top jarringly white. Squall had chosen black pants as well, his same black combat boots, though his shirt had long sleeves, the cuffs of which poked from beneath his punk-ish jacket studded with glittering steel about the shoulders the buckles left unfastened on both the coat and over-shoulder holster for his blade.
They approached the club together, nearly shoulder to shoulder, Squall hovering less than a step behind Fujin's blind shoulder like a vicious shade. The Silver Star was a down-city club, the drinks were cheap, the music loud, and there was honest to god security. Fujin was at ease, as the bouncer stopped the two of them and directed them into the vestibule beyond. The space was like a coat check, only they were far more concerned with their guns. Both of them were scanned and turned over their weapons, receiving a marking and a chit to retrieve them.
The music wasn't just loud, the bass reverberated every time Squall filled his lungs with the ashen air, the scent of stale smoke and sweat beat the air filling his mouth. There was a frenetic energy to it. The sound hurt his ears, and made his chest ache with every pound of the bass. His frown deepened to a scowl. Fujin, like wind, seemed unbothered, the sound passing through her without even a change in her face. He envied her reserve for a moment before he noticed the way the pace of their movement changed. He would have slowed, but she sped, it took him a few seconds to realize that her steps matched the pace.
The inside of the club had a low ceiling, the edges of the room were booths and tables crowded out of the way of a sunken pit at the center. There was almost no decoration, the ground was bare concrete in most places, stained in ways he couldn't identify. There was almost no general lighting, small lamps rested on the tables along the rim. The rest of the room was in a sparkling shock of light and motion. Yellow spotlights on randomized pans flooding the place in short shots of illumination broken by low energy lasers and diffusers casting the whole place in a hellish red and blue. broken by the sharp white of a large ball at the center of the space that hovered and wandered casting brilliant white blades of light across the dance floor and all the way to the ceiling. The silver star, no doubt.
Squall felt a tug on his sleeve and realized he'd been staring. He looked in the direction of the pull to find not Fujin but some other woman, she was shorter than him, her hair looked almost red in the haze. She opened her mouth and shouted over the din.
"Hey! Wanna dance with me!?" she shouted breathily, her clothes were a tattered pair of pants, nearly falling apart in fact. The roots of her dye job showing her darker natural hair-color. Her eyes were glassy, her breathing rapid despite standing still.
His eyes roved quickly looking for the familiar shock of white. He couldn't find her in the riotous gloom, a disconcerting feeling until he caught sight of her shock of stark silver hair ghosting by the bar. Fujin was prowling, checking the corners like he should be.
He looked down at where the girl had a hand on his jacket and delicately reached out to take hold of her hand, pulling it off his sleeve and letting it go. He considered a moment, Fujin was searching the corners, that did leave the rather dense dance floor as a place where Braids or her second could be hiding out. He looked down at the opportunity this girl had created for him. He decided to take her suggestion but not her, and turned to head to the dance floor himself the woman nearly jumped to follow him, he could feel her bump into the back of his shoulder nearly making him stumble.
"I knew you look't like fun!" she said looking up at him with her honestly crazed looking expression with wide eyed possessiveness. This was unpleasant enough already without some girl attaching herself to him. He shifted through the dancing party. He moved smoothly enough though he really set himself apart by not really knowing what to do and ended up mimicking some of the other men on the floor. He suspected he was doing so fairly badly but the little leech didn't mind. Once he'd set foot on the floor she was always trying to find a way to be rubbing against him. It was honestly disconcerting. The song changed and with it the pace of the dance. The colors shifted to a sharper red as the slightly slower tempo altered the pace of the dancers. Squall had his eyes open, looking for his targets. There was always the chance they were not here tonight, which would be annoying, they only had one more day. To play this game. He hoped Fujin was having more luck than he was as he felt the girl's hands try to slide under his shirt and he had to stop her. It was going to be a long stake.
Fujin had quickly made her way around the circumference of the room, she'd noticed about a minute later that Squall wasn't with her, it wasn't that shocking. She knew this club, and had spent a fair number of nights here trying to distract herself from other things. As she passed by, stalking out the tucked-away booths looking for her reason to come back to this place she spared a moment now and again to look for Squall, in the ocean of bodies, she spared a glance toward the entrance just in time to see 'Vincent' pull some rager's hand off his sleeve. She continued on with her scout of the tables around the outside, it would only take a minute more and she would loop back around to him.
He stuck out like a sore thumb. It brought a little smirk to her face.
How to blend into a deling nightlife club wasn't really on the SeeD curriculum. They were always more concerned with the 'upper crust' of society, their likely targets and benefactors. Working this low on the totem pole was fairly rare for Garden, but for her. Well, she wasn't exactly new to this club. She had spent quite a few hours here trying to forget the rest of her job. It wasn't the worst place to be. The live music was generally more her choice.
Finishing her circuit without finding who she was looking for, just a few groups of friends, a girl plying a trade under the table, and a few people making deals, but nothing that would detain her for now. She turned back to find her partner having moved away from the door. She stalked back around the circumference of the room looking for him, the lights playing merry havoc with her ability to look for distinguishing features. She couldn't imagine that he would slip back outside, it would be too obvious.
After a bit of consideration she figured he must have made his way down to the dance floor. Questionable as it was, she had been checking the booths and he would want to do the most effective thing he could be doing, and that was almost unquestionably searching the writhing mass of bodies on the recessed floor. The only thing left to do was descend herself to find him. They really probably should have made a more immediate plan to find each other. They had a meet back time in about an hour to compare notes, but that wouldn't help her here. Nothing to do but pick up the beat and dance in to slide through and look for Vincent amongst the mass.
It was almost easy to slide back into old patterns, like a well worn track. The music pounded, but the rhythm was easy to grasp and echoed, the feeling of the subwoofer caused a flutter as the air in her lungs pulsed in time. It was easy to lose yourself when all you can think is the track.
She pushed deeper using the smooth sinuous motions of the dance to slither through. She couldn't help but touch bodies in passing. Some reached back, fingers and arms ghosted against her. It was a disconcerting but rewarding feeling all the same, a reminder of presence and a feeling of belonging. She didn't know these people but there was a shared grain amongst them all, a desire to escape.
The light was disorienting, the sound omnipresent, the sea of bodies didn't part easily and she found herself moving with them, unable to fight without breaking the tide. So she slowed down. Time seemed to swallow her whole as the music pounded and the lights coruscated. It was hard to focus on the faces. The shifting color and light made is hard to see detail.
Somewhere in the twisting space she caught a glimpse of a familiar scar. She knew she couldn't draw his attention without drawing everyone else's, so she shifted her motion toward him slipping between people and following the ebb and flow of the song to slide up beside him. He did seem to have a problem. That rager from the door was practically trying to meld into him. Her hands on him no matter how many times he subtly brushed her off she seemed to not get the message, or deliberately ignored it.
Fujin's face twisted into a scowl and she slid up behind the handsy woman pressing her body against the girl's back and reaching to tug at Vincent's decorated shoulder his eyes slid down to her in instant recognition and the both glanced at the woman she had pinned to him. The girl had noticed the attention by now had despite the glassy look about her, she had gotten a more nervous cast to her smile. Her lips moved, but the sound was lost. It looked like a question.
Fujin's hand traced down the girl's arm until it found her hand and Fujin grasped one of the girl's fingers and started to twist it. The nervous look changed to a scared one and she looked up at Vincent for help only to see him look over her shoulder at her attacker with a grateful look. Fujin offered him a smile which he returned with a nod. Fujin's grip on the girl's finger tightened and started to twist a little more fiercely. The girl audibly yelped and tried to skirt her way out from between them.
Fujin let her go, the two of them watched the girl go, an island of stillness in the writhing sea for a few seconds. Fujin stepped up to Vincent and he looked her in the eye questioningly as she slowly scanned the bodies around them. He considered her gesture for a moment then nodded and resumed looking around. She stayed close to him, they touched occasionally his movements were off tempo and awkward. She was more in tune with the music. Experience having taught her how to move in a group like this. It was almost amusing.
Though because of the disconnect they kept bumping into each other. It was distracting, and after the third time she snapped her hands out to grab him, drawing his attention and she placed her hands on his hip and shoulder making a motion with her head at the males around them. She danced with the music guiding him in a similar dance. He watched her, followed her examples with that intense focus she was coming to associate with any time he was trying to learn something new. He learned quickly, partially because he put his full attention on something when he needed to. Probably not the best for their current objective but if they were going to be in clubs like this for another day waiting out Braids then he should at least try to fit in.
Working in the lowest rungs of society they were bound to end up in places like this again, to meet clients if for no other reason. Hyne knew she had. Leading him was easy and after the first few moves he seemed to get the idea moving more in tune, he didn't seem to have an intuitive grasp of the sound yet, but looking around him more he settled, she drew his attention with a prodding finger and tapped her ear then her chest closing her eye a moment before sliding back into the dance. She turned her head and watched around them as he closed his eyes briefly, his motions getting a little wider without eyes open to judge them.
Little lessons and moments as Squall learned how to dance to club music stuck out in Fujin's mind as people came and went. They spent maybe an hour on the floor before sliding off of it as the music shifted. Both of them were sweating, not pouring sweat like some of the others, junction helped with handling the actual heat of that many bodies together, but the exertion of putting one's whole body in motion wasn't a small effort. Unfortunately it's a club not exactly a restaurant so they had to make due with lightly alcoholic spritzers. She watched Squall as he drank; his face serious and his body tense. She was feeling pretty loose herself, honestly. It felt good to move, something more physical than cerebral. She found herself wishing that they were just here to dance. It was almost startling to realize she'd missed this sort of thing. It had been a seldom indulged treat in a way. She ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth in thought. She caught Squall-as-Vincent staring at her for a moment out of the corner of her eye but his face turned before she could focus on him. It was quieter in the booths, the music merely loud instead of stifling.
"Dancing like that is hard work." He said shocking her out of her reverie. She sipped her drink to consider an answer a moment before speaking.
"FUN, EVENTUALLY." She may as well admit her opinion. He glanced over at her then back at the dance floor for a few beats of the bass before his eyes scanned the room.
"Maybe, after we're done." He said sipping the drink himself.
"GIRL?" she asked, the woman was still on her mind.
"She just walked up to me. Asked me to dance." He admitted with a single-shoulder shrug.
"WEIRD." Fujin admitted, when he looked back to her without turning his head she offered a shrug turning her hands up a bit for emphasis.
"We only have until tomorrow night." He said more tensely, his eyes back on the place.
"GROUND, BEST LEAD." She reminded him and he sighed visibly, lifting a hand to run it along the shaven parts of his head. Running his fingers back and forth as he considered. Eventually going to tug at his ears.
"GOOD LOOK." she said suddenly and he turned his head to look at her a moment with an empty face then looked away and down at the floor.
"Thanks." she couldn't hear him say it over the music but she could read his lips.
The night was long. Hours passed on the dance floor or haunting the booths. It felt like half the city had passed through the doors. But the one person they were looking for never did. The whole night was a blur of alcohol, writhing bodies, and strobing lights burning away any definite feeling of time passing. The music was a vibration more than something memorable. Squall as Vincent had his eyes more toward the back space by the bar, so it was Fujin as Lee who first saw them. They came in the front door. Brazen as neon. She drew his attention with just a touch. The appearance was distinctive, Braids was never one to hide. Her thick hair was tied up as her handle implied.
Every shape and style she could from twists only fractions of an inch wide to a few practically an actual inch. Her clothes were filled with stitches and holes, leather jacket over cloth. Combat boots, fingerless gloves. Metal twinkling in her ears and her eyebrow as she walked. No, there was absolutely no mistaking her. Vincent had imagined that she would try to hide like so many of them had. Lee started to move and he followed her.
The two of them slithered off the floor, more a part of it every hour they had spent. Both of them had a gentle tingling in their muscles from hours of work. The harshest exercise they had either had in a week. And yet they still felt ready. Fujin's eye focused like a Hawk's, Squall looked to the smaller male behind Braids, Chainer no doubt, keeping the last of their targets in sight.
Braids had made a beeline across the room to a booth, one that had been empty all night. She sat on the edge, her eyes coming around looking through the place before locking on Fujin, she rose to her feet as Fujin approached and a blade appeared in her hand fast as lightning. Well. so much for settling this subtly.
"Lee!? Baby!? Heard you were dead!" Braids screamed to be heard over the music, her voice was shrill, wild as her eyes. There was a certain mania to her smile.
"I was gonna come looking for you! I learned a new trick! Wanna see?" she said and then took off running. Definitely a Junction. She was fast, faster than a normal person for certain. Squall took a step back and to the side, bare handed against a knife was a rough prospect, when the knife was held by someone who almost certainly had the strength to do real damage with it. Fujin dropped back into a ready stance favoring the side with the knife to evade. The punch took her along the head. She managed to flinch enough to turn the wild cross into a glancing blow but it couldn't have been comfortable.
Squall used his space to grasp something unlikely to cause awful collateral if it went wild and thunder danced from his fingers along the wild ganger, her muscles jumping as the electricity did its damage through her body leaving a scorch on the carpet where the bolt grounded out. The shock of the attack and the unsubtle turn toward him gave Fujin exactly the space she needed to step in and go low, slamming a fist into Braid's solar plexus with a grunt of effort. The slightly larger woman doubled up around the fist, her guts emptying out her mouth in a sickening splatter.
The knife whipped around and caught Fujin in the side, just between the ribs on her left side, rammed to the hilt. Fujin let out a visible gasp, her eye going wide. Braids had just enough time to straighten and go for a second lower stab aiming for Fujin's stomach and pushing her back a step with the force of it. Squall stepped in grabbing Braids by the braids with both hands and jumping into her face with his knee, the impact jarred his entire leg but teeth literally flew. The woman fell backward. Both of Fujin's hands held the knife in place as nerveless fingers let it go. Squall fell down on top of the woman who immediately started struggling. Throwing a wild punch that crackled with shimmering heat at his face. Squall flinched back away from the fist and returned with one of his own, then another.
The woman tried to buck him, lifting them both. Super strength doesn't grant super traction though and he rose with her. She didn't avoid the cross punch that whipped her head to the side and stilled her for an instant, stunned just long enough for another punch from the other side as they came back to the ground. He felt something crack, he couldn't be sure if it was the ganger or the floor. So he swung again. Blood coated his knuckles and the woman's face. Her head started to turn, her eye glassy and her movement uncoordinated. Squall pulled back just an inch and unleashed Blizzara. Braids found her head trapped in a block of ice pinned to the floor. Her mouth open in a red haze as the paralytic ice held her down. The panic rose quickly in her struggles as fists started to beat on the ice to break it and breath.
Squall staggered backward to his feet looking back at Fujin who pulled the knife out of her side with a flinch and tossed the bloody knife to him, grip first. The double edged switchblade dagger snatched out of the air with a shaky hand nearly swatting it into the ground. Squall switched it to point down and dove back at Braids as she got her feet set and started pushing the ice cracking and scattering as she literally pried her shoulders off the ground shattering the ice.
Squall landed on her legs. He stabbed her in the chest right over her heart. She gasped. Blood immediately welling. He stabbed again twisting. His teeth ground together, his eyes wide. He grabbed her throat and the third stab drove the blade past the hilt into her chest between her ribs. He felt the cheap metal break off, probably in the concrete below the carpeting. Braids coughed and shook. Her eyes wide and rolling terribly as the bloody froth flecked her lips and she shoved Squall off her flinging him several feet, junction doing nothing to stop basic physics. She staggered up to her feet one hand over her chest as she slumped and staggered blood pouring out of her along with ragged red coughing fits as her lungs tried to get air around the blood.
She looked up at Squall and her lips moved but he couldn't hear her, she turned looking for her friend she had come with. Her hand patting her chest, fingers numbly unresponsive. Behind him he felt a flash of cold air as another blizzard class spell went off, presumably Fujin, two more followed it.
Braids' hand on her chest glowed faintly once then twice growing fainter as she staggered toward the seemingly paralyzed man trying desperately to heal her wounds to little effect. He caught her as she stumbled into him and then she fell. Her chin smacking against the booth as she tumbled and lay still. The blood pooled around her as her heart finally gave up, her brain starving in her skull. The man was frozen, slumped against the booth, eyes open but skin pale white, like he had been dunked in liquid nitrogen. A pistol frozen to his hand in a small block of dripping ice. A shotgun-like spread of ice chunks piercing his chest and neck, the blood trickling only slowly.
Fujin's breath was heaving and hitching her own hands glowing with curative magic, eye squeezed shut. Squall's blood was boiling in his veins, his heart pounding. He walked over with long steps and put fingers to Braid's throat, searching for a pulse and finding nothing. He stood and threw an arm around Fujin, the music was still playing but the screams were getting more numerous. Security was moving toward them.
"We have to go!" Squall said, Fujin could only nod. They turned and headed straight through the confused mass on the dance floor. Those closest looked at them and the blood splattered all over them both, Fujin's largely her own, Braids donated most of it to Squall's ensemble. They headed to the entrance followed by security. Pausing in the vestibule he thrust the claim tickets for the weapons.
"Now." he said and he was fairly sure that he'd never seen someone move so fast. The gunblades were returned in seconds. He grabbed both of them as they staggered out into the night. The sounds of sirens screaming toward them. Fujin's movements still favored one side, the magic that she had used to stop the bleeding and close the wound wouldn't be perfect, it was a rush job after all. So he physically lifted her into his arms, his weapon dangling off his shoulder while she held hers in one hand. He adjusted his junctions to maximize his strength and leapt to the roof. Heading along rooftops was faster, and much harder to track from the ground.
The flashing lights and sirens converged on the Silver Star within minutes rushing past them as they moved in the darkness of the city. The rain had picked up again. It was coming in fine droplets tasting like ash and stinging his eyes. About two blocks away he finally paused and Fujin looked up at him then struggled subtly. It took him a moment to realize he had been bridle carrying her this whole way and to set her on her feet. She crouched down and pulled up her shirt revealing pale flesh caked with drying clumps of blood on her stomach. She gingerly wiped away what she could showing a messy mass of pink flesh about an inch long. She must have gotten something important because it was a fairly shocking amount of blood for how little time it had had to actually bleed, the stab further up was the wrong angle to have gotten her heart. Looking now he could see the blood around her nose and mouth was slowly washing away in the rain. Seeing that Fujin was mostly alright, Squall let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding and slumped, almost falling over hands landing on his knees. Fujin let out a hacking cough and spit a glob of red into the gravel taking deep breaths that visibly filled her chest.
"Wow." he whispered. His body catching up with all the fatigue of the whole operation. He dug around in his jacket and pulled a small watch out. Six hours, they had been in the club all that time for less than two minutes of dirty, cold-blooded, life-flashing murder.
"Hyne… I think I'm gonna vomit." he says as he looks down to see the front of his shirt splattered with aerosol blood. His hands flaking with it along both palms, lifting his hands to see the red handprints.
"Wow." he said again as Fujin walked over and placed her hands on the sides of his face pulling his head up.
"ALIVE. SUCCEEDED. BREATH." She said each word slowly. Keeping her eye locked on his. He took a deep breath and collected himself.
"Right. Yeah. Okay. I don't know what happened there." he says, bringing up a hand to stroke his hair, his eyes breaking away from hers to look at the gravel of the building's roof. The rain intensified and seemed to get just fractionally colder.
"HOME." she said turning toward the west, Squall raised his head and followed her eye line.
"Right." He agreed and they set off leaping from roof to roof for a few blocks before dipping through alleys and side streets, keeping off the main road as they went.
Standing in front of the mirror, Squall washed his hands. Their clothes hung over every surface, each of them had taken turns waterlogging then scrubbing everything they had worn to get the blood out. It had been fairly cathartic to Squall who had come to grips with the shock of it all. Most of his killing had been done at arms length, it felt different to ram a switchblade through someone's heart with a hand around their throat where you could feel their heart race and ripple as it tried to beat and found it couldn't. The terror in her eyes. The words Braids had mouthed, it flashed behind his eyelids as he closed his eyes. It reminded him of the first time he had killed. The Galbadian soldiers in Dollet. This felt more personal though. It took him a little while to really pin it down. Her round face, big brown eyes, wide smile. And she'd stabbed Fujin in the kidney. Squall sighed and splashed his face with water before walking out of the bathroom into the cool air of the apartment. The gentle sounds of rain pattering against the drafty windows. Fujin was sitting at her table staring at the phone a smoke in her lips as the faint white whisps hung in the air around her head.
"Venta?" he asked and she nodded. He walked over to her and stood beside the table, accepting the cigarette without comment. Taking a deep pull and handing it back as he exhaled a small cloud.
"I don't think I can sleep just yet." Squall said honestly after a moment of silence.
"Same." Fujin commented, quietly, the fire banked in her voice as she stared out the window into the rain with him.
The darkness of the pre-dawn clouds rumbled with distant thunder.
A/N: Thank you for reading as always. Please consider writing me a review so I know what I did well or what I could do better.