A/N: Wow! This chapter took me forever to write! It's a tiny bit over-dramatic maybe, but I needed to get away from the fluffy for a bit (fluffy just isn't Seifer). By the way, a characterization issue...my characterization is a little odd in this fic for a reason. #1: They're stuck in a small building with nowhere to go, cabin fever makes people act and think a little crazy (ever see The Shining?) and #2: Things have changed since the game, they're not the same people anymore. Just so ya know that I'm screwing with their character traits for a reason.
Chapter 9: Finding the Sun
The snow had finally stopped falling. At least, that's what Quistis had been told. She wasn't quite sure how anyone could tell what was happening outside. Treban was standing on the other side of the bar, his grizzled white shirt rolled up at the sleeves. His dark hair laced across the unusually tan skin of his brawny arms, and his dark eyes were focused on Seifer, even though Seifer was sitting calmly reading a book.
"How exactly are you keeping him under your thumb?" Treban asked, seeming genuinely curious.
"He doesn't have anywhere to go," Quistis replied, knowing deep down that she had precious little control over Seifer. It was easy for her to forget in the confined environment of the little bar that as soon as the snow wasn't blocking the door, he wouldn't be quite so obedient.
She turned her head a little and looked at him, taking in his profile. He certainly wasn't the man that she remembered, and that frightened her a little. The Seifer of old was easy to predict, she could understand and deal with him. This Seifer was more like a starving wolf than the vicious dog of old. He only has so many options open to him, and going back to Garden was probably not one of them. He'd been running for so long that to him it was a method of survival. Seifer was dangerous, something easy to ignore as he sat across from her reading a romance novel.
"Don't you suppose that's a little dangerous?" Treban asked, mirroring her thoughts. "To just let a guy like him wander around like you are, I mean."
"Not for the moment," Quistis shrugged, not wanting to let know of her own doubts. "If he killed me, you and the other two would freak out. Even for Seifer, three against one doesn't make for good odds. His sense of self-preservation will always prevail."
"Smart lady," Treban smiled.
"We'll see," Quistis shrugged. She couldn't assume very much about Seifer's nature. As far as she was concerned, she was more than prepared to encounter a confrontation with him. He was strong, but she had a number of other resources at her disposal.
"Soup?" Treban titled his head a little.
"Depends what's in it," Quistis smiled.
"Chicken, water, a little salt, some noodles..." he grinned. "The usual."
"Sounds good." Treban had immediately made a bad impression upon her. Although he had been kind enough to let her in out of the weather for a night for free, his motives were less than innocent. He liked her, and he didn't like the fact that she was stronger than he'd originally thought. His since improved attitude, however, was one she was finding preferable. There was a certain amount of comforting familiarity with Seifer, but his emotions seemed to be in constant turmoil. She doubted that even he was exactly sure of how he was feeling at any given moment. His instability made him difficult to be around, especially in the enclosed quarters they had adopted.
Nothing, really, had changed because of the storm. They'd called a temporary truce, but when the world once again expanded to include the realm beyond the door, she would do everything within her means to complete her mission. There was a part of her that felt sorry for him, the remnants of her torn memories from when he simply mischievous. She didn't like to see him so worn and beaten as he was presently.
"Hey! Look!" Cam was gesturing wildly about at the window, his pants hanging dangerously loose about his thin waste. Even Seifer glanced up from his book, his green eyes softening a bit as the sunlight, streaming in like a golden ribbon from a crack at the top of the snow line, reflected in the back of them. That stream of natural light, small as it may have been, might as well have been made of real gold the way it made Quistis' heart pound.
"That's gotta be a good sign," Slick, Cam's constant companion, slurred. He'd been drinking most of the morning (at least, Quistis' watch said that it was morning, it was hard to tell for sure). His empty glass sat in the middle of an abandoned table, and Treban moved to fill it once again. Slick's tab wasn't on the house as most of Quistis' meals had been. She figured that the little man would drink enough to pay off whatever she ate anyway, although she did intend to pay Treban before she left.
"At least it will start melting now," Treban shrugged. "Should sink a little when it gets heavy too."
"Then we can dig out," Slick grinned, reaching toward a nearby table for a spoon to reference, but finding none. His failure, however, didn't seem to phase him in the least. He sputtered on excitedly, waving a hand through the light.
The little slit of daylight above the heavy, dark blanket of snow was like a peek into heaven for Quistis. She wanted to throw open the door and run out into it. Cold weather had never been a friend of hers, and she achingly missed the Balamb beach.
"Wow," Seifer stood up, tilting his head slightly to the side.
"We're going to be out of here any day now," Cam nodded, forgetting his fear of Seifer momentarily in order to smile at him.
That day, or the next, and they would be back out into the world. The laws of the microcosm they were living in would go out the door as quickly as they would. Quistis came to the sudden and hard realization that with the coming of the sun, Seifer would once again cast a shadow. His was a dark, frightening shadow that she didn't want get caught in.
"Seifer," she barked, an edge to her voice. The light was eroding her control of the situation. In the darkness of captivity he gave in to he demands, but with a taste of freedom streaming in through the glass pane he would not longer take her orders without biting back.
"What?" his head swiveled, and his clear green eyes landed hard on her.
"Come on, we're going back upstairs," she gestured toward the creaky steps. She was overjoyed and unnerved at the same time. Sunlight meant she could leave, sunlight meant a rough road was immediately around the bend. Seifer slapped the book shut and, with a low grin playing across his features, made his own way up the stairs.
Quistis found him waiting in her room. He was spread out on the bed, his arms folded behind his head. Under the thin material of the shirt he was wearing, she could see the outline of his ribs clearly enough to count them. Seifer, however, seemed oblivious to the hardened and wiry shape of his body. Pausing in the door to look at him, Quistis found herself wondering what had happened between the end of Ultimecia and their unfortunate meeting in the snowed in Trabian bar.
"What are you doing?" she asked instead.
"Thought I'd snag the bed for a while," he grinned.
"Tired of the floor?" she arched an eyebrow.
"Very."
Feeling pent up from having been in the same room too long, Quistis felt a certain amount uneasiness when she closed the door behind her. The rope she'd used to tie up Seifer's hands the first night he'd been her captive were still sitting in a lump on the floor. Her boot hit against it as she paced, feeling like a caged animal. Knowing it would be over soon only made the wait to leave more painful.
"You shouldn't frown like that," Seifer announced, picking something off of his teeth with his fingernail. "Wouldn't want to be getting worry lines on your pretty face."
"What?" she stopped, not sure she'd heard him right. He'd changed a lot, but not that much.
"Seems it's bad for your hearing, too," he laughed. He was just being mean, even something that seemed on the front to be a compliment was always some sort of personal slam. He was half starved, run down, and suspicious; but he was still Seifer.
"Don't go anywhere," she directed him, wrapping her whip around her hand.
"Where would I go?"
Shaking her head, she rushed out of the room into the fresh, cool air of the hall. She felt like she was in some kind of prison, and Seifer was her torture. As much as she wanted to hate him, should have hated him, she couldn't. There were times when he seemed so harmless, he'd even been remarkably nice to her through most of the previous few days. He seemed...she searched her mind for the proper word... tired. Tired of running and hiding in shadows always knowing that someone was on his tail.
Quistis pushed open his bedroom door. She'd only checked into the room from time to time to make sure nothing had been moved. Seifer was very rarely out of her sight, and she was more worried about one of the other three men going inside to play with Seifer's gunblade.
Hyperion stood where it had for the past few days, secured no longer in a case, but wrapped in Seifer's old and tattered trench coat. Underneath the dingy gray material, the gunblade was still shiny and lethal. Sitting on the side of the bed, she pulled off the cover and looked at her own reflection on the blade's surface.
A pair of blue eyes stared back at her, framed by blonde hair (not quite as golden blonde as it had been). Nostalgically, she supposed that she'd changed quite a bit since Seifer had last seen her as well. Instructor Quistis Trepe was a long forgotten memory. She would never again be an instructor, and it was doubtful how much longer she would maintain being a SeeD. As soldiers went, she was one of the best, but mercenary work was certainly beginning to wear thin.
Rubbing her fingers across the metal, she traced the intricate design of the Hyperion. She couldn't recall why Seifer had chosen that particular model. There were more dangerous weapons floating around the market, and a number of them would have probably kept Seifer from ultimately failing at being a knight. Yet, he stuck with the same gunblade through all the years of training and fighting.
Hyperion...she had to laugh a little. The god of light and the sun, Hyperion was life, beauty, and intelligence. He was everything that made men manly, he was perfection.
Seifer, who so often brought darkness with him wherever he went, fighting with the patron weapon of the sun. Quistis had to admire the irony.
She had a sinking feeling that Hyperion would find her along with the light. Seifer would let her lead him about a bit, and then he would kill her and escape. She couldn't take him back through the snowed out mountain passes without his being willing, and Hyne knew he wasn't in the least bit willing. There was no viable way she could think of to travel with him, aside from something akin to a slave train -- tie his hands, lead him like a vicious dog.
Wrapping his coat back around his gunblade, Quistis lifted the heavy weapon up in her arms and shoved it far under the bed. In front of it she pushed blankets and stray things of Seifer's. Morning was waiting, they were going to leave, plowing a trail through the heavy snow. Closing her eyes, Quistis tried to convince herself that she could accomplish the task ahead of her.
He was unpredictable and dangerous, in some twisted way a friend and enemy at the same time, and she alone had to take him halfway across the world to die.
