Night Visions
"Stup...pid b...bastards."
"Wow! It's a good thing that you are talking again! We really missed hearing your shit." Zell was leaning back against Seifer's bedroom wall. He had finally been allowed to leave the infirmary. Now that he could walk with his walker, he didn't need an attendant to help him go to the bathroom.
"Oh, d...don't t...talk like that...t to y...your love," ribbed Seifer. He had gone back to being a jerk. Anyone would have thought that suffering like he did would have taught him a lesson about being cocky. But no, he had gone right back to teasing them. Zell was repeatedly close to punching him. What had he been thinking? He didn't love Seifer. Seifer was an asshole.
"Yeah well, these 'stupid bastards' aren't going to be around to help you out and Selphie is the only one willing to deal with you."
Seifer groaned. Selphie hanging around him until Zell and Irvy got back. Oh God! Had he really thought of Irvine as Irvy? "Didn't you as...ask Squall?"
"Squall is headmaster. He doesn't have time to take care of you," pointed out Irvine.
"And Quistis would rather have sex with a bloodsoul," added Zell happily. "She actually said that too."
"So basic..c...ally, everyone is happy I'm alive, but they preferred me in a c...coma."
Zell crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Oh come on Seif, stop feeling sorry for yourself. We'll be back in two days."
Then Seifer whined. "But...Selphie?"
"You'll survive." Irvine was grateful that Seifer was still weak. Otherwise he might have to worry about Selphie surviving.
Seifer didn't want them to go. As often as he tried to make them feel stupid, he had really grown attached to having them around. He had never had such close friends before. It was nice. They were like parents. Parents that were going away on a trip without him. "I h...hope you get eat...eat..en by a Rub...y dragon."
"Sweet. Anyway Seif-hun, we really have to head out now. Selphie is going to be back around 1400 hours after she's done helping out with the kids." Irvine reached over and ruffled Seifer's hair. "Try not to be too mean to her."
"Yeah, she's the one person in this Garden besides us who wants to deal with you."
'Even Rinoa?' he wondered. It hurt to think about her. It hurt worse to think that she wouldn't want to be around him. He didn't ask them though. Not even to his two servants, would he confide the secret that he still loved Rinoa.
Irvine hated leaving Seifer alone. This would be his first time without them since the accident. It made his stomach knot all funny. If something happened to Seifer while they were away, Irvine would never forgive himself. "Hasta," he said as he coolly walked out the door without looking back. Life would be strange without Seifer.
Zell was never good at keeping composure. "You're gonna be okay man." His feet tapped nervously. "It's only two days."
Seifer smiled. "Go away Dincht, I'm a big boy."
Zell's eyes pouted. Yes, Seifer was a big boy. They had to trust him enough to leave him for a few days. Though it was making Zell go crazy. "Bye."
"Train...train...take me away!"
Zell screamed. Oh, it had just been a nightmare! He had been watching Selphie slowly kill Seifer by annoying him to death. Dammit, his first night away from Seifer in weeks and he was dreaming about him.
Irvine sat up in the bed next to him. "You okay?"
Zell laughed and lay back down. "It's so fucked up to care about that asshole."
"I know," sighed Irvine. "I was dreaming about him too. Rinoa was visiting him and she touched him and everything was all better."
The night was warm, but the room was freezing. They always kept the air conditioning too high in fancy hotels. The hotel they were in was a hell of a lot nicer than the places they usually had to sleep in. This was a diplomatic type mission. Irvine had been trying to take more of those since the failed shooting incident. Sure it had been his matron, but it had ruffled him up pretty bad and he had begun to question the whole sharpshooter thing.
Zell was the best choice for a partner in diplomacy, because if things got ugly, he had his weapons on him at all times. They couldn't make him take off his hands.
"So basically, she could fix what we couldn't."
"Yeah, well in mine, Selphie was bugging Seifer to death!"
Irvine chuckled. "That's probably more than a dream, it's a vision."
Zell turned over on his side to face Irvine's direction. "Do you think he was really serious when he said he didn't want either of us?"
Irvine let his body snuggle back under the blankets. It really was cold. Maybe he should find the thermostat. "I'd imagine so with the way he's been teasing us about it."
"That sucks."
"Yes, it does."
Both boys were silent with their thoughts. Then Zell shocked Irvine. "It's cold, let's sleep in the same bed."
"Zell, I CAN just tinker with the thermostat you know. Hell, I could open a window, it's hotter out there than in here."
Zell sighed. "I know."
Irvine moved his hands outward, to touch edges of his bed. It was a queen size. It had felt too big to him, but he had been sleeping on either his small twin in his dormroom or the chair in the infirmary. Oh who the hell cared anyway? "Okay."
He was surprised he had agreed to it and he was surprised when Zell crossed the floor carrying a pillow. He threw back the covers, did a quick check to make sure Irvine was wearing some form of underwear, and slid beside him.
The two were still again.
"What is it about Seifer that you love?"
Irvine rolled away from Zell. It wasn't anything he could say to his face. "His strength, I guess."
Zell agreed with that. Yes, it was Seifer's strength he loved most of all. "I can certainly live without him talking." When Irvine had turned away, he had turned more than his body. It was as if he had been trying to shut off the intimacy. Zell wanted intimacy or he wouldn't have come into Irvine's bed. So, he turned and faced Irvine's back. "I had forgotten what an ass he is."
"He is pretty though," joked Irvine. He needed to lighten the situation up. He was feeling dangerously content with Zell next to him.
"You are always thinking about sex," accused Zell.
"Not always. Sometimes I'm thinking about guns."
They both laughed. "Women and guns," was all that Irvine Kinneas was said to think about. Now the two of them knew better. Apparently, he also had a weakness for blonde men.
"Hey Irvy, in a way...I kind of love you too. After this, I don't really know if I can handle things without you, you know?" Zell felt nervous in the silence that followed.
"Yeah," was all that Irvine said. But the two felt the air clear and it was silently chosen to be the last word of the night.
Somewhere in the night, in that place where you aren't quite asleep and aren't really awake, two boys became tangled up together. Arms wrapped over arms and bowed foreheads huddled together. It was cozy, just like Irvine always thought Zell was. They slept.
Sleep wasn't so considerate to Seifer. He had woken up from a nightmare, again, and now sleep was refusing to return. It was one of two nightmares that he had. The worst thing about the two nightmares was that they were true. In one, he died at the hands of a GF that was ominous and surrounded by mists. He could feel the blood rushing from his body and his head spinning, just as it had on that day. The other, Squall Leonhart, his enemy held Seifer's own true love close to his heart til dawn. Rinoa would look into Squall's eyes with the same look of utter love that she had once given to him. He didn't know which one was worse.
He wanted some water. That wasn't easy, but at least the journey to the tap would be distracting. He moved his legs off the side of the bed. So weak. It ate Seifer alive that he was so vulnerable. He had always had reason to be an arrogant bastard. Now, he was just a medical patient. When he recovered, he would show them all by becoming twice as strong as he had been. Then, maybe he could fix this Squall and Rinoa problem.
It would help if she would visit him. He had heard from Selphie that Squall had forbidden Rinoa to visit him while he had been in the coma. What was stopping her now though? Was she afraid of how disgusted she would feel because of his handicaps?
He pushed himself up and grabbed hold of his walker. Stupid, flighty Rinoa. Of course, the breakup had been his fault. He hadn't called her. But it wasn't because he had forgotten about her. It was because of how crazy she made him. When he was around her, he knew that he could fend off any man from even looking at her. Seifer carried a gunblade, but beyond that, could radiate hatred for miles if he wanted. But, when she was far away, he couldn't protect her. He couldn't stop her from flirting with men, couldn't stop her from kissing them the way she had kissed him.
Rinoa was feminine beauty's role model. She was delicate and beautiful. She was thin and vibrant with hair and eyes dark and enchanting as the night. When Seifer had returned to Garden, all he could think of was all the men that would kill themselves just to smell her hair. It was too much. His jealousy was making every bone in his body hurt. He wanted her to be his property as well as his love and he couldn't handle her. So, he stopped calling her. It was better if she didn't belong to him at all.
But Squall! How could she have picked in the whole wide world, the ONE man that Seifer truly hated? Their rivalry hadn't been fun, hadn't been a game! The teasing hadn't been a surface thing. They had never been friends down underneath. He knew how to piss off Squall, and Squall knew how to piss him off. They were both egotistical control freaks and both wished the other to disappear.
As children, they had done cruel things to each other. Both sent to the same place later on, because no one had wanted them. Once they had arrived at Garden, everyone immediately respected Squall. It was something about Squall that made everyone look up to him. Seifer hated that. Why couldn't they admire him? He had become a gunblade specialist! He had once had Rinoa!
Now he was a cripple with no Rinoa.
He had been walking to the sink using his walker, and now he had to stop. The tears were filling his eyes for the first time since the accident. He wanted Zell and Irvy there to take care of him. He wanted to focus on bothering them so that he wouldn't think about how shitty his life was right now. "GODDAMMIT!" he yelled. He was so sick of feeling helpless.
It woke up Selphie and she bounded out of the adjacent room. She was wearing matching flannel pants and shirt and she had a stuffed animal tucked under her arm. "What's wrong?"
Seifer wiped at his tears and wheeled his walker to the front door. "Fuck..ck all of you! I'm s..s...sick of your shit!"
He didn't know how he intended on grabbing the door handle once he got to it, or what he was going to do after he opened it. He just needed to get out. He wanted to run. To feel his legs, strong and sure beneath him, taking him far from Rinoa and his weakness.
"Seifer? Where are you going?" Selphie was so confused. Seifer had been doing so good. They had played board games and been so happy. She had had doubts about spending two days together, but she thought it had gone all right.
"Wherev...er the fuck..ck I want to g...go. Tell Sq..Sq...Squally that he can just c..cross me of his role c..call." With that, Seifer scrambled at the door knob, barely managing to turn it. It turned and he backed up his walker to allow it to open.
"Seifer! Stop! You don't have anywhere else to go!"
The words were so honest. So fucking honest. Seifer hung his head down to his chest. "I know..." Tears fell from his cheeks. Garden was his home. His home now belonged to Squall. His woman belonged to Squall. He had no one to turn to, nowhere to go. This was it. "I know."
Selphie closed the door and helped him back to his room. Her eyes were blurred with tears as she helped lift him back into his bed. She had never had any idea. It wasn't like she could imagine how it would be to be handicapped, but she still cried for him. He had been carrying himself so well, no one could have guessed the way he was hurting.
She slept on the floor next to his bed that night. Seifer was surprisingly fast asleep by the time she had her bed made up. It had taken a lot of energy to have that outburst. Selphie wished him all the happiness in the world, it was the first time she'd ever made a wish for Seifer Almasy.