Thanks for the really nice review, RubyTuesday! Nope, I can't imagine Seifer, even a young one, as any kind of angel. Unless we're talking fallen angels, that is. :)

The Fall

Chapter 2: Scars of Passion

A decade later...

I look up from my paperwork and contemplate him for a few moments before speaking. "Why did you do it, Seifer?"

Seifer sits across a metal table from me handcuffed to his chair, long legs stretched out before him. His silver-gray coat hangs on a hook by the door. He's been uncharacteristically quiet for the past hour, the dull blandness of the disciplinary chamber only amplified by his silence.

"Do what?" He gives me a disinterested stare. "Which one--fighting your precious Squall, or deserting my position?"

"Both." I let the 'precious' part slide. I have verbally sparred with him far too often not to know a trap when I see one.

"Why does anyone do anything?" He takes his eyes off my face to stare into the air over my head. "I was bored. It was something to do."

"Well, I hope wounding a Garden student and jeopardizing our mission in Dollet were enough to alleviate your...boredom." It's amazing how little a decade of Garden discipline has done for his self-control--I remember hearing that he has been here at Garden since seven or eight years of age. I trace my gaze down the fresh scar across the bridge of his nose, raw and angry, like him.

"I do my best." Suddenly there's a soft click from behind his chair. He brings out his hands from behind him, dangling opened handcuffs from an index finger.

"Would you put those back on?" I roll my eyes as I put down my pen. "Someone might come in."

"Know what's insulting?" He spins the cuffs contemplatively around a finger. "I took all those survival and escape courses three, four damn times. And after boring me to tears they expect handcuffs to hold me in place."

"Do you have any decency, Seifer?" I let out a long-suffering sigh. "At least try and pretend to be remorseful if you can't manage the real thing."

He stretches and yawns, cat-like, and rubs at his wrists. I feel a pang at the sight of the slightly chafed skin--handcuffs were a stupid idea in the first place. He puts his hands behind his back again, and presently the cuffs click quietly shut.

"You're no fun, Instructor."

"I'm not an instructor anymore." The words hurt on their way out, like acid. "Don't call me that."

"You're not?" His dulled eyes spark to life at seeing something to bait me with. Hyne, why couldn't I have kept my mouth shut? "They fired you."

"Your adroitness astonishes me, Seifer," I say dryly, and turn back to the paperwork on the table. There's something horribly perverse about taking someone's much-loved job and then making her fill out paperwork over it. I am simply in no mood to make make out a detailed analysis of my failings.

"I'm sorry, Trepe."

I look up in shock. Did he just say... "Sorry?"

"Don't be daft. It sucks you lost your license. I know you love teaching, even if you did a mediocre job of it."

My temper flares up, hotter than ever before. Of course he tosses in yet another barb about my supposed inadequacies.

"Mediocrity is a strong accusation." I look him straight in the eyes, voice gone rigid with anger. "Especially from someone like you, Seifer."

"Oh, please." He looks to the ceiling, as though to the heavens for help. "You should know better than I do, you're a terrible instructor--were a terrible instructor." My right hand clenches into a fist. "You assumed we already knew the material you taught, made no effort whatsoever to help us understand, were impatient with anyone who asked questions, you didn't discipline your students, you played favorites-"

"I do not play favorites!" I slam a fist down on the table, standing so brusquely that my chair topples loudly to the floor.

He bursts out laughing, and I have to restrain the urge to slap him.

"That's rich, Quistis." I flinch--he didn't often call me by first name, not since--since we were students together, I suppose. I can't really recall it, though I know we were on a first-name basis... once. "I mean, everyone except Lion Boy knows you've got this hopeless crush on him. Professional of you, ain't it?"

I stride around the table to stand directly before his chair. I look down at him with a gaze that has made T-Rexes tremble, but he meets my eye calmly.

"Well, Seifer," I all but snarl, "let me tell you why I lost my instructor's license. It's because a certain student of mine," he remains expressionless, "has screwed up repeatedly, namely failed his field exam four times in a row. Now, wouldn't it be nice if that certain person shut up about people who are not losers."

"Hey." He utterly dismisses me with a nonchalant face, a shrug of broad shoulders. "Pot to the kettle, Instructor."

Slap.

My aggression finally finds an outlet and I strike him across the face with all my strength. His head snaps to one side from the force of the blow, the blood rushing to his left cheek as though colored by my own anger.

It takes me a moment to realize that I'm breathing hard, right hand still in the air. I let it fall limply to my side as Seifer slowly turns his head to face me again, flexing his neck a little. I remember too late that I am fully junctioned while he has no junctions at all--I could well have snapped his neck with that blow.

Is this what I've been reduced to, near-murder in a fit of rage? My eyes start to prickle, a terrible emptiness in my chest where the fire's rushed out.

Seifer opens and shuts his jaws to test for injury, then licks away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. "Well, Trepe."

I brace myself for his next words. And I deserve every one of them, no matter how harsh.

"Better now?"

"What?" I stare. Hyne's mercy, don't tell me I've given him some kind of brain damage.

But Seifer's eyes are focused on me, his speech clear. "I said, does that make you feel better."

"Oh, God." I can't help but give a shaky laugh, not a humorous laugh but a tension-relieving one. "You did that... on purpose?" Not again. He constantly surprises me, always takes away the composure I so cherish.

But can I honestly say I don't enjoy it, in a twisted kind of way?

"You looked like you needed to kill something." He cocks his head to one side with a smirk. "Since it's my fault you can't relieve some stress in the Training Center..."

I quirk an eyebrow, a whimsical mood seizing me. "Rather gives the term 'physical therapy' a whole new meaning, doesn't it."

He chuckles. "Picking up my fucked-up sense of humor?"

"So it seems." I give a snort of laughter, relieved and off-balance at once--the psychological basis of humor, or so I've read.

It's just a nice feeling, being able to laugh with him.

I can't help but ask: "Was I really that terrible?"

"Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's no doubt you're bloody brilliant yourself--what?" he says at the dumbfounded look on my face. "I never said you were mediocre. I said you were a mediocre instructor. You're too smart to think on the level of mere mortals. That was your problem."

He tips his chair lazily back, grinning. "Know what those kids did after your classes were over? They'd crowd around my desk, wanting to know what the hell it was you were talking about. 'Seifer, you took this class before, right? What was it she said about the hierarchy of elemental weaknesses?' Me and the posse feasted like kings on the meal tickets I earned."

"I never knew." Now I feel terrible. Why didn't anyone tell me?

"Oh, your lectures were okay. Well-researched, lucid, exhaustive... decades ahead of the target audience, but they were good."

"What, Seifer Almasy trying to make me feel better?" I smile in spite of myself. "What is this world coming to?"

"Don't go telling anybody." He says in a mock-threatening growl. "I got a reputation to keep."

I smile, then sigh. So there it is, a detailed list of my failings. Leave it to Seifer to be so brutally frank. "It's preferable to 'Go talk to a wall' at any rate."

"What was that?" He leans forward.

"Nothing." I lean back against the table and cross my arms. "Why do we always argue, Seifer? It's good to talk to you. Really talk." It's almost familiar, like a memory on the verge of remembrance...

"We don't argue." A cold distance comes into his eyes. "You're an instructor. I'm your student. You yell at me, I mouth off. Arguing is something you do when you're on the same level."

"I-I consider you an equal," I stumble, stung by the accusation.

"Hey." A harsh glitter enters his eye, in spite of the smile playing about his lips. "You really are picking up my fucked-up sense of humor."

"Look, Seifer-" I shake my head, wondering again how the conversation took such an abrupt turn. He doesn't let me finish.

"I've always preferred your bitchiness to your hypocrisy." A pause. "Instructor."

He could hardly have been more insulting if he'd spat in my face. He acts like someone whose one goal in life is to crawl under my skin and stay there, and I've had quite, quite enough.

"Just... just forget it, Seifer." I hold my hands up, drop them. "I've wasted enough of my time." I was a fool to think we could ever act like human beings around each other; that's a deal that only works when both parties are human.

Just then the door clicks open, and a familiar face pokes in. "Hey, Quistis."

"Derek." I manage a half-hearted smile, my temper subsiding somewhat at the sight of the round, placid face of my fellow instructor.

Derek walks into the room, picking up my toppled chair from the floor. "Came to check up on you. How's he... Whoa, Almasy!" He starts at the sight of Seifer's face. "What'd you do? Couldn't keep your hands to yourself, or what?" I clench my teeth.

"Me? Feel up my favorite ex-instructor?" Seifer's eyes widen in mock innocence. "Hell no. I'm not partial to frostbite."

Derek laughs out loud, looks to me and, noting that I'm far from amused, quickly disguises it as a coughing fit.

Men.

He pulls up another chair from the wall and sits by the table. "Man, I'm bored. I almost envy those three kids they sent to Timber. They only passed yesterday, and they're already seeing some action-"

"What?"

I turn to look at Seifer, startled. The blazing green in his eyes is unnaturally bright against his suddenly pale face.

"They could end up against the whole goddamned G-army, and they send in three rookie SeeDs?" He leans forward in his chair, the movement halted by the handcuffs holding his hands behind his back. "Fucking morons! Why do they think Deling wanted the tower at Dollet?"

Dollet? What does his failure at Dollet have anything to do with this? "I'm sure they'll be fine. They actually made SeeD, unlike some people I know of." I don't try to keep the taunting edge out of my voice.

"Shut up, Trepe."

The blood rushes to my head all over again, making me see red. "Don't you dare-"

"Hey, calm down." Derek's hand is gentle on my shoulder. "Don't let him get to you, okay? Look, Almasy," he turns to Seifer. "I heard you helped set up this mission. I can understand how you'd be upset, but Leonhart, Dincht, and Tilmitt are trained SeeDs. I'm sure they can handle it."

"Screw it all," Seifer says suddenly, obviously not having heard a word Derek just said. With quiet conviction: "I'm going to Timber."

I almost laugh. "Suit yourself." Clearly there's nothing to worry about--such colossal irresponsibility is obviously outside the scope of imagination, even for Seifer Almasy. Derek relaxes and sits down. I return to the table and my report, and focus much better this time. I make good progress for about a quarter of an hour before I hear a small metallic click. Mildly curious, I look in the direction of the sound.

I watch, almost mesmerized, as a pair of handcuffs clatter to the floor to land on the floor behind Seifer's chair. The fluorescent overhead glances brightly off the metal, a harsh stab of light.

-tbc