AN: Yet another randomly begun fic. SxS - with plot!
Disclaimers: ff8 characters are © Squaresoft
Warnings: Angst, language and SxS
---SQUALL---
For a moment as Seifer fades back into sight, apparently unharmed, rage threatens to tear me apart. Why couldn't Griever have just killed him? I highly doubt that the GF has met the same fate as Odin. Seifer may be good, but not that good.
But then I'm suddenly glad that he's alive, unharmed. I don't know if I could bear to live with myself if I knew I'd killed him. Besides, I excuse my sudden sentimentality, I'm in the middle of the Kashkabald desert, with no remedial potions, silenced and cursed. That doesn't give me too high a survival rating against most monsters. Little consolation that the spells will wear off eventually, if they wear off a corpse.
As if the thought of corpses was an omen, Seifer suddenly crumples to the ground and begins to convulse. I try to remember what they taught us to do in this sort of situation. Keep the person calm. It comes to me suddenly. Well great! How the fuck am I supposed to keep him calm when a) I have no voice, and b) he is stronger than me? A potion on his belt smashes as he writhes, and I quickly snatch what ones I can. I'm in luck, a megalixir. I drink it, feeling the effects of both silence and curse dissipate.
"Seifer!" I yell at him. OK, probably not the best way to calm someone down, but it got his attention. Briefly. I shudder. Something must have gone wrong with the summoning. Either that or Griever did damage that I can't see. I cast scan, but there's no status changes in effect, nothing to magically cause the convulsions.
Taking a deep breath I pounce, pinning his wrists with my hands, and pressing my body across his in an effort to hold him down. I'm partially successful, in that only his legs and head continue to throw themselves around. But I don't know what to do now. "Curaga!" I grate out, praying that the spell works. The blue-green glow envelops us both, and I see a small scratch on his face heal, but it doesn't stop the uncontrollable spasms. "Esuna!" I try. Again, no effect.
The body beneath me suddenly goes limp, and I see his eyes roll up in his head. A faint? Or death? I pray for the former, desperately seeking a pulse. It's there, faint, and growing fainter. Why the fuck didn't I take Siren when Quistis offered? "Full-life!" The strongest healing magic there is, but somehow I already know it won't work. Whatever this is, it's fatal. Was it something Ultemecia did to him? Or did we do it? Maybe Odin did it as he died? I don't know. It might even have been Adel.
My hand rests against the blond's neck as I huddle up against the now-still body. He's still with me, just. There's still time. I open my mouth, and the words come pouring out. I don't know why I didn't tell him before how I feel. How I really feel I mean. How all through the Ultemecia incident, through the many times I could've, should've killed him, I couldn't. Not because I was weak, although I was, but because I still nursed the vain hope that he might, one day, return what I feel.
My ear, resting on his chest, suddenly fails to register the slow 'thump, thump' of his heartbeat. The pulse beneath my fingers is still. I panic, tilting his head back and carrying out CPR. It's no use. His eyes are lifeless, their jade green depths already filmed in death. Slowly I can feel the heat leeching out of his body. Even the short blond hair has lost its shine. He's gone. Dead. He's never coming back. Why did he have to go? Why?
"WHY?" I scream the question at the heedless skies. "WHY?!" I demand again. There is no answer. Nothing. That's all I'll ever have. Dreams that crumble to dust in the daylight. I fall to my knees, head bowed as the tears come. So many tears. I stare at them in wonder as they fall, one after another, to splash into the dry sand. The sand in front of me is no longer dry. It is sodden with my tears.
One of my hands clutches forlornly at Seifer's. Somehow I can't bring myself to believe he's gone, even though his body is in front of me. I reach up and close the staring eyes. Somehow, now, he looks like he's only sleeping. I try to convince myself that he really is just sleeping. Gently I place a kiss on his cold lips. I wish I had told him. I wish I had told him as we walked. I no longer care about my fears of ridicule or rejection. Maybe, if I had told him, this wouldn't have happened... The tears are still falling from my eyes. Sniffling slightly, I lie next to him, pulling his arms around me. How I wish he were only sleeping...
My dreams were violent. Filled with blood and fire and anger. Why has this happened to me? Haven't I been through enough? More to the point, who's fault is it that all this shit's happened to me? Laguna, for abandoning me so long ago? Garden, for raising me to fight? Garden, for failing Seifer? Garden, for forcing me to fight the only man I love? My 'friends', for trying to make me forget him? I feel something snapping in my mind. A physical pain expressing everything I can't.
I blame all of them. For everything. But before revenge comes duty. And my duty now is to Seifer. I can't leave him here for the monsters and the elements. I must either bury him, or burn him. Burial, I feel, is so *below* Seifer. So a pyre it is.
I smile with a twisted sense of satisfaction. The pillar of fire must be visible for thousands of miles, stretching from the ground as far as the eye can see towards the sky. There is no smoke, just flame. The fire will burn for a thousand days, and in those thousand days I'll set a thousand more, and each of those will also burn for a thousand days. They will pay. They will all pay...
AN: Eeep! Don't kill me *hides from rabid Seifer*
Seifer: You killed me! Bitch!
A: *ducks pain spell* Nooooo! Let me explain! Let me explain!
Seifer: *growls* This better be good...
A: *gulps* OK, well, without givin too much away u may get a better idea of what I'm tryin when u read the next chapter... *eyes Seifer nervously* That is, if I live that long...