Rip, Torn, Tumble
(straight into me)
~ Vain 9.4.2002
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I do not own Squall Leonhart, Seifer Almsay or any of the other characters in the game Final Fantasy VIII; they belong to Squaresoft and their respective creators. The story and its concepts are mine.
Please be forewarned that this story contains spoilers, yoai, shounen-ai, mature themes, and violence. Translation: stuff you won't see until you finish the game, fighting, swearing, angst, Seifer/Squall man-love, and a dab of NCS. Get over it or go away.
The only profit I get from this is emotional satisfaction, so please read and review. Thank you.
~Vain
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Chapter Three
And Still the Dead Man Lay Dying
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"And what is an angel but a ghost in drag?"
- Stan Rice
Of Heaven ~ 1983
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Sunrises in Esthar were beautiful. Every morning (when he could be drug out of bed) Laguna would open the curtains in the Presidential Office and watch the burning red sun slide over the lip of the horizon. He loved it and Kiros loved to watch him do it. He looked beautiful sitting there, the morning light dancing over the contours and hollows of his face like a lover's kiss. Every morning. Every morning except this one. This morning the curtains were draw and the office seemed dark, strange shadows pooling around the room in a way they never had before.
Kiros' mouth was set in firm line as he stared at the young man perched on the edge of Laguna's desk. Laguna sat next to him behind the desk doing paperwork as usual, looking for all the world as though there was nothing wrong and there was not an obvious psychopath beside him. Sometimes he had to wonder just how sane his friend, sometimes-lover really was, but he was convinced that this was probably the most work the slim brunet had ever done in one sitting.
Ellone sat on the opposite side of the couch from Kiros. Whereas he had only been tied up, she was bound, gagged, and currently under the effects of Sleep. Just one more thing to hurt that young man for . . . For his part, the man on the desk simply shifted languidly as though he had not been sitting in relatively the same position for the past seven hours.
The slim woman who had accompanied him was hidden somewhere in the shadows, but Kiros could feel her gaze resting on him. She was somewhere near Ellone, he knew, weapon no doubt in hand to sever the sleeping girl's neck the moment it appeared as though he was going to resist her . . . friend? Master? Commander? Lover? Kiros wasn't sure, but he could tell that her loyalty was absolute.
The man turned and smirked at the President of Esthar the way someone would smirk at a dull child right before they played a nasty trick on him. Kiros' fingers itched to wrap around the boy-childe's neck and throttle him. As though he sensed the impulse the man looked up and his expression took on a coarser edge. "Think he'll come?"
Kiros' hands clenched and unclenched almost spastically and he barely resisted wiggling in his bonds again—it would do him no good. The man had bound his hands in front of him so he could make sure the slight warrior did nothing suspicious and the knots may as well have been tied by Hyne herself—they weren't budging.
One scream to call the guards. That was all it would take. One swift movement to knock that child down and grab Laguna. One damn breath. That was all he needed.
And that was too much. The boy had ordered him to sit too far away. And he and the woman were far, far too close to the other two. Laguna and Ellone would be dead before he was even standing up fully.
"He'll come," Laguna answered for him. He signed another paper calmly. Kiros absently wondered if he had ratified the plan for the new sewer system yet.
The boy-childe grinned down at Laguna and looked amused. "You really had better hope so, Mr. President." His burning gaze flickered to Ellone and then to Kiros. "For all our sakes."
Laguna put reached into the inbox and pulled out another report. A thick one. If one looked closely, one could see where he was tied to chair, but one couldn't tell that the chair had been bound to the floor and that Laguna's legs were tied to the chair legs. He sighed sadly. "I don't know what you hope to accomplish by this . . . taking away something he doesn't even want in the first place."
The man snorted and his hand clenched slightly around the hilt of his weapon. "Shows what you know. Trust me, he comes in here and sees me pointing my baby here at your pretty little head, he'll yield. Leonhart's nothing if not dutiful and while he may not give you the time of day, he'll take a bullet for you without so much as a whisper if he thinks it's expected of him. Boy probably hasn't made an independent decision since he was seven." The man smiled unkindly. "But you wouldn't know anything about all that, would you? I mean, seeing as you dumped him quicker than you had him and all . . ."
Laguna's mouth tightened and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the report a bit tighter. "You don't know what you're talking about—"
"Oh, but I do, Mr. President. And I know that if Squall was anyone else, he'd have shot you where you stood. And if I didn't need you right now, your innards would be redecorating the appallingly overdone gaudiness of the Presidential Office as we speak." He clenched his hilt again as though he'd like to do just that. "I know everything about that because I was there. I was there for every tear and you weren't. And that just fucking kills you, doesn't it?"
It took all of Kiros' self-control not to leap across the room and rip out the man's throat with his bare hands. "You—"
He looked up sharply and his jade eyes narrowed. "You shut up. This has nothing to do with you."
The dark-skinned warrior opened his mouth, only to find a sharp dagger at his throat. His eyes slid over to the woman who had materialized somewhere to his right. If he expected her to speak, he was disappointed.
"I told you to shut up," the man said pleasantly. "You would be smart to listen to me, seeing as I'm the one in control here."
Kiros bit his tongue and dropped his head a fraction. The knife vanished.
"Now then . . ." The man turned back to Laguna and smiled. "You were saying how very well you know your son, Mr. President?"
Laguna's face tightened a bit.
"Oh, come now, Mr. President . . . You were saying?"
The brunet closed his eyes in defeat and Kiros didn't have to look up to know there were tears his friend's eyes. The boy-childe laughed, a cruel, unreal sound that made him shiver.
"You know," their captor continued conversationally, "I should kill you right here for causing him so much pain. For making him a killer. You broke him long before I ever had the chance to . . ." He leaned forward and Laguna could smell the scent of him as he whispered in his ear: pine, and gun oil, and sparks. "Two years ago I would have killed you in a heartbeat . . . Kinda funny, isn't it?"
"Not really," the older man said in a soft voice that sounded more like a groan.
The young man sat back and laughed again. "Oh well. It's just as well really. You can't change the past. Believe me, no one knows that better than I do." He shifted again. "You just better hope he comes, or you're all in for a world of hurt, Mr. President. And I don't mean just you and your little friends . . ."
"Why are you doing this?" Laguna asked for what had to be the hundredth time since the young man had appeared in his office yesterday.
"Because I owe him, Mr. President," the man responded for the hundredth time. "And because no one is ever allowed to hurt him again.
Kiros sighed and was surprised when it sounded like a muffled sob.
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Squall sighed as they all filed into the room. 08:15. They would be in Esthar's airspace in another 15 minutes or so. That meant another 20 to the Palace. Another 5 onto that until he had to face his father and Ellone. All in all, that gave him forty minutes to breath. Forty minutes . . . which would inevitably be filled with Zell, Quistis, and Selphie pushing, poking, and prodding at him, so damned determined to be right and "help" him. Irvine and Rinoa understood at least. They, he was certain, would at least leave him be.
Zell was the last one in the room. He flopped down into a soft chair and put his feet up on the table, his quick blue eyes raking over the others in the room. The entire "Sorceress Crew," as the student body had affectionately dubbed them (much to Squall's disgust), was present. He quirked an eyebrow at Squall where he sat at the head of the table. "What's up, baby?"
Squall didn't even think to look annoyed at the nickname. "Laguna left several messages on my machine yesterday. It appears that there is a problem in Esthar."
Selphie frowned and thoughtlessly reached for her absent nunchuckus at the mention of possible danger to her "Sir Laguna." "What's wrong?"
Squall shrugged, a tiny rise and fall of his shoulders. "He wasn't very specific. All he said was that he needed all of us to come to the Palace to discuss it. He hinted at needing to deploy multiple SeeDs, but he asked for all of us specifically by name."
Irvine whistled and adjusted his cowboy hat. "That's a mighty lotta firepower he's callin' for . . . More problems from Lunar Cry yet, ya think?"
Squall shrugged again. Whether it was because he didn't know or just didn't care was anyone's guess. "We're to go to the Presidential Palace for a briefing and then we'll decide what to do then. Xu, Nida, Morrison, and Setrialen, one of the new SeeDs, will be filling in here for us at Garden. Quistis, Zell," he nodded to the two, "your classes will be covered. Irvine, your sharp-shooting classes will be canceled temporarily." The cowboy cursed. "Rinoa, the situation has already been worked out with your instructors, but I'm afraid you'll have to make up an exam on appropriate usage of Draw in battle for your Field Tactics 309 course."
The girl nodded and Quistis made a sympathetic noise.
Zell reached across table and patted her hand. "Tough break. That class was murder. Dropped my whole average."
"Because you skipped it to get in line early for hotdogs every week," Quistis responded almost smugly.
Zell stuck his tongue out at her and Rinoa smiled. Squall looked like he would rather be undergoing an amputation without anesthesia.
Irvine tugged at the bill of his hat. "When we leavin'?"
Steel gray eyes flickered over to him and for a minute Squall remained silent. Then he sighed and pushed himself to his feet. The others followed suit. "As soon as we land, so I want everyone to meet me in the Garage in about 10 minutes. Everyone get what you need and head down, ok?"
"Weapons?" Rinoa asked.
The Commander nodded. "Weapons and GF's. Even if you don't like having them junctioned," his eyes flickered to Irvine, "I want them on your person where you can get them in less than three seconds, understand me? We don't know what the situation is down there."
He straightened slightly and saluted and they all snapped to attention in response. The salute was flawlessly coordinated and Zell couldn't help but note how well Rinoa blended in with them now. It seemed as though her first stumbling salute in Galbadia had happened 20 years ago, not two.
"Dismissed."
Amazing what could change in a year. He'd be even more amazed to discover how much could change in an hour.
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