Chapter Three: Crazy Messed Up Things
I think it's getting to the point
Where I can be myself again
It's getting to the point
Where we have almost made amends
I think it's the getting to the point
That is the hardest part…
But I'm warning you, don't ever do
Those crazy messed up things that you do
If you ever do,
I promise you I'll be the first to crucify you
Now it's time to prove you've come back here to rebuild…
Barenaked Ladies: Call And Answer.(edit)
This is not working. Grrrr. I've uploaded this damn thing over ten times
and it's still fucking up. Okay, make that eleven. Mofo, lets' try again.
Sorry, for all those who read it earlier. Now I'm trying uploading it in
Word. Things in are in italics.Ta.
This is still not working. I may soon detonate my computer. You have
been warned..
For the last frickin' time: the title pic for this fic is at blackthorn dot
keenspace dot com slash images dot sdtc dot jpg. Let's see you
fuck this one up, html.
My l33t skillz aren't working.Sorry.
For all GB and SDTC related art go to blackthorn dot keenspace
dot com and click on 'art'. And then 'fanart' Ta
.
Five Minutes Earlier.
She'd been waiting for ages.
The receptionist leaned into Quistis conspiratorily. It was nice
sitting in the hotel lobby, the breeze was actually cool for once
(thank Hyne for air conditioning) and the seats were comfy,
but the woman wasn't half a gossip.
If it hadn't been for her, Quistis might have been enjoying herself,
in a quiet kind of way.
Instead she sighed and lifted her heavy mass of hair off her neck,
thinking that she should have put it up in a bun. Who, exactly,
was she trying to impress? If she was as professional as she
claimed she probably should have had it cut off now anyway,
but it was her one luxury, even if it did take an age to dry.
And in a way it could be a tactic just as devastating as a cruise
missile. Long blond hair didn't say 'SeeD' and people who
didn't know they were dealing with a SeeD and who didn't
take pretty young women seriously were usually more inclined
to let interesting bits of information slip that people confronted
with a heavily armed strike team. And they were definitely less
inclined to do stupid things like try and shoot their way out of a
bad situation.
Quistis loathed stupidity in herself but she didn't mind it in others,
at least others who weren't on the same side as her. It made her
work so much easier, for one thing.
And now the damned woman was off on another tangent. So far,
although Quistis had tried to keep some track of the conversation
and had carefully nodded and smiled and said 'yes' at random
intervals, just to be polite, her 'quick word' had ended up turning
into a half-hour monologue about the manager of the hotel and the
way guests never tidied up after themselves and had just got onto
the subject of the woman's three failed marriages.
Where in Hyne's name was Seifer?
She shifted uncomfortably and leaned both elbows on the desk,
resting her chin in her hands and wondering if it would be polite
to ask the woman if she had anything she should be getting on
with. Maybe if she sat and nodded enough she'd run out of
things to say or, Hyne help her, maybe do some work. Stuff
tact, the woman obviously wouldn't know a hint if it jumped up
and bit her.
"And another thing, appearances can be just as important.
I'm not just talking 'bout good looks either. You want a man
who's clean, No one with really pale skin, they're always unhealthy.
And no scars. Working scars aren't bad, used to have a man who
was a chef, but if they're not they don't come from being sweet
and gentle, so you just as well might forget it. Don't want to get in
with any of those soldiers. Sweet girl like you, they'll love you and
leave you and then walk on to the next town without as much as
a by-your leave. "
Quistis tried not to laugh and absently tried to hide her own hands
under the table.
Sweet girl.
Ha.
The receptionist interpreted her smothered giggle as a shocked gasp.
"Don't let them take any..…liberties."
She considered trying to explain that anyone who tried taking anything
of any sort from her would instead be going home with their teeth,
in a bag, but dismissed the subject out of hand, impatiently tapping
her fingers on the cheap laminated desk. The door was empty. It
was seven twenty-eight. Outside, the blur of passing figures hazed
in the heat. Quistis raised her right hand to her mouth and started
chewing off the nails.
Damn him. Seifer had said he was going to be here. She unconsciously
reached down to touch the key in her pocket.
What was he doing here?
What, for that matter, was she doing here?
Quistis thought for a moment of just walking away. She had her ID
and money and weapons in her bag, she could just go. Walk to
the station, or call a cab, jump on a train and leave. She'd have
to phone Garden later, of course, to tell them where she'd gone,
but all she'd have to say was that she'd got bored and decided
to move someplace else. The hotel would probably forward her
stuff, and she was booked in under a pseudonym as it was.
They wouldn't ask any questions.
She idly considered it for a moment.
Part of her screamed at her to leave and the rest dug in its toes
and sulked. Both parts knew it was never going to happen. Quistis
didn't just refuse to face a problem, she never had. You took your
troubles with you and if you didn't look at them they just grew so
damn big you just had to stop and do something about it. Look
at Seifer. His had followed him through a thousand miles of forest.
No.
Quistis changed hands and started to gnaw off her right nails,
nervously, starting at the little finger. Halfway through she realised
she was doing it and stopped herself with an effort. She didn't
have much nail to bite usually. They just got in the way.
She suppressed a flicker of resentment that Seifer hadn't stayed in
Trabia, instead of coming back to pester her. It was like having a
cockroach problem you simply couldn't shake. The only thing was
she couldn't simply call up the exterminators and get them to put
some traps down.
Se sighed. Hell, she was supposed to be one of the exterminators.
Wasn't that what she was here for? To assess the situation, control
damage just like always, even if this wasn't an official Garden mission.
Especially if this wasn't an official Garden mission, because by not
picking up the phone and calling them right now she was pretty
much condemning herself to dealing with this skeleton in the closet all by herself
A skeleton that had so far proved amazingly tenacious.
By rights she should be corresponding with him using a Ouija board.
By rights she should be waiting for him with an armed response unit.
But then when you were dealing with Seifer, issues of right and wrong
tended to get a little confused.
The receptionist touched her arm. Quistis carefully controlled her jump.
One of the slight benefits of being a trained soldier was that you tended
to keep track of where everyone around you was, plotting their points
on a mental map using cues of sounds, air movements, flickers of vision
out of the corners of your eyes. In Quistis' case it was automatic.
Just like the gun in her purse.
"What's the matter, dearie? You look a little…lost."
She resisted the temptation to say "Just my mind." and smiled vaguely.
The clock behind the receptionist's head read 7:31. Damn.
The woman tried again. "Waiting for someone?"
"Hopefully."
"A young man?"
Quistis carefully considered the description, Technically Seifer fitted
both of those qualifications, but there was something about the phrase
that implied, well, respectability. Especially if you added in the fact
that while Seifer might only be twenty in actual years, in terms of
hard-bitten cynicism he was about a hundred.
"Uh, yes."
"You bear in mind what I said, then, dearie."
Quistis nodded and smiled and filed the information away in her
mental Big Book Of Useless Advice, right in between 'women
cannot be good and effective soldiers ' and 'duck and cover in
the event of a nuclear disaster.'
A flicker of movement at the door caught her eyes as she turned
and Seifer stepped through.
Behind her she heard the receptionist sigh "Oh, dear." In truth,
Quistis couldn't blame her. Seifer looked as if he'd just stepped
off a fishing boat, right up to the smell, but all she could think of
was that he was cleaner since she'd last seen him. It was a pity
about the clothes. His jeans had holes in them. His T shirt had
holes in it. His boots probably had holes in them, but she couldn't
see them from where she was sitting.
She wondered idly how many weapons he was carrying.
Apart from the clothes, he looked just the same as he always had.
The scar was paler now, hardly visible, and he'd lost some weight
since Garden. Still, if he'd come to the house when her step-
grandmother was living, she'd have taken one look at him and
nodded wisely, That one'll plow your field, empty your
cookie jar, and run off with the chickens.
But it wasn't the chickens she was worried about him running
off with. Seifer was trouble, plain and simple. The few times he
wasn't actively seeking it, he just turned around and there it was.
Or at least, that was what he said on the witness statement.
You wouldn't trust him with your life, or for that matter anything you owned.
But then she had, not so long ago, and that was the problem.
Quistis couldn't remember much about dying, but then she was
reasonably sure that Seifer had convinced one of the soldiers to
give her a Phoenix Down. Against all odds, it had worked. Oh,
there had been other life-saving incidences, in the confused way
you got when no one really knew what was going on, more
coincidence than anything else, but they'd still been there. Right
up until the point where one of the Galbadian soldiers had shot him
during a botched escape attempt.
Quistis hadn't been able to do anything about that. In a way, it was
nice to know that they'd failed, if only because it made her feel
slightly less guilty.
What she had to figure out was exactly what this had meant to
Seifer. Finding out where he'd been, what exactly he though he
was doing and his future plans probably wouldn't be a good
idea either, though she was smart enough to acknowledge that
if he had World Domination on his things-to-do list, then he
wasn't going to tell her that.
She sat on the stool and watched him, though she thought of
it more as surveillance.
He looked around.
Quistis mentally catalogued the sight, changing her mental image
to fit the picture filed in the neatly organised and colour coded
system that was her mind.
Seifer Almasy, tall, blond, interesting scars, vaguely foxy if you
liked them clean-cut, too damn annoying to be allowed to live,
looking slightly confused, and coming over here.
He fetched up at her shoulder.
"Quistis."
She struggled to keep her face composed. "Seifer."
The receptionist's gaze went from one face to the other, clearly
sensing the tension. If the air had had any dramatic licence, it
might have burst into flame.
Seifer looked away first, ostensibly to flick ash from his cigarette
onto the carpet. He leant against the desk with an air of forced
nonchalance. "Looking good, Instructor. Well, better than last
time. How's the killing people for money thing going?"
Quistis maintained the gaze, snakelike. "Ix-nay on the ercenaries-ay!"
He gave her a puzzled look. "Uh, right."
Quistis mouthed "She doesn't know about SeeD." at him
and stabbed a quick finger towards the receptionist. The
woman looked momentarily puzzled and then held up a hand
with a polite and confused smile as she handed her a key from
the board behind her. Quistis took it without thinking, noting
that she'd apparently got herself a key for the roof garden.
Nice.
Seifer attempted to mouth, from the look of it, "then why the
hell are you HERE?" but gave up half way through. He settled
for a diplomatic "What now?"
Quistis shrugged and gave a sidelong glance at the receptionist,
who was industriously polishing the desk bell at her elbow, hoping
for some snippet of gossip, no doubt. "We should be able to
talk up in my room."
"Why not here?" Seifer spoke loudly. The noise made the
receptionist glance up. She gave Seifer a glare, and motioned to the
'for the comfort and convenience of our customers YOU WILL
NOT SMOKE' sign over the reception desk.. Seifer
nonchalantly moved his cigarette behind his back. Quistis
didn't blame him, the sign almost made her want to light up
herself. Almost.
"She's listening in. And you can smoke out of the window."
Seifer shot her an assessing look. "How do you know?"
"She isn't using Brasso to polish that bell." Quistis whispered back.
Seifer raised one eyebrow. "Right."
"Let's go." Quistis turned from the desk, Seifer trailing after her.
He surreptitiously moved his cigarette round to the front of his
coat, keeping it hidden, though the smoke apparently issuing
from his hair was a dead giveaway.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Seifer turned around. Quistis was impressed how deftly he
placed the cigarette behind his back again.
"We're going up to her room."
The receptionist raised one hand. "This is a respectable establishment"
Seifer smirked. "Really? That's good."
The lady's hands went immediately to her hips." What I mean
is, no unmarried couples are allowed to share rooms. And
no guests are allowed in the rooms."
"Why?"
"Because having relations before marrying is a sin in the eyes
of Hyne."
Quistis mentally added 'And because otherwise we can charge
extra….' to the end of the sentence. For one, she would have
given several million gil to see the look on Seifer's face.
She heard him mutter "Going to hell" and countered with an
indignant "No! It's not like that!"
But what exactly is it?
"We're, uh, cousins." Seifer broke in.
The woman pushed up her health service glasses with one finger
and gave both Quistis and Seifer a long, hard look, her glance
flitting from one face to the other. Seifer's face was suspiciously
poker-straight. Quistis felt hers settle back into the cool, familiar
mask. Composed? She'd written the book.
"All right. But if I hear any funny business" she shook a finger at
them both" you go straight out. Out, do you hear me? This is a
respectable place and we want no trouble here."
"Trouble being?"
"The lady gave her a Stare. It definitely deserved capital letters.
" Don't think I don't know what you young people get up to.
I watch TV, you know. I've seen pictures."
" No. Wha…?" Seifer asked innocently. Quistis elbowed him in
the ribs and put a companiable arm round his shoulders as he coughed.
"Is there something the matter with your…..relation?"
Quistis shrugged. "I think he just choked on his own wit."
The lady reached out and took the cigarette from Seifer's hand.
"Put that cigarette out, young man!"
Quistis watched with amazement, in the same way as a crowd
would watch a small child walk into a lion's pen at the zoo, holding
out a lollipop. She dug an elbow into Seifer's ribs and whispered
in his ear. "Don't do anything. I have a gun in my purse."
Through the choking she thought she heard a muttered "Or are you just
pleased to .." so she elbowed him in the ribs again, harder, and smiled
sweetly at the woman as he wheezed.
"I'm sorry. My cousin is prone to asthma attacks."
Also certain lapses of judgment……..and a bit of a control freak…..
He hissed "I'm not that much of a bastard! I don't go round hurting little old ladies!"
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Arson should do it."
"That's it. I'm confiscating your lighter."
"Joke, okay?" He held up his hands. Quistis checked automatically
to make sure neither of them were holding a weapon. They were
empty, of course. While Seifer was not so much homicidally inclined
as completely vertical, she doubted that he'd assault a seventy-year
–old receptionist in the lobby of her own hotel just because she'd
asked him to put his cigarette out.
Probably.
She gave the receptionist a second smile.
"So it's okay if I go up and show my cousin my room?."
The old lady pushed her glasses up her nose with one finger. "All right.
But if he's not down before nine," pointing the clock. "there'll be trouble."
"Thank you so much." Quistis gave her a dazzling smile and turned
away from the desk. Seifer muttered "Creep.", gave his smouldering
cigarette a wistful glance and then followed her as the receptionist snatched
the ashtray from the desk and pointedly emptied it into the bin. A muffled
"And don't think I won't check!" floated up the corridor after
them just as Quistis reached the stairs in front of Seifer.
She swept up them in front of him, using her height to look down
her nose and asked in a withering voice "Cousins?" as soon as they
reached the relative safety of the top floor.
"Fine, I'll just go downstairs and tell her that we plan to be having lots
of sex, shall I?"
Quistis glared at him over the top of her glasses. "Watch my lips.
Four words. Not. Going. To. Happen."
"The feeling's mutual, Trepe. If you've got a better explanation I'd like
to hear it. And be careful. She might hear us."
It's all right if we're fighting. Families do it all the time. " She shrugged.
"From what I've seen, anyway."
"I can't believe she thought you were related to me."
"Nor can I." Quistis unlocked her door and gave a wince at the thought
of whole families of Almasys. Anarchy was not the word. "Come in."
The room was best described as 'frilly' though this didn't come
anywhere near to describing the general effect of the décor. There
were frills over the curtains. There were frills on the curtains, as well
as on the bed and the pillows and the dressing table and the hot water
bottle cover and every other possible surface. The toilet roll holder
in the en-suite bathroom looked like a shepherdess and the draught
excluder was shaped like a lovable sausage dog.
It was very not Quistis, but then Quistis couldn't imagine what kind of
person would ever voluntarily choose the furnishings. Whoever it was,
she didn't ever want to meet them without the security of a straitjacket
and a padded cell.
Seifer, behind her, gave her a sardonic grin. "Nice room. Did Leonhart
choose it himself?"
Quistis raised an eyebrow at the thought of Squall choosing wallpaper
and then thanked Hyne he hadn't. She pulled open the window,
refusing to dignify the comment with an answer, and gestured to a
chair. "Sit."
"Instructor." Seifer sat on the bed, just to be awkward. Quistis
thought it probably was a message, 'don't push me around…..instructor'
It always amazed her how he could make such a usual title sound either
sarcastic or unbelievably dodgy. This time, thank Hyne, it was the
Special Seifer Almasy Variety of sarcasm, a statement delivered so
acidly it was a wonder his tongue didn't shrivel up and fall off.
She held out a hand.
"Weapons." It wasn't a question.
Seifer sighed, slid up his trouser leg and produced a knife from
each boot. He slapped them into Quistis' waiting palms. She
weighted them automatically and nodded in approval, tucking
them away into a desk drawer. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it." His words dripped with sarcasm.
Quistis nudged open the door to hang the 'do not disturb' sign
on the handle. Closing the door, she turned the key in the lock,
took the key out and slipped it in her pocket. She sat down in the chair.
There was an awkward silence.
Seifer broke it, which was about par for the course.
"So, how are they? You'd make me a happy man if you said that
Squall's kicked over the traces, taken up with a pair of blond
nymphomaniac twins, started doing magic mushrooms and got fired
after Cid found him in the Quad singing 'I'm a Little Teapot" and
wearing nothing but an angora sweater and a pair of boxers reading
'Mercenaries Do it For Money.'" He smirked, flicking a pack of
cigarettes and a lighter out of his jeans pocket.
"Not all of us have your high standards." Quistis gave him a Look.
"You mean he isn't?" Seifer shot her a glance of fake innocence.
"Guess. And if you're going to smoke in here, for Hyne's sake do
it out the window. And don't let me stop you from jumping." Now
she was realising why she had been so ready to smack Seifer Almasy
in the teeth last time she'd seen him. He was sarcastic, amoral, and
he made the place look messy.
"Quistis, you wound me." Seifer glanced out of the window and lit up.
"I should be so lucky."
That's what I always missed about you….your biting wit and the way
you used to bend over to mark the papers wearing those tiny, tiny shorts…"
"I don't wear shorts!"
"Skirt, whatever. You know, you're too damn literal for your own good."
He ducked to avoid Quistis' left hand, which suddenly seemed to be on a
trajectory for his head.
She internally sighed at the way even of the most innocent of conversations
with Seifer seemed to turn into an argument within seconds and threw out a
statement like a lever in a vain attempt to get their discussion back on track.
"You wanted to know the news."
"Okay, I think…" Seifer ticked the names off on his fingers. "Let's see.
Selphie's the Garden dealer. She strips to pay the bills and lives in a trailer
park with her white trash boyfriends. And Zell……died of hair gel poisoning.
What? Well, it's only a matter of time…"
"Zell has a career. Unlike some."
Well, he must be legally alive, unlike some." Seifer parroted the last words
in a falsetto whine. "Got any idea how hard it is to get a job when you've
got no skills except Killing People Nastily, Demanding Money With Menaces
and Commanding Armies Of Evil? Plus, the reason you've got holes in
your resume is because you spent your gap year Trying To Destroy The
Known World? No? Didn't think so."
"But why here?" Quistis asked, cursing whatever gods or fate had placed
that holiday brochure right in front of Squall's nose.
"Well, it's the one place without capital punishment.."
She gave him a Look that could have melted plastic.
"No, really. Estharians don't believe in it."
"How strange." Quistis' voice had barbs. "I think they might make
an exception for you."
"You mean you would." Seifer leaned on the sill, resting his weight
on his elbows, and spoke over his shoulder. His cigarette moved
with his speech and Quistis tried hard to resist the impulse to tear
it out of his mouth. "Fuu. And Raijin. How are they?" It wasn't so
much as a question as a demand, delivered in a flat tone of voice
that was trying very hard not to care.
"They're fine, Seifer. Doing well."
He nodded, satisfied, and then turned back to the view and his cigarette.
There was another long silence during which Quistis tried very
hard not to mention the word 'extradition.' There were more
pressing questions, anyway. She chose the most obvious one,
watching Seifer like a hawk to see how he reacted.
"You were dead. And now you are not. You better have a
good explanation for this, Seifer."
"I wasn't." He didn't look at her, didn't seem bothered.
"That's not a good explanation." Since you're obviously here.
Silence.
Quistis sighed. "Look. I had been resurrected. I'm grateful to
you for that. But I wasn't in the most observant of moods, no
matter how much seeing someone murdered in front of me
seems to concentrate my attention." She moved from the chair
to sit on the bed, tucking her legs up below her. It creaked
under her weight.
Seifer turned round to look at her. "Not in front. Below."
"So?" Quistis shifted, lacing her hands round her knees.
"So you didn't see me murdered. You didn't see anyone murdered.
You saw me fall down a hole and then someone shot something
floating in the hole to pieces. Fuck, you know, it was easier to do." He shrugged.
"That wasn't you?"
"Do I look perforated?" He took the cigarette from his mouth and
folded his arms.
Quistis gave him a careful, assessing look. "I think they got your clothes."
He sighed." Okay, I ran. So bite me. It just seemed like a good
idea at the time because no one was really keeping a close eye
on me. So they shot at me and Rahel clipped my leg and I fell
down into this hole."
It was all beginning to make sense. "The earthquakes." After
the monster they had been fighting had brought the house down
in its death throes, most of the walls had fallen down and half of
the floor had caved in.
"Right. So I'm sitting there in fucking freezing cold water watching
the hole and then Rahel appears and I think, maybe I should get out
the way, because this is someone who I've really pissed off."
Quistis sighed. "You have no idea." Rahel had had a whole new idea
of having a bone to pick with Seifer. She'd meant it literally, and it
had only been luck that she hadn't got her way.
He winced "I know. So she thinks she's shooting at me and fires
down the hole, and the reason why she thinks it's me is 'cause there's
someone else down there. Only this one's already dead. So she kills
the poor sod again and you come and rip her a new one, and then I
guess the transport must have come, because you all fucked of, leaving
me, surprise surprise, in this damn wet hole. So after about two hours
I climb out, soaking wet, find your pack, which you oh-so –conveniently
left in the rubble what with the shooting and not dying and all, and I go to Gen's."
"Gen's. Let me get this straight. You almost get killed by a Galbadian
SeeD and then you go to an ex-SeeD's house to clean up?"
He shrugged and took his lighter out of his pocket, turning it over and
over in his hands without looking at it. "He helped me before.
He wasn't nasty. I didn't drink the coffee this time. Used the stuff
out of your pack instead"
"And then what.?"
"I came here. Well, more or less."
Quistis thought about how to phrase her question. "Didn't you ever
consider going back to Garden?"
"I've died legally three times. Like I'm going to walk up there and
say 'Hey, you missed, want to try again, and this time for Hyne's
sake do it properly, you bunch of fuckwits?' Last time was a little
closer than I like my shaves." He clicked the lighter on and off,
and idly ran it over the window frame. Quistis' nose caught the
smell of burning plastic. "That's the good thing about being dead,
no one expects you to do anything."
" Says the man whose response to a rumor of a bungled hostage
situation is to break out of school, get a train to the offending area
and take the president hostage at gunpoint on national television.
No one expected you to do anything in the first place..and for
Hyne's sake stop that!"
Seifer looked up, innocently. "What?"
"The burning! Stop with the burning!" She jumped up, sighing
theatrically as Seifer clicked the lighter off. Quistis went to the
bathroom and fetched a can of Haze in pointed silence. The
scent didn't so much mask the smell of burning plastic as blend
it into a new and unusual cocktail of odours so thick you could
taste it in the back of your mouth.
"Shit, Quistis, that stuff stinks worse that the smell…"
She didn't answer. Quistis would not have been surprised to know
that most people though of her as unbelievably tense. She'd learned
that the secret was to focus it.
Like a spring, you had to have all that energy wound up and in the
process it became so tightly controlled it would explode with great
force whatever way you pointed it. It was why she was such a
valuable soldier. Seifer, on the other hand, was a bag of dynamite
in a barrel full of nails. Bored, angry and with a complete lack of
morals, a dangerous combination. The burning plastic thing was
only one example. If he got bored, he didn't even seem to notice
he was doing stuff that other people might find objectional, dangerous,
or outright wrong, though he was usually both more dramatic
and focused in his behaviour
She watched as he cast about for another subject and stepped
on a conversational landmine.
"Well, what are you doing here? Did Squall send you to come
get me?"
Quistis heard the unspoken words: because you do everything Squall says.
With enviable self-control she replaced the aerosol carefully in
the bathroom, aligning it next to the colour co-ordinated
handtowels. "It's not all about you, Seifer." Thank Hyne.
He grinned around the cigarette. "Of course it's all about me.
Only other people sometimes get in the way."
"I'm. On. Holiday." Ice dripped from her words.
Seifer laughed. "No, really."
"Really." This time, it could have congealed in her footprints
as she made her way across the carpet and settled down on
the bed. Seifer didn't seem to notice.
"That's a scary, scary thought." He shot her a glance." I bet
Squall made you. He did, didn't he?"
"Might have." Quistis' tone of voice was noncommittal as she
tried hard not to look guilty, surprised or both at once. Since
when had she become so easy to read?
Seifer sighed. "I hate my life. What a damn coincidence."
The words floated over his shoulder wreathed in blue smoke.
It made Quistis cough. She waved a hand in front of her face,
willing the wind to change. "You took the words right out of my mouth."
"So what do we do now?" Seifer looked right at her and shrugged,
in a defiant way that meant he really didn't expect her to answer the
question and indicated that he wouldn't take her advice anyway. So there.
"I don't give a damn what you're doing, Me, I'm trying to enjoy
what's left of my holiday and then going back to work."
"What hoops have they got you jumping over this time?"
"Same old. Needless to say I didn't bring you back to Garden,
so I'm still not instructor." She gave him a dangerous glance,
daring him to comment. "Just teaching students, a few missions, bit of publicity. You?"
"Working" he winced. "Well, I was. Until this afternoon."
"You didn't get fired?" Quistis knew the answer even before
the words left her lips, and it didn't surprise her one bit.
"Someone's face got in the way of my fist." Unrepentant.
She thought of Seifer's files, and then wisely decided not to
bring the subject up.
"What are your plans?"
"Dunno. Never thought I'd live long enough to have a future."
He glanced vaguely down at the cigarette in his hand. "Guess I should stop smoking. Or take up macramé. Or maybe necromancy, so next time I die I can make sure to tell you right away."
"Just try it. No, wait, maybe that IS a good idea. Because then
I can arrange to be out." Quistis got up to search though the piles
of papers and junkmail on her table. Originally it had been the
dressing table, and she'd resisted the temptation to rip the frills
off the legs. All the ornaments had been squirreled away in a
drawer and replaced by neat stacks of papers. Pile one was for
dailies, pile two for reading matter and pile three for flyers and
promotional materials advertising the various diversions to be
found in a busy little seaside town, of which Quistis had so far
experienced precious little. So far the only paid entertainment she
had embarked on was half a hour letting off some of her tension
at the local rifle range-paintball-and clay pigeon shooting park.
And even that had gotten her a few funny looks, possibly because
customers weren't supposed to take their own weapons.
Looking at made her wonder if she really was work-obsessed. Hyne,
she was getting desk withdrawal.
She tossed him a paper off the top of the pile. "Here. Look for a job,
maybe"
He muttered something about "organising to death" but picked it up
anyway and started to leaf through the pages. Quistis read it upside
down, over his shoulder. There weren't a lot of jobs, and most of
what there were seemed to require skills that Seifer, or Quistis for
that matter, didn't have. That was the problem with a military
academy, it taught you how to be the best at what you did, and then
ensured that you couldn't use the skills it taught anywhere except in
its organisation, or at least not legally.
"Leavelle's Bodyguard Academy-Sponsored by Raybans?"
"I'm not risking my ass for some politician" He said the last word
like others would say 'mass-murderer' "Plus, those things have
background checks."
"You've got previous experience." She didn't even know why she
was bothering.
"At the other end of the gun." Seifer shrugged. "Look it's no big deal.
My rent's cheap, I don't eat a lot, and I've got some savings.
I'll manage." His unspoken words hovered in the air. I'm Seifer
Almasy, and I don't need anybody's help. Especially not yours……
Quistis thought that his food bill couldn't be that low, especially
given Seifer's habit of living on nicotine and Jack Daniels.
That stuff came expensive in fact it cost more than proper food.
"You can't eat pride." The words came out more condescendingly
than she'd intended and Quistis flushed, realising it was the worst
way to handle this almost as soon as she'd said it. Seifer hated pity.
"I can. Look. After. Myself." His tone of voice said clearly which
part of this do you not understand?
She sighed and wondered why she was even bothering. How the
hell could he still sound so arrogant, being what and where he was?
"Ever heard of the saying 'the meek shall inherit the earth?'"
"I don't trust the meek. They may look quiet, but they can turn nasty."
"You don't trust anyone." This was true. Seifer wouldn't have
trusted someone who said it was raining outside until he'd stuck
his hand out of the window first. A survival trait, she guessed.
Even when the big one hit, he would still be walking around with the cockroaches.
"I don't trust you."
The last word rang in the air. Against a background of hoovering
and birdsong, it seemed out of place, and entirely too dramatic.
Quistis was almost certain that it was a lie. Exhibit A being that he
was here, and Exhibit B being the whole 'saving your life' thing.
Seifer looked up from the window and stubbed out his cigarette on
the still smoking frame. "Look, I'll be going. There's some greasy
fast food out there somewhere with my name on it. If anybody needs
me, well, they can fuck right off." He gave her a challenging look that said
just try and stop me.
Quistis sat carefully on the bed and didn't say a word, although she felt
slightly smug inside. The key burned cold in her pocket and she shifted
so the outline was invisible even through her skirt.
Seifer stalked to the door, turned the handle, looked puzzled and tried again.
"It's locked." He rattled it, loudly and then booted it, hard. But that
was the great thing about little olde-worlde inns - they tended to have
nice thick antique doors. This one had nails in and looked like it would
have held a charging elephant.
Quistis smiled, faintly. "Is it?" She watched his eyes flick towards the
window and then back to her.
You know damn well it is. Just what kind of game are you playing anyway?
Is this the bit where ten SeeDs jump out the wardrobe and arrest me?"
Seifer's body language had changed, not wary, exactly, but definitely anxious and certainly angry.
"Seifer, if I wanted to arrest you, believe me you would be one arrested
asshole by now. I don't want you! No one wants you!"
"What's your problem?"
"I don't have a problem." Apart from you.
Seifer ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up wildly. From
the looks of things he'd calmed down a bit, mentally changing gears
from 'shit, maybe they are out to get me!' to 'no worries, it's just
Quistis being weird again.' "Denial. I knew it."
"I am not in denial!" Quistis just realised what she'd said and fisted
her hands in the sheets, waiting for the obvious comeback, Seifer
never being one to throw back a conversational bone. Trying to
have an argument with him was like having an ass-kicking contest
with a centipede. Given that most of their conversations seemed
to turn into arguments, this was unfortunate.
"That's what they all say."
"I don't have anything to be in denial of!" Nothing I can remember,
anyway…
"So what you're saying is that you're denying the fact you're in denial.
What are you doing here?" Seifer moved away from the door.
Quistis noticed him slide a glance at it, note that the previous steel
-toecapped kicking hadn't even left a mark, and give up. He folded his arms.
"Well, I could sponge paint. If I had some paint. And a sponge."
She thought the room could do with some decorating. It was like
living in a mad gingham fetishist's boudoir.
"The sarcasm's my job. Just for one minute will you tell me what
the fuck is going on?"
Quistis sighed. The fact that he was demanding explanations of her
snapped the last few thin threads of her temper. "Nothing. Is.
Going. On. I am on holiday. I didn't know you were going to be here,
and right now I am tearing my hair out wondering what the hell to do with
you and why exactly this is my problem! I didn't even know you were alive
until last week! I almost gave Squall the letter and let him sort it out
because I didn't want to deal with this! I was supposed to be relaxing
and now you're here and you're making everything complicated again!
It could be another international incident and if Edea knows about it she
might try persuading Squall or Cid to let you back and then if all the
Gardens get on our tails we could lose everything."
"How is she?" Seifer threw a bridge across the verbal current. He gave
her a sideways look, like he was expecting her to burst into flames or
something, which made Quistis realised that her face was probably bright
red. She moved a hand up to her hair, patting a few errant strands into
place and trying to regain control.
"What do you expect? She's confused and upset and I know she keeps
having these dreams and it's tearing her apart. We just don't mention it,
because how can we ask if she took us trying to kill her seriously?
Everyone's very nice to her but for different reasons. Garden's handling
her with kid gloves because we're afraid she might break but the rest
of the country's treating her like she might explode even though they know
damn well what happened. Like you care, anyway. "
"Just because I don't know doesn't mean I don't care." Seifer looked
thoughtful, as if something she'd said had struck a chord and he'd filed it
away for further consideration.
Quistis spoke flatly. "Prove it." She knew he couldn't knew she was
being bitchy, but then Seifer hadn't had to cope with a worried and
hovering Cid, a depressed Edea and a Squall who was desperately
struggling to learn the ropes that had been put in his hands far too soon.
Seifer shrugged. "I can't. Can't go back. Can't do fucking anything.
Can't use my real name, can't talk to anyone about anything that matters,
can't stay in one place unless people start to get smart. Quistis,
I can't even trust myself around normal people. I'm not normal.
None of us are, for fuck's sake. It's just little things like not wanting
to be in crowds, because it's too easy not to notice things. Seeing
some guy on the street with Zell's stupid hairstyle and thinking it's
him and wondering what the hell to do."
Quistis interrupted in surprise. "There's more than one person that
would do that to their hair voluntarily?"
"You'd think. I've even seen people walking round with Squall's
pimp jacket. You're all fucking heroes now. I'm surprised they
haven't got you on lunchboxes."
Quistis decided not to mention the school visits. "Not being able
to slice things into little pieces must be a real pain in the ass for you."
"You have nooooo idea." He lit up another cigarette, chainsmoking
with a vengeance.
"You need therapy. Possibly at gunpoint."
Quistis got the feeling they'd both surprised each other. Things that
needed to be said, and the only reason they hadn't was because
last time they'd both met they'd been too busy avoiding random
peril together. She pointed to the window through the haze of
rapidly gathering cigarette smoke and Seifer took the hint.
Quietly, for once.
Maybe the smoking was just something to do with his hands,
she'd never noticed Seifer smoke in the wars. He'd been far too
together for that. Maybe it was some kind of deep seated insight
into his personality, and she wasn't about to go wading in that
particular swamp without a big stick and several cans of bug repellent.
Quistis sighed. It felt like they'd been wandering round in verbal circles
the whole time. She still hadn't worked out what exactly she thought she
should do, let alone what Seifer should do, even if he was in a mood
to take advice, which would be a minor miracle.
It was nearly nine-o-clock. The light glancing into the room had
changed from bright yellow to a warm and sultry amber while they
had been talking, sounds carrying in from the street becoming more
muted and overlaid by the constant humming presence of some kind of insect.
She sighed. "Look. I'll meet you tomorrow." adding and holding up
a hand to stop him interrupting "so we can talk, okay. Somewhere a bit more private."
I think I need a coffee.
Seifer shrugged. "This is private."
"No, it's not. Because it's nearly nine, and sooner or later
someone's going to come wandering up listening for strange sounds
through the keyhole. Remember? If that woman doesn't see you
walk out of that door at nine she's coming up here to shake you out
of my sheets and charge us double. And that is NOT an offer."
Seifer flicked the cigarette out of the window. "Unlock the door, then.
I'll meet you outside at nine thirty tomorrow." He looked at her challengingly.
Quistis refused to rise to his bait. They didn't have time to get into a
second argument, and she refused to have the receptionist asking her
searching questions every time she came in and finding excuses to
come up and check the linen closets after hours. "That should be fine."
"Okay."
"Right." She took the key out of her pocket and unlocked the door,
throwing it open. Seifer flicked the 'Do Not Disturb' sign off onto the
carpet as he passed, brushing past the receptionist on her way up the
stairs and disappearing down the hallway. The woman looked slightly
disappointed: maybe she'd been on the point of demanding they book
another room, or at least a double.
Quistis gave the woman a cheerful smile and retreated into her room,
locking the door. She climbed out onto the balcony to check that
Seifer was really leaving.
He was.
Just to make sure Quistis watched him across the street, down another
road and off into the busy junctions to the west of the town. He wasn't
hard to trace through the crowds. Seifer had never been much good at
blending in, even when he was trying.
She wondered how he had survived as long as he had and concluded
that it was probably a combination of luck, a well honed survival instinct
and being very good at what he did.
Halfway there she saw him turn back and throw a glance up to the
balcony but she was wearing dark clothes and the sun was setting.
She was too far away to see the expression on his face, but she was
pretty sure he hadn't noticed her.
The embers of his discarded cigarette glowed in the dark on the bare
boards of the balcony floor. It made the night air stink harshly of nicotine
so she scooped it up and threw it onto the gravel of the driveway below,
watching its smouldering red eye wink out a second later and exorcising
the ghost of Seifer's smoke. She recognised the brand. Lucky Strikes. He
hadn't changed.
Quistis realised she was holding her breath, stretched her arms above
her head and forced herself to exhale. The heat made her hair hang
limply round her face so she twisted it up into a messy bun, sweeping
sweaty strands off the back of her neck as she leant her elbows on
the balcony rail and then rested her face in her hands.
Typical.
Quistis died from boredom, while Seifer stressed because he lived in
interesting times. And then she had to sort it all out.
Poor Quistis, her mind whispered sardonically.
She exhaled in disgust at herself and climbed back inside, leaving the
night to itself and setting the coffee percolator on to boil.
By the time it had finished, her options had boiled down to a plan of
three parts.
One; call Garden.
Two: take Seifer back herself. If he refused to go back, kill him.
Three: wait, and see what happened.
She was reluctant to implement her first idea, at least until she talked
to Seifer a bit more. It would look like she couldn't cope. Quistis
mentally drew a red line across it in the binder of her mind. Scratch plan one.
The second : well, she could. But she'd tried search-and-retrieve before,
and it hadn't worked, plus it all hinged on Seifer being amenable. Oh, it
was true, she could trick him or enlist the local police force or something.
And if the worst came to it, there was always a quick bullet in the night
and a shallow grave because legally, of course, Seifer was already dead.
Quistis didn't think anyone would mind too much if she deleted the
'already' permanently.
Apart from her.
Maybe she'd be better off trying to see if she could talk him into going back
voluntarily. Or taking piglets to flying school…
This line of thought led inexorably to her third plan. Wait, and see what
happened. Maybe it would be best to leave well alone, to wash her
hands of Seifer and the wars and go onto whatever challenge the new
order offered.
Quistis instinctively distrusted Plan Three, maybe because it was too
much like Seifer's own planning. There was no logic, no organised ten-
step table, no tactics. Seifer had been her problem for years. There was
no way he was going to stop now.
She sighed for a moment, remembered the coffee and went to get
herself a mug. Triple espresso, the rye whisky of caffeine addicts.
Why did she always have to deal like this?
It was a childish thought. Quistis had long ago worked out that in the
game of life, you just had to play whatever cards you got. It was
good to be hard on yourself, because then no one could criticise
you worse than you already did. You knew what to expect. If you
knew what to except, you could plan ahead. But at times like this one
of Irvine's hokey old Galbadian sayings always came to mind.
Hyne pisses on you every day, but she only drowns you once.
Quistis felt she was up to her neck and sinking fast.
She'd always tried to do things just as well as she could and then
just did them better than anything else. Everyone demanded perfection,
and eventually so did she. It was her driving force, her own personal
quest for the Holy Grail of efficiency. If something was difficult,
it just meant you had to try harder.
If something's not hard to do, it's not worth doing.
The difference between Quistis and Seifer was that Quistis was driven,
but she used the company car. Seifer's personal driver was a drunk
fourteen year old with a body in the boot but no licence. Unpredictable,
and therefore, dangerous.
She poured herself another coffee, staring at her reflection in the
black bitter water.
Like it or not, she was meeting the man tomorrow, so she was
just going to have to work out what to do. The only problem was
that the coffee, instead of having its normal property of making her
super-focused, seemed to have scrambled her brains. She couldn't
think. It was a rare sensation, and she didn't like it much.
Eventually she got out her laptop and booted it up, hoping that putting
her plans on paper would help, but after twenty minutes the screen
stayed resolutely blank.
Aargh.
A glance out the window showed that it was now completely dark.
He's killed my brain cells.
Quistis rested her head in her hands and tried to think. She
remembered the way Seifer had acted in Trabia. He'd
been everything she'd expected at first, rude, arrogant and
violent, but several near-death experiences had, she thought,
brought them closer together, if only because it was easier to
shout a cutting comment back.
How would that affect the way he behaved now?
Quistis remembered seeing Seifer for the first time after the wars,
outside Gen's cabin in the snow, terminally pissed off and almost
as confused, remembered him facing down monsters at gunpoint,
remembered him snarling at the soldiers like a protective watchdog
after he'd convinced the Galbadian SeeD Isak to bring her back to
life using a spare Phoenix Down.
She remembered.
Seifer remembers.
To the best of Quistis' knowledge, Seifer had never used a
GF, which theoretically meant that he should be able to remember
them all growing up together and which maybe had contributed to
him following Edea in the first place. Whenever she'd got onto the
subject of their childhood, in the woods, he'd shied off, and she
was aware that he had more than one particular skeleton in that
personal closet.
If she stayed, and talked to him, and thought what to do next, maybe
she could get him to tell her about them all, together.
It was an intoxicating thought. Quistis' micro-managed mind had
never dealt well with the gaping hole that GF use had eroded. Every
so often she'd get tantalising snatches of memory, a song, or a saying,
or a sudden intuitive feeling that left her walking round for a day feeling
supremely irritated and screaming internally with frustration. Maybe Seifer
could help fill in the blank spaces in the form that was her brain.
If he wanted to.
Quistis had considered talking to Edea more about their childhood, but
to begin with she hadn't remembered, and then there had been more
important things, and then; well, Edea's past decisions had borne
strange fruit and not all of it was easy to swallow. Their former Matron
had moved to a house near the old orphanage shortly after the wars.
Quistis had been to see her several times. On the surface, she was coping
well, but it was like walking out onto the beach the night after a flood
when water had eroded the sand underneath, leaving just a thin crust
on top. Take one step too far and then suddenly you'd be up to your
ankles in sand and seawater. All was not well. Edea hadn't talked
much about the situation; in fact it had been her skirting around the
topic that had first alerted Quistis to the fact that something might be
wrong. She suspected part of the problem was having nothing to do
but sit and think.
She knew Edea had strange dreams, flashbacks; Quistis had been
standing right next to her in the kitchen one weekend when she'd
stopped motionless and staring into space in front of the window,
drying the dishes. The plate had smashed on the floor. It had been
willow pattern. Edea had insisted nothing had been wrong but Quistis
had heard her crying later.
Always trying to protect her children.
Something had broken, and it wasn't just the plate.
Maybe there was some way she could smuggle Seifer out to Edea
Maybe he'd just make things worse. Seifer had an unerring talent for
that. Look what he'd made her holiday into.
Quistis tried to marshal her thoughts together. She'd speak to Seifer
the next day, assuming he turned up, try and get him to tell her about
memories, and figure out what exactly he was doing here. Maybe along the way she'd be able to decide what she would have to do.
Hyne, I hope this works.
Wow:o Thanks so much everyone who reviewed. Jeez, you guys
must really like this. And there's not even any sex yet. Um, if I missed
anyone off then it's cos my ff.net account is screwing up and I didn't know
I got half of the reviews until I read them on the site. Sorry*offers them one
of Mitsuki's muffins* hope you don't mind sharing, d00ds.
Anyway:
Auronzlah (Thanks very much. Spiffy is a good word., very English),
breaker-one (He is protesting he is not funny. I'm glad that you think so.)
, Chanel (you mean like virtual prozac?), DBZ Fanfiction Queen (Thanks.
Two week updates, promise), gauntlet challenge (Nice metaphor. Simile.
Whatever), Ghost 140 (I hate spammers. Maybe when I start the third fic,
I'll let you know :D) Jindy Wahr (hey, wanna beta's job?. d00d, I did that
once. You have super eagle eyes! The formatting was maybe a bit dodgy
as my mother was staying for the weekend, and I'm still in denial 'bout the
whole fanfic thing. I haven't got any English qualification, I just read
compulsively), Kjata (yes, fish hearts really do beat after the fish is dead.
Froody. Writing professionally; maybe in twenty years or so I'll be
able to write something worth reading. Am thinking about Hellsing fic
at the moment as sideline: trip to Rome has got me thinking. Anderson rocks.
In a mad kind of way.), nynaeve77 (she's pissed off, he's just pissed),
Mana Angel (glad you've come out of the reviewing closet (so to speak)
the link should now* crosses fingers* be working.) (Mitsuki Hoshiko
(Ta! Am trying to get a Poe CD at the mo! thanks for the muffins*munch*),
Quistis88 (ta!), Rendezvous (woh: CelesteSpring, hey. Whyja change
ya name? Must go check fics….), seatbelts (hey guys :D the months,
though, wtf? It's gonna be another long ride, I'm afraid.), superviolinist
(Thanks. No, it's not sad. Hey, I spend large amounts of time thinking
about this thing.) The Finely Tuned Fiend ( ta, fellow Brit) and Verdanni
( no, it's a cool name. Where's it from?)
kate (now let us kung fu fight!)