Untitled Document
The Bloodcross Key ~ Arc 2: Reversals
by Lady Tempest

********Part 6:

"He says he's fine, but I'm not sure," Squall said quietly to the slender blonde girl sitting across from him. He dropped his head onto his hand in a weary slump.

Quistis gazed at him with a sympathetic smile. "Seifer is very stubborn. The war may have changed him, but I doubt that's changed."

Squall sighed and nodded.

"And now, with his accident, he's probably like a wounded animal, extremely defensive and stubborn."

Squall nodded again. Quistis had an irritating knack for being right more often than Squall liked when it came to her two former students. At least she was focused on Seifer and not him. He couldn't deal with the scrutiny at present; not that he ever did, but the last thing he needed was her studying what even he didn`t fully understand yet..

"If you could, watch out for him when he's in any of your classes." Squall sprawled into the depths of the leather chair.

"Of course," Quistis replied, her blonde brows crinkling as she watched Squall. "Can I ask you a question?"

No. He could tell by the glint of concern and curiosity in her blue eyes he didn't want to hear it. If it were about Seifer, maybe, but it wouldn't be. Unfortunately, regardless of what he said, she'd ask anyway, but then, he didn't have to answer. Glaring at her with rain blue eyes, his posture stiffened and he crossed his arms over his chest.

She glanced down at her hands on her lap, thoughtful. "Squall, although it's nice to see you concerned for someone else, especially someone like Seifer, with all he's done..." She paused, looking up at Squall, whose eyes had narrowed with warning. She could be wandering onto thin ice, very thin if she probed into either his feelings or if she insulted Seifer. The latter he wouldn't tolerate..

".... and all he's been through, I..." Her hands fidgeted with the pink cloth of her skirt. " I just wonder at the sudden change. You've been dating Rinoa for some time and though she's been a good influence, not this drastic of one. It's like since Seifer's accident you've become a different person. ....Why?"

What did she think she knew? His behavior towards Seifer hadn't really changed. Well, not much. He only had allowed himself to admit what had been there all along. Besides, just he, Raijin, and Fujin had seen Seifer since they brought him back, so how could she have observed anything?

Squall stared directly into her blue eyes, his lips thinned and serious. "...Whatever..."

"I heard that you've spent several nights in the infirmary with him, and it's obvious you haven't been sleeping properly. I'm just worried about you, and about Seifer too," she said softly, head tilting slightly, blonde bangs swaying against her cheek, in her manner of careful scrutiny.

She wasn't going to let it drop. But he shouldn't have been surprised, she had always mothered them. Always tried to uncover what he wanted kept hidden. Squall shrugged. "Is there something wrong with me showing concern for someone I've known almost my entire life?"

"For anyone else, no. But it's not usual behavior for you."

"And how would you know what's usual for me or not?" he replied coldly. Everyone's presumptions about him were starting to piss him off.

"Well...I...."

His hands curled over the armrests of his chair with a creak of leather. "You think because you can imitate me, predict what I might say, you know anything about me? Well, you're wrong!" Squall snapped, a hint of fire igniting his usual iciness.

Quistis`s eyes widened. "I'm just trying to understand you."

"Well, you don't understand me. No one understands me. No one except..." He looked away, the handle of one of his desk's drawers suddenly interesting. Iron molded into graceful curves and a beautifully intricate design that appeared almost fragile. Much like Seifer.

"Except?" One of her brows lifted.

Seifer. Always it had been Seifer. "Nevermind."

"Rinoa?

Rinoa? Hell no! That girl was about as insightful as a rock. And if Quistis really believed he could ever have meant Rinoa, then she was too. "Hell, no! Just nevermind."

"Squall..."

With a scowl, he looked back at Quistis. "It's none of your business, Instructor," he replied in a threatening tone. "Now back to what is your business, I just wanted you to know Seifer would be attending classes again and I am to be informed if there's any problems."

She nodded and rose stiffly. "Yes, sir. Is there anything else, Commander Leonhart?"

Shaking his head, he waved her away. "That's all, for now."

Another nod and she turned on her heel, stalking toward the door. The blonde paused, her hand on the door-handle. "You know," she stated quietly. "...you can't keep everything bottled inside forever. You're only going to hurt yourself more..." Turning her bowed head slightly to peer over her shoulder through the fall of honey-colored bangs, she added. "...or someone else. Maybe even the one who you say understands you. I'd hate to see that happen, to either of you."

At her last word, she left, a click the only sound breaking the descent of sudden silence in her wake. And she left a wide-eyed and bewildered Squall staring after her.

******

Seifer staggered down the hall, his arms drawn around his body. With all the eyes watching him, he felt naked and far too vulnerable, especially after the incident in the cafeteria. He wished he had his trenchcoat to offer him some concealment, protection, from the piercing stares, eyes slithering up and down his body: despising him, judging him, touching him, violating him. Seifer shuddered. Fortunately, he wasn't far from his room, the dorms being a corridor over from the cafeteria.

Once he reached his dorm, he locked the door and shuffled towards the narrow bed. Collapsing onto the edge of the firm mattress, he pulled the vials of medication from his pockets and stared at them blankly like he didn't really see them.

Finally, snapping from his daze, he eased open the vial of pain pills and dropped one in his hand, white on the white of his shivering skin. Almost mechanically, he opened the other vial and dropped two of those with the first, deep blood red a chilling contrast to the bright white. A contrast terrible in the memories they quickened of his blood on his skin, and the pain, the humiliation, under a blood-red cross that at one time had been his hold to some sort of identity, yet had been used to shatter it. And a contrast even more terrible in the symbolic promise it tauntingly offered, a promise which, to accept, would break his own.

He shut his watery eyes, fighting the trembling seeking to overcome him. Kadowaki had said take one of each, but he needed to sleep deeper than she knew, especially after what just happened. Hate stirred hate, and stirred the horrible images in his mind to a frenzy he knew sleep would only heighten. But to not sleep was little better, then, not only his memories but himself tormented him. Better to sink into a sleep the eyes couldn't find as easily.

He popped the pills into his mouth and swallowed them dry. With a sigh, he curled onto his side, drawing the thin blanket over him in a tight, gray shroud. The vials fell from his hands onto the floor with a sharp rattle and rolled against the base of his nightstand. He wasn't sure if it was the pills acting so quickly, or his body still so exhausted, or maybe his mind, but he drifted into a graying haze of sleep moments after his face touched the coolness of his pillow.

A sudden thundering buffeted his sleep, and a distant voice he couldn't understand, vague and warm and familiar. He tugged the blanket closer around him, covering his head and hopefully the rhythmic noise. And Seifer continued to drift in the empty gray fog, dreams and the world near blissfully distant.

*****

Squall turned from the door with a stab of unexpected disappointment. He'd hoped Seifer would have been in his room, or at least somewhere he could be found. Optimism wasn't something he was known for, and he wondered where it had come from, but as optimistic as it was, he had thought he would at least get the chance to ask Seifer to join him for dinner. Without realizing it, he had been looking forward to Seifer`s company, even though it pained him to see the blond so shattered. But Seifer was Seifer and that was all the mattered. All that ever mattered.

*****End part 6