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the hollow
Chapter Seven: Wherein the Pained Blood Falters
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Come Undone
Balamb Dormitory Deluxe #9
One and one-quarter years to the present
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Her byre was wreathed in daisies.

He staggered the few steps from bed to half-bath, falling to his knees -- two bright points of pain --
beside white porcelain. His stomach roiled.

She'd always loved flowers. Daisies in particular.

Acid crawled into his throat, clawing into his mouth to pour out strings and spatters. He hung there
on his arms for a moment, just breathing, mouth gaping open and head down. His hair hung in his
eyes.

Spring daisies, hard to find this early in the year. Pale blue, with sun-yellow centers.

His stomach roiled, and his back arched with the force of it; he sobbed, panting, as one surge eased
only to give rise to the next. His skin flushed pale; he rubbed his sweating forehead into the crook
of his elbow. A tear dripped into the fouled water, and he gagged.

She'd looked asleep. Just asleep. Just . . .

He heaved again, his knees collapsing him like a broken puppet; he ended on one hip, legs sprawled
inelegantly to the side, barely clinging to the rim with a white-knuckled grip. Nothing came up. A
thread of black oozed from his parted lips. He bucked, coughed, and spat a crimson gobbet of blood.

His bare skin was clammy against the tile. He shivered, rubbed his cheek against the cool porcelain,
needing the feel of it on his fevered skin.

She burned on their beach in a pyre.

And he heaved again.
***

"Hey Selphie," Irvine said quietly, approaching their Commander's door on catfeet, cafeteria tray in
hand. "How's he doing?"

"Not good," Selphie said from her perch by the door. She stretched soundlessly, without her usual
mewl of contentment, and levered smoothly to her feet. "He hasn't moved, it doesn't sound like.
He certainly didn't ask for anything."

"Of course not," Irvine said bitterly, staring at the door as though he should be able to see through
it. "Want to wager on him eating this soup?"

"What kind?" Selphie asked, some of the humor creeping back into her voice.

"Tomato basil," Irvine replied, twinkling one eye at her.

Her face fell. "Not a chance," she said sadly. "He probably wouldn't eat anything red right now."

Irvine didn't answer for a few minutes, still staring at the door. "He might," he replied after a time.
"He just might."

"Irvine?" Selphie asked, looking adorably confused. "Do you know something, sugar?"

"Maybe," Irvine said cryptically, before keying the door. It shushed open flawlessly. At least
something was working right.

"If you're not out in four days, I'll send in the search party," Selphie whispered loudly.

"Gee, thanks," he returned; then he let the mirth drain away, and stepped inside the Commander's
Deluxe Dormitory Single.

It was spotless.

Irvine, who'd expected mass property destruction, or at least a bachelor's dust, glared at the
offending couch -- slipcovered -- and tiles -- sparkling. It looked as though . . . as though
no one lived here.

"Squall?" he asked, stepping forward so that the door shushed shut behind him. It was a tiny
apartment, where could the other man possibly be?

He wasn't in the kitchenette, though the refrigerator was open and milk had puddled on the
floor, pooled around a crumpled plastic container. Irvine grimaced, set the lidded soup on the
dust-free counter, and stepped gingerly around the mess to thoroughly check the tiny alcove
for body parts. The search was only half in jest.

"Squall?" he called again, crossing the living room in quick strides now that he knew where
the other man must be. There was only one room left unchecked. Squall *had* to be . . .

He wasn't in the bedroom.

"Hyne damn it, Squall, where are you?" Irvine whispered, staring at the unmade bed with some
dismay. Perhaps they'd moved his room too quickly after she'd . . . Perhaps he'd needed to let
go on his own terms.

Perhaps he was being a complete fucking idiot.

"Squall?!" Irvine yelled, his Galbadian drawl emerging as he became frustrated. He would be
mocked for this later on, he knew, but damn the man! Where *was* he?!

Only later would he wonder why the sound of running water had gone unnoticed for so long.

He was staring at the bed, a lost man, searching the folds and crumpled sheets for the
meaning of his Commander's life. A useless exercise. When water pinged in nearly new,
aging pipes. Distinctive sound, one not easily forgotten.

His head came up, cocked so that the brim of his hat funneled the sound, amplified it, and led
him quickly toward the tiny in-suite bathroom. He tried the door, locked. The quick entry of
Squall's passcode, and he stepped through into--

Squall was sprawled across the tiles. For an instant his pale, naked body looked dead, and
Irvine staggered, hand going to his throat as he saw Squall breathe, just the tiny lifting of his
too-visible ribs, but he was alive, and he was on the floor and naked and had he been
throwing up?

"Squall?" Irvine asked, stepping through the doorframe so that the door hissed shut. The
toilet stopped running: it had been flushed recently, then. Squall didn't respond to his name;
he gleamed with fever-sweat, and his skin was streaked with his own blood and inevitable
spatters of bile. "Squall . . ." Irvine sighed, kneeling next to his friend, placing a single sun-
browned hand on the pale stretch of back.

Squall stirred, coughed into the crook of his elbow. He groaned weakly, head coming up
as he began a weak scrabble for the toilet. Irvine caught him, hoisted him up so that he
could heave into the bowl, rather than around it. The fragile ribs shuddered beneath his
hands, brown fingers spread broad across skin gleaming with sickness and grief. Irvine
closed his eyes to the sight, wishing he didn't have to listen to Squall's dry, desperate
heaves.

"Squall . . ." he murmured, blinking violet eyes at the sweat-soaked hair, the shivering flesh
racked with cold. Squall could be going into shock. He could slip into hypothermia, lying on
the cold tiles. He could . . . Irvine shut his eyes determinedly, thrusting his knee under
Squall's shuddering belly to help support the weight. Squall gagged a final time, and was
still.

Irvine's brow wrinkled. "Squall?" The other boy didn't stir. His head lolled to the side,
revealing an oblique profile of cheekbone and closed eyelid. Irvine smoothed back the
tangled chestnut hair, running his thumb along the plane of the vulnerable left temple.
"Squall, what are you doing to yourself," he whispered, not expecting an answer and
therefore not surprised when he received none.

Squall moaned, eyelid fluttering aimlessly as something of consciousness returned. Irvine
pulled the weakly struggling body in tighter to his chest, securing Squall when he would
have slipped back to the cold tiles.

"Hyne," Irvine growled, settling his arm around the curve of bared ribs, feeling corded
muscle flex beneath his hands, warm skin, too warm for having laid on that damn tile,
so thin the bones seemed almost to push at the pale skin, and over all the sour smell of
bile and the copper hint of fresh blood. "Hyne damn it, c'mon!" he continued, one arm
slipping a little in drying sweat as he struggled to stand.

Squall coughed, head hanging. Irvine grimaced with effort as he pulled Squall mostly to his
feet, like arranging a puppet, dead weight and no inclination to help. He was sagging in
Irvine's grip, fever riding high in the pale flush to his thin face.

Irvine stopped trying then; his violet eyes hardened to chips of mica, blankly reflective of
nothing as he wrestled his weakened friend into the narrow shower stall, barely large
enough for both of them. Squall mumbled something unintelligible, eyes flashing silver
as Irvine, face blank of feeling, settled him against the cold acoustic tiles. A shiver took
him, slumped there, and Irvine stepped back, smiled grimly, and flipped on the water with
one long arm.

It came out ice cold, as always, and Irvine hastily wrenched aside the showerhead as
Squall thrashed himself upright, eyes wide and staring, blind with the fever. He made
a sound like keening, and his head hit the tiles. "Shit," Irvine muttered, stooping into
a crouch and pulling Squall back into his arms. Trembling now, Squall burrowed into
the warmth; the shower rattled ineffectually against the far corner, spattering them
with a lukewarm spray. The water beaded quickly on Squall's naked skin, dampening
his hair and darkening the occasional streak of blood to crimson.

Irvine grimaced. Water began to soak through the front of his vest, the heavy silk sodden
against his breast, rapidly leaching any warmth he'd carried with him. Squall rolled his
head restlessly against Irvine, scrubbing his tangled hair across the purple silk as he
tried to hide in Irvine's arms.

Irvine sighed, glaring down at the back of Squall's head, the tangled hair, pure hatred
beginning to bubble beneath his breast. Water from the showerhead pattered at his
hat brim. His eyes were cold, and filled with unshed tears.

"Stop this," he said, voice low. Squall didn't seem to hear him, and he shook the other
boy. "Stop this! Stop it, just stop trying to die, you fucking idiot!"

Squall's eyes rolled silver.

The shower rattled against the tiles.

Irvine froze, fingers buried in the cords of Squall's shoulders, exposed musculature like
bird's wings.

"Oh Hyne . . . " Irvine whispered, staring down at his friend, fully realizing only then
exactly how ill Squall had become. Fever raised the only color in his thin face. Irvine
blinked away sudden wetness, watching the deeply-shadowed eyes. "Oh Hyne, Squall,
what have we done to you?"

He pried his fingers loose gently, settling the lolling head back against his chest as he
squirmed into the shower behind Squall, pulling the Commander into his lap and
yanking the showerhead out of its bracket to sheet away the vomit and the blood and
the cold echo of his words.

He hadn't meant it. Really. He squeezed his eyes shut, lathing warmth over Squall's
chilled skin. It went on like singing. Squall's head rolled against his shoulder, and the
water shushed quietly over their bared flesh and his soaked jeans. Like singing.

Tears ran unnoticed down his cheeks, and his head tilted instinctively to hide his eyes
behind his hat brim.

"Ir . . ." Squall moaned, hand clenching weakly at Irvine's arm. Irvine caught Squall's
wrist with his free hand, holding him still as he ran the spray down one splayed-out
leg, then the other. "Irvine . . ." Squall whispered, voice raw and broken.

"Shh . . ." Irvine hushed him, pressed a kiss to dripping hair, settled him more firmly
into the curve of his arms. Squall flailed one arm, turned his head and bared the long
line of his throat, and was still.
"Shh . . ."

Water pattered down on them, rattled on the tile. The fluorescents flickered and buzzed
in the wavering cloud of steam. The water slowly ran lukewarm, then cold. Squall
shivered.

Irvine started. Squall slid down his chest as Irvine sat up, and he caught the shuddering
Commander with one strong arm as he reached for the faucet, turning off the shower
with a knocking creak of the pipes. Irvine hefted the sagging body up, held lean and
shivering against his side, and caught a corner of the towel draped over the hangbar
by the sink. It was a handtowel. He 'grr'ed, ran it down Squall's breastbone to no effect,
and stepped determinedly out of the shower, dragging the Commander with him.

Squall didn't protest as he was toweled dry. Irvine propped him on the closed lid of the
toilet seat, dried himself perfunctorily, and then ran the warm, damp cotton down
Squall's legs and arms, scrubbed at his hair, then enveloped his torso with the terrycloth.
He turned the motion into a hug, pulling Squall again to his feet and half-dragging him
into the tiny bedroom.

"I can't do this anymore," he sighed, half to himself, as he lowered Squall's slack-limbed
body to the bed, sprawled careless like a dead thing on top of the tangled sheets. The
towel was thrown to the floor as useless, and he hauled Squall fully onto the narrow
mattress and wrestled the sheets over his damp, naked skin. "I can't . . ." he whispered,
staring blankly at Squall's restlessly tossing head, slumping as he spoke to sit beside
his friend on the mattress, narrow and hard and thin. His hand flung out to catch his
weight, landing on Squall's hip, thin and hot even through the sheet, even though
Squall was shivering.

"Hyne damn it," Irvine sobbed, feeling the bones of his oldest friend, and the fever-heat
and the scent of his grief still heavy in the air, pain blooming in his chest and he just
crumpled forward, despair tearing out of him with a low sob. "Don't, don't, please," he
managed, nearly incoherent, face pressed to Squall's belly, soft and flat and shivering
slightly with the fever. Another sob wracked Irvine, and he stopped even trying to speak,
concentrating instead on pushing it down, shoving it down, making sure there was
nothing . . . just nothing at all.

Eventually nothing. And worn out with trying, he slept.
***

Of course Selphie made good on her threat.

The sun had caught him full in the face when she entered the front room. At some point
during his sleep he'd slid down to the floor, and she found him stretched out there
beside Squall's bed, stretching carefully with one hand attending to his water-damaged,
slightly crumpled hat. His face was tear-stained and weary, and his clothes had obviously
gotten very wet and dried on him. His silk vest had leaked violet on the floor tiles. He
grinned up at her sheepishly.

"Irvy, what-" she began, but he shushed her rapidly.

"Shh, not now, kitten," he whispered. "Squall's asleep." And he pointed to the front room,
only climbing to his feet when she'd wrinkled her nose at him, shrugged, and marched
about-face into the main room. Irvine creaked as he moved. And growled, to hear
evidence of his own aging joints. He really did feel horrible, and needed to take a piss,
but Selphie was waiting to hear why he'd fallen asleep on Squall's floor. He looked
down at Squall, who hadn't moved since his last memory; the Commander was a
huddled curve beneath the sheets, pale and thin and undeniably tragic. His shivers
had stopped, at least.

Irvine smirked at his own neverending concern, feeling some odd, black self-loathing
well in his heart as tears rose behind his eyes. He forced them down, and turned
resolutely from the bed and its sleeping master. This shouldn't matter to him. Squall
needed to grieve, what cared he if that grief proved destructive and potentially deadly and--

His heart stuttered at the thought. He had to fling out a hand to grip the doorframe as
he passed, a slight stagger but nothing that slowed him down. He would get through
this, and so would Squall, and there was nothing of Rinoa's suicidal idiocy in any of
the Orphanage gang . . .

"Irvine?" Selphie's voice stopped his thoughts, brought him out of that well. He blinked
at her, head coming up quickly into the brighter light of the front room's single picture
window. "Irvine, what happened in here? What's wrong with Squall?"

Irvine bit his lip, and shuffled reluctantly to the couch, pulling her down to sit with him.
His vest had wrinkled as it dried, and chafed beneath his damp jean jacket, and his
jeans rubbed wet on his bare flesh. Selphie's eyes were uncommonly serious, and he
began, "Squall's in a real bad way, sugar, and--"

"I know that," she interrupted, bouncing a little in her seat. "I meant what happened
with *you*?! You were just going to drop off the soup, and you never came out, so
something must have happened with Squall, right?"

"Right," he confirmed, feeling dazed. He'd forgotten the damn soup, just like he'd
forgotten Selphie's presence as watchdog just beyond the outer door. "I found him just
about passed out on the bathroom floor, sick as all hell." He settled back against the
cushions, feeling the ache of sleeping on tile in his bones. He sighed. "I don't know
what to do for him anymore, 'Elph. I don't even know how to try."

"Squall . . ." she said faintly, staring at the closed door of his bedroom like the man
might die at any time. "Irvy, what *have* we been doing?" she asked, turning her intent
gaze to Irvine's downturned profile. "You give him soup, and we watch him, but what
have we really been doing?
I think he *needs* . . ."

"What?" Irvine asked when she trailed off, his spine straightening unconsciously.

"We need to think about why he was with *her* in the first place." His Selphie was not
the forgiving sort, that was Hyne's own truth.

"He was hurting over finding out about Laguna," Irvine said slowly, remembering that
'hurting' was an understatement, remembering the naked pain and confusion in Squall's
storming eyes. "She talked to him." His head fell into his hands. "I couldn't get him to
talk to me, so he talked to her instead. He talked to her . . ."

"And they were inseparable after that," Selphie said, bitterness overriding her usual
perky tones.

"Damn it," Irvine muttered, remembering a decision made how many months ago, a
decision made half-drunk in a Dormitory Single after Squall's unforgettable explosion
during the Celebration. Unforgettable because who forgot a single instant of Squall's
life? Explosion because this was Squall, after all. Celebration, capital 'c', because
they'd saved the world, and what other celebration could have the same meaning,
after that? It was just the Celebration, just as it was Squall's explosion, a tantrum to
rival any of Rinoa's to hear the younger cadets speak of it. Even to Irvine, and he'd
watched Squall stalk grim-silent through the laughing crowds; not an explosion,
but in terms of Squall Leonhart . . . for whom everything was legend.

"Irvine?" Selphie's voice surprised him, drug him from the depths of bitter speculation;
his head came up suddenly with her voice, and he felt another tinge of deja vu for the
Celebration, a twinge of muscle memory as he focused in on her wide green eyes.
"Irvine, what's wrong?" she asked. "What's really wrong?"

"It's my fault," he whispered, staring at her with the truth naked in his eyes. "I should
have been able to help him. I tried, I almost got him to talk to me, but I couldn't. I
couldn't, and on top of that I let *her* just waltz into his room like it was her own,
and now he's in there killing himself for missing her and--"

"Irvine, no," Selphie said quickly, catching him as he would have jumped up -- to pace
or flee neither could have said. He stared at her hand, white against his tanned skin,
but a healthy, glowing, gold-kissed white, and Hyne even that caused a flash of Squall's
pale flesh. "It's not your fault," she continued earnestly, tugging him back into place
with largely unsubtle movements. "You couldn't have known, we still don't even know
why, it's not . . . oh, Irvy," she said, voice breaking. "I'm sorry, you're not, I'm sorry."

"What for?" he whispered, voice caught in regret. She was crying.

"It's been all about her, and him, and never your pain, and I know you're hurting, Irvy,
I'm sorry we never seem to care, but Squall's just so fucking lost and you seemed
okay most of the time, and you were good for him, and--"

"Okay," he said, cutting her off with a near-laugh. She sniffed, and he sighed. "I'm not
hurting, not like Squall. And I don't feel neglected, sugar." He managed a real grin for
her as the tears eased. "I feel downright loved most of the time. I just get frustrated
over moody in there . . ." His brows lowered. "I know he's hurtin, sugar, and I feel
sorry for him, I do," he mused absently, drawl deepening as he thought out loud and
her eyes regained something of their usual spark and his hat gave up the ghost. He
dropped the crumpled thing at his feet. "But I don't understand him, 'Elph, I don't get
why he hurts this bad over what's happened."

"It was a lot for anyone, Irvine," Selphie said gently, following his eyes to the door. The
fact that it was closed seemed suddenly symbolic, and she shivered lightly. "He just
feels things harder than most people."

"Yeah," Irvine said slowly. "I guess that was part of how he defeated Ultemecia."

"We helped," Selphie said quietly. "He's always been moody," she continued, her voice
louder and closer to happy than Irvine felt comfortable with. "You just have to give
him time, is all."

"He's killing himself," Irvine said, staring at that damn door. "We talk like it's a passing
thing but he could die of it . . ."

"Then shouldn't we do something?" Selphie prompted.

"I try," Irvine snapped. "I try, and I do what you're supposed to do, and I offer sympathy
and I don't push him and I bring him fucking *soup* like that'll cure the ills of the world
and none of it *works*. It's supposed to . . . None of it . . ." His anger died in the
returning surge of fear and Selphie grabbed his hand in both of hers.

"Push him!" she yelled, grabbing his jaw and pulling him forcefully back to her. "You've
been coddling this, this . . . *fuck*, we all have, and he's in there not moving because
of it! *Push* him, Irvine! You did it all through the War, you made sure he got through
and you pushed him to do it! You can't . . . We've been helping him kill himself, Irvine,"
she said, sounding so sure of it that Irvine felt the pain prick somewhere in his lungs,
stealing his breath. She wasn't crying now, or uncertain, or the least bit cheerful. His
eyes were wide, his soul striped and spotted but bare; all the masks had fallen away.
"Push him," she finished, softly, her voice never more final, never more sure.

"I . . ." he began. The sun was bright, though it felt late, his soul tired. The door to
Squall's bedroom hissed open,. Squall glowered at them, holding himself upright with
one hand, leather jeans loose about his narrow hips, looking too thin and sweated-out
and angry. "Squall?" Irvine said, like a man coming out of a dream.

"Irvine," Squall rasped, low and broken and monotone. His eyes glittered, but it could
have been fever.

Something within Irvine snapped.
***