Chapter Eight: Sleeping With Myself Tonight
Thanks, that was fun,
Don't forget, no regrets.
Said maybe one, made a deal, not to feel
God, that's dumb.
Everybody knows the deal fell through,
I was hoping I could just blame you.
When was it that I became so soft?
This sentimentality doesn't look good on me
I thought that you would be begging to be with me,
I'm the one on my knees begging you please let me stay.
Barenaked Ladies: That Was Fun
It's four o'clock in the morning…
Damn it!
Listen to me good….I'm sleeping with myself tonight
Elton John-Someone Saved My Life Tonight
The pic for this chapter should be up at blackthorn dot keenspace dot com slash images dot game dot jpg. Enjoy. It's kind
of a hundred reviews thing. Also, the minicomic that you couldn't
see earlier has now been fixed and is up at blackthorn dot keenspace dot com slash images dot habits1 dot png and habits2 dot png.
Thanks for your patience.
The weird writing is just so it shows on the ff.net formatting.
Neon lights glowed in the rain and reflected gaudily in the puddles.
Seifer's boots splashed through them, soaking his trousers. A sign
above his head read: The Bar None.
Bar none? Well, let's see if they'll bar me.
It looked like his kind of place, and that meant the sort Quistis
wouldn't enter in a million years. The lighted letters flickered
erratically in the rain with a soft hiss that threatened imminent
execution, reflections of blue sparks and pink neon shattering
and reforming under his feet. In the resulting unearthly glow,
the bar didn't look exactly welcoming, but it beat going back
home or wandering round until the morning hands down.
A smeared 'twenty-one and over ONLY.' sign decorated the
door in front of him right next to one reading' please do not
ask for credit, because a punch in the mouth often offends.'
Seifer ignored it. He pushed the door open and looked round.
The word that first came into his head was dive.
A long bar took up most of the length of the room, propping up
a few people. The pub didn't look like the kind of place that
would ever be packed out, a men's bar in the best sense of the
word, for those who liked their beer cheap, their knuckles
tattooed and their women horizontal. The specimens sitting
at the bar looked like they'd descended from orangoutans.
A couple of them turned round as he came in, and stared at
him for longer than was polite.
So- a local bar.
Fuck it.
He just wanted a drink, maybe several, and whoever got in
the way of him and a bottle of something that you could
also clean spoons with was going to regret it.
He tramped up to the bar, hunting in his pocket for money
and dripping water. If anything, it made the floor slightly
cleaner, revealing black and white check lino that made his
boots squeak like dying mice.
None of the men sitting on the stools seemed very happy
about having a soaking stranger in their midst. The reception
wasn't freezing, but it was damn cold for June and for a
second Seifer nearly rethought.
But what the hell.
If he'd been using his brain cells, he wouldn't be in here.
He leant forwards to seek the barman, and someone dressed
in a greasy apron flapped a cloth at him and then continued
with his conversation. Seifer chose to interpret the cloth as
'be over in a minute.' rested his elbows on the counter and
looked around.
Nice.
From what he could see through the smoke, the décor spoke.
It said "Beer. Now. Cheap. Fast. And who the hell you calling
fat, anyway? You want a piece of this?"
Dim light, cracked mirrors and dirt seemed to be the order of
the day.
The surroundings were reassuringly and drearily familiar in a
nasty sort of way. Hell, it had been a while. He hadn't been
to pubs much since Marduk, preferring to buy cratefuls of
cheap weak beer from the local market than use what little
money he had on spirits. And in the woods, there hadn't
been anything to buy.
He needed this.
Damn the woman.
A gravelled voice cut into his thoughts. "Yeah?"
"I'll have a double whisky-no, make that two doubles. Hell,
make that a bottle."
The barman raised an eyebrow and held out a nicotine-stained
hand. Seifer placed a crumpled twenty-gil note in it.
The hand stayed out.
Seifer scowled and asked irritably "How much does whisky
cost round here?", but he knew the answer even as the words
left his mouth. It was a seller's market in a small town like
Hana when all the liquor shops closed at nine, and a fast
search through his pockets revealed nothing but lint. He
rephrased. "What can I get for a twenty?"
The barman shrugged, a gesture that moved his shoulders
to somewhere above his head. "Whisky. Just less whisky
than, if you had, say, thirty-five."
I haven't. "What kinds you got?"
"If you have to ask, you don't need a drink badly enough."
"Fine." He sighed. "Whatever."
What a night.
The click and rumble of pool balls echoed blurrily in the
background between the sound of rain against windows
and a TV droning sports scores to anyone who was listening.
Despite it all, the atmosphere was tense. This definitely
wasn't the kind of place you got nice girls in. Nice girls,
nice men, or nice beer. Nice was not in its description, anywhere.
"Here." The barman slid a glass and bottle across the table
and dumped a small pile of change next to it. A man of few
words, obviously.
The container was dusty and about the size of a small milk
bottle. The label read, incredibly, Happy Salmon Whisky
and featured a picture of a smiling fish on it, just like the
restaurant logo. The coincidence made Seifer wonder where
the hell Quistis had gone until he remembered that he wasn't
supposed to care.
He picked up the bottle and made his way to a shadowed
empty table where he could sit with his back to the wall and
his eyes on the room. Not that he was looking for trouble,
but if it found him, he'd best be prepared.
And Seifer really wasn't in the mood for talking to anyone.
He dragged a hand over his face and slumped down in his seat,
viewing the room through half-closed eyes. The dim lights along
the bar and hanging shaded over snooker tables in the back
were the only illumination, making it hard to work out how
many people were actually in the room and turning the
whisky into smoky amber glass.
Stupid bitch. He could take care of his damn self.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, it was what he did.
Twenty damn years of pushing people as hard away as he
could reach -with a few exceptions, and then, bam!
Miss-fucking-Most-Organised-Trepe had to come in and
screw it all up.
Literally.
Seifer laced his hands around the neck of the bottle and
stared through it, watching the bar through the amber
fish-eye lens. It was a slight improvement, but he wasn't
drunk or masochistic enough to enjoy the view. He wasn't
nearly drunk enough yet, or even at all, but the bartender had
thoughtfully taken the cap off the bottle so it was only a matter of time.
The bar felt suddenly alien around him, cold and desperately
lonely after the last few companiable days. It had been
reassuring, having someone else to talk to. Someone who
knew what real life was like.
For a given value of real, anyway.
And the sex had been great.
Seifer's train of thought ran pleasantly along predictable tracks
for a few seconds before he pulled it up short, remembering the
look on Quistis' face when he told her she'd just slept with him
as part of some mission or other.
Yeah. Like I'm going to get any of that again.
The memory of the restaurant made him wince slightly, words
sounding harsh and cruel, and above all, damn stupid.
She'd said "What does it feel like, being a loser?"
And he'd been angry, too angry that she still thought that,
knowing that he wasn't making any kind of success of his life
like he'd always wanted to, knowing that he'd wanted to, that
the truth hurt.
He'd said he'd hoped she'd die, somewhere along the line.
Hyne, I sound like my father.
Quistis's last barbed comment had cut deeper than he cared to
admit and not for the first time Seifer wondered whether it
really had been such a great idea to avoid GFs. Was a family
you couldn't remember worse than one you couldn't forget?
I was five.
I shouldn't remember any of it by now. Lots of people don't
remember much from when they were kids.
Lucky me.
Heh.
The bottle clinked on the edge of the cup as he tilted it to slosh
whisky in the bottom. The glass was cracked and dirty with
fingerprints but Seifer didn't care. The rain, the dingy bar, the
cheap whisky, it all seemed to belong in some masochistic way.
Ah well....Here's to Quistis, and here's to Rinoa, and here's
to that damn hero Squall, and Dad, may you rot in your grave,
here's to you too.
Bastard.
The whisky gleamed in the dim light as he drank to them all
and slumped back again in his seat, coughing as the warmth
of the spirit burned down to his belly. It made him shiver,
banishing the chill clinging of his damp clothes in the bar
air conditioning.
Seifer glanced at the bottle with a new respect. Rough as hell.
Perfect.
He poured himself a second glass and checked out the local
talent through half-closed eyes. It wasn't what you might call
a class act. A few booths on the opposite wall housed a group
of hard-drinking biker types, all greying mullets and misspelled
tattoos. There were a couple of older men, obviously locals,
drinking alone and with a kind of damp dogged determination
. He could have come in any night of the week, and they'd be
there, same table, same glass of beer, same paper, same people.
As for the rest, there was little of interest.
Wait.
There was one more customer seated across from the booths,
half-hidden by a wild snooker table seen in its natural state,
grazing peacefully on carpet.
Seifer watched her in sober boredom. She sat next to a booth
full of biker types, but she didn't act as if she was with them.
Just a girl, wearing an aggressively too-short skirt teamed with
precariously high heels. She hung onto the stem of her glass
like it was some kind of life preserver, a detail Seifer could
sympathise with. The men had nothing of interest about them,
from the casual way they chatted with the bartender they were
obviously regulars, but they weren't drinking much.
The girl was. A lurid green cocktail sat in front of her with a
small paper umbrella resting against its sugar-encrusted glass.
The liquor matched her eye shadow, top and hair clips. While
the men talked amongst themselves, she scanned the room
with a bored glazed gaze, painted eyes half-closed. Her
movements were relaxed and slightly uncoordinated, and
Seifer had been drunk himself too many times not to know
what it looked like.
The men at the table behind her didn't seem to have noticed,
or if they had, they certainly didn't care. They talked as the
girl tapped her fingers on the table, regarding them all with
the same kind of bored intoxicated tolerance as she showed
the rest of the room. Lose the clothes, the hair extensions
and about half a pound of makeup and she'd probably be pretty
enough, but there was no comparison to Quistis.
Seifer drank.
The night moved on.
Eventually his eyes were drawn to a flicker of movement in the
corner as the girl staggered up from the tables. Her apparent
incoordination could have been due to the shoes, the drink or a
mixture of both. For a second her eyes met his, and she smiled,
a wide, pleased, and utterly genuine grin.
Seifer averted his gaze quickly. He didn't need this kind of trouble
…..well, trouble or not, he just didn't need it.
Got expensive tastes now? his brain needled.
The girl continued on her unsteady way to the bathroom without
looking back.
Damn. Quistis had given him standards for Hyne's sake.
And even worse-morals.
He returned to his drink.
You're getting careless.
Not as much as I'll be after this.
The stale smell of nicotine, sweat and beer was comforting and
uneasy at the same time, shades of the Garden dorms after another
late night student party. The house on the sands had smelled just the same.
Sins of the fathers.
Not like that. It's not like that if there's a reason.
He'd never drank much in Garden, been far too together for that.
He'd had other things to do, and drinking just to get drunk had been
a waste of precious and expensive booze. The real serious shit had
started in Marduk, back when he'd had money, not much to spend it
on and nightmares or flashbacks or memories almost every night. He'd
bought the first bottle out of desperation and bravado, drank three
quarters of it, thrown up, passed out, and woken up the next morning
lying on the floor fully clothed and with one hell of a hangover.
And for a whole twenty four hours, no dreams.
It was called associative learning. And it worked.
It worked well.
Two weeks later he'd been away down the Road To Alcoholism,
moving fast and going nowhere.
He'd experimented with just about everything you could drink and
some things he hadn't know you could. It wasn't experimenting if
you did it all the time.
Seifer sank the glass, and then absently poured himself another one
while doodling with his finger on the table top in stale beer. Like all
of the other crap in the bar, it didn't match, old, scratched and
obviously secondhand. Keys of all different shapes and sizes were
baked into its clear plastic top. He stared at them.
Quistis.
Man, was that ever one bad idea, he thought, but it even felt half-hearted
. Like he wasn't going to make himself believe it, no matter how
hard he tried.
He liked her.
Dammit.
More than that-he trusted her. Despite the words and the arguments
and the bitching and the little glasses, there was something unshakeably
honest about Quistis, and Seifer hadn't many people he really,
honest-to-Hyne, cross his heart-and-hope-to-not-die trusted. Drawing
in the table-top beer, he made a mental list in the interests of self-analysis.
Hell, if he was going to get nastily and depressingly drunk anyway,
why the hell not do it properly and really wallow in the guilt?
The rain drummed on the windowpane, blue smoke curling round the
bar ceiling in a smog. Seifer felt automatically for cigarettes and lighter
before remembering that he'd thrown his lighter in the harbour, probably
while trying to make some kind of dumb point. He decided that one
poison was enough for the night.
Maybe later.
The list.
Edea, first and foremost. Almost-but-not-quite-mother, seeing as
how at that age he'd already been taught way too well that getting
close to people was A Bad Idea, in capitals. Cid, too, he guessed.
Maybe not.
Rinoa. Sweet idealistic big-eyed Rinoa, his summer girl. Gone now,
of course.
Raijin. Fuujin. His posse, and if the relationship had never been
entirely equal, who the hell cared as long as they didn't?
And now Quistis. Who probably hadn't even drunk anything other
than organic mineral water in her health-freak perfect life. Little
Miss Brainy.
It was either a minor Act Of Hyne, or one big unmitigated fucking
disaster, depending on your point of view. Plus, of course, he'd
fallen so hard in lust that it was a miracle he hadn't made a hole in
the bloody carpet. The hair. The legs. Damn, the whole body. The
way she kissed, like she was going to be tested on it later.
But then there had been pretty girls before. There were always
pretty girls.
The difference between them and Quistis was that they didn't know
who the hell he was, and she did, and she still liked him, maybe did
a whole lot more, and how the hell rare was that?
And she had an IQ greater than a stunned hamster, of course. Maybe
a lobotomy was the answer.
The only problem there was, the only person he knew who might
conceivably have any idea of how to do brain surgery was Quistis
herself, so it was really a non-starter.
Pros: Legs. Body. Knowledge of self as criminal. Live. Willing.
Cons: scarily intelligent, asks too many awkward questions, CLEAN LIVING (underlined)
The equation didn't really add up.
Beautiful. A good fighter. Seriously smart.
Her tutors had still used her as a shining example in Seifer's lessons,
three years later. Of course, it hadn't been helped by the fact that she
was one of his tutors, by then. Quistis Trepe, super brain. Of course,
they were probably using Seifer, as an example, now. More of a
cautionary tale, really. He seemed to recall that he'd told Leonhart
he wanted to be remembered once.
Be careful of what you wish for-you might just get it.
Right now, if he was really honest, he wanted Quistis., and had done
for a while, if he admitted it to himself. Oh, sure, there had been the
usual predictable teenage crushes but pretty soon, he'd figured, she'd
get around to him and he could have fun turning her down. The only
thing was, she didn't. With anyone.
It had been annoying and frustrating and damn unnatural.
And then he'd had it.
Now he hadn't.
Simple as that. But then all of Seifer's mistakes had, at one time, or
another, seemed simple.
He realised that he needed another drink, and suited the action to the
thought, feeling vague surprise that the bottle was already half empty.
Or half full. There was some kind of crappy fortune cookie personality test associated with that but he couldn't remember for the life of him what it was.
Heh, The one thing he couldn't remember.
And he wasn't feeling anywhere near drunk enough to forget yet.
Either this was some half-assed bottle of whisky, or he was in the
"it hasn't hit, has it?" stage of drunkenness still. Depressed and angry,
well, those things went for granted, but he still didn't feel really wrecked.
This was dangerous, Seifer knew from experience, He started to
think more, but then he couldn't think properly. Nothing felt quite
as bad as being drunk and sorry for yourself. It was bad enough just
being one., and Seifer definitely preferred the first.
It used to be some much easier back in Garden. He'd just slope off to
the training centre and hack up whatever was there into small pieces
until he felt better.
And after that, he'd been told pretty much what to think.
And he hated that, hated remembering that which was pretty well why…why everything, if you really thought about it.
But now he still wasn't drunk or brainwashed or committing random
acts of violence on small furry creatures with big eyes, and the barriers
were crumbling between what was now and what had been then.
Despite the knowledge that bits kept getting mixed up, that maybe
he was just remembering remembering and it wasn't all he had
thought it had been, the bottom line was: things has still happened
that shouldn't.
He'd never slept easy before the wars, and after them he just hadn't
slept.
Vaguely Seifer wondered if the reason he got such bad dreams the
nights he slept and didn't drink was because he avoided the topic
so much of the time. But there were some things no one needed to
think about, even him.
Especially not him.
He rested his head on his hands.
Getting drunk here really wasn't the answer to his problems.
He should have gone after Quistis, apologised, bitten his tongue
a couple of times and he could be in bed, with her, right now.
Making up by making out.
In bed with Quistis.
How the hell had that happened?
Why had he fucked it up?
Did he have some kind of subconscious masochism that
hijacked relationships with women just as he reached the
serious let's-talk-about-your-feelings stage? Or even the
talking stage?
Why wasn't he good enough for her?
The thought was an unfamiliar one for Seifer. Despite evidence,
he rarely felt like he was better than everyone else. He knew
he was better than everyone else. On the planet.
It was a pity that the rest of the planet seemed to want him
dead, and he'd just pretty much alienated the one person who
didn't.
He sank another glass. Mistakes as stupid as he'd made deserved
a toast. The drink wasn't going to solve anything, especially
not being poor, but it might give him more immediate problems
for a while.
But one thought still kept creeping in, slithering under the doors
of his mind, as always. It was the kind of thought you couldn't
escape from, the kind of thought that alcohol attracted like a
moth to a lightbulb. Quistis was one thing. This was another.
Why?
Why life?
Why now?
Why me?
Why anything?
But, ultimately, ultimecia-ly, hehe, why Edea?
Seifer had so far managed to imagine several million answers
in the two years since the wars, the offspring of half a hundred late
night drunks like this one. There were so many answers, ranging
from the wussy 'I don't remember', to the whiny She Made Me Do
It, which he rejected out of hand, because if the only thing you
had was a bad reputation you might as well use it.
I don't know.
Because shit happens, get over it.
In a way he was afraid, he guessed, afraid that all he could think
about, after the fall, was 'Man, that was some fucking view.'
Afraid that he'd do it again, afraid that someone would find out
he was afraid. Afraid that someone might get close enough to
maybe tell.
Congratulations. I don't think she'll bother now.
As if I wanted her to anyway.
Bitch.
There was about one inch of whisky still left in the bottle when
someone tapped him on the shoulder.
It was a woman. More precisely, it was the woman he'd seen
over the bar earlier, returned back from the bathroom.
She heaved a theatrical sigh that whistled round the empty glasses,
and the movement made her precariously balanced breasts threaten
to spill out onto the table. Seifer watched with drunk fascination,
half-wondering whether they would jump right out onto the table
and make a break for Silicon Valley. Maybe he should offer to put
them back in. That could not be comfortable.
His head hurt.
"Whatsa matter?" Her voice was husky from too much smoke and
alcohol.
Seifer wasn't in the mood. His black temper had solidified into
something that he could almost touch, a dark cloud that he
sucked in with each mouthful of cheap whisky.
And he'd rarely felt less like getting laid. "You. Piss off."
"Touchy, touchy." She slid onto the nearest free seat. "Mind if
I sit down?"
"Yes."
She pulled the chair closer and crossed her legs, exposing a good
inch of pale thigh between skirt and stockings. "My name's Jade.
What's yours?"
Seifer mentally inserted 'and these aren't real' into the conversation.
"Look, there's really no damn point being nice to me. I haven't got
any money. I don't want to sleep with you. Leave me alone."
"I never said anything about that." The girl ran a hand down her
leg, straightening her stockings.
"Like hell." Seifer poured another drink. He drank it.
"What rattled your cage?" Jade, if that was really her name, which
Seifer doubted, moved closer. Her breasts brushed his arm and
Seifer, irritated, slammed the glass down.
"What the fuck do you want?"
"Funny you should say that."
"Great. A hooker. I told you, I'm broke."
The girl gave him a big smile and moved closer, sliding a hand
across the top of his glass. " I think you've had enough. You're
cute." Her speech, too, was slightly slurred, and her breath smelt
of limegreen liquor.
Seifer glared muzzily at her. "Piss off. I want my whisky."
Part of his mind told him she was right, because the bar was
beginning to fuzz slightly at the edges. A second part shouted
that what it really wanted was more drink. And another part,
slyly, noticed that the girl really wasn't all that unattractive,
beneath six layers of foundation and five of mascara. Or maybe
it was the beer glasses talking.
He narrowed his eyes and squinted harder.
Yup, definitely the beer glasses talking.
"Now that isn't the way to talk to a lady."
"I might be worried if you were one." Seifer went back to
drawing in the tabletop beer.
The girl giggled, not offended at all. "Nothing wrong with that.
More fun that way. Want to have some fun?"
"No." Look, I'm not here to have fun, I'm here to nastily drink
my way into an alcoholic stupor while reminiscing about my
past acts of minor genocide and my sort-of-ex sort-of-girlfriend,
so piss off.
"Aaaa, don't be like that." She snuggled closer, if possible, and
placed her hand on his arms. Seifer shook it off.
"Look, your paying customers……I mean, boyfriends must be
wondering where the hell you are. Why don't you go hassle them?"
"You're no fun." The girl pouted and hitched up her top. The
movement made her breasts jiggle interestingly. He remembered
Quistis saying something about that once, ages ago, something
like if you could see a line all the way around the breast they had
to be implants. He'd put it down to jealousy at the time, and done
more research.
"I'm smiling inside."
"I can't see you!" She giggled triumphantly and pointed one pink
glue-on-fingernail at him.
"What are you ON?"
Her nails brushed the back of his head.
Seifer shivered. "Get off."
He reached for the glass and she took her hand off his arm, only
to replace it, a moment later around his shoulders. It was like
being groped by an octopus.
That wasn't to say he didn't enjoy it, even a small bit. That she
really wasn't all that bad and her perfume really was kinda nice
and yes, she really was wearing stockings…
The girl, Jade, pressed up against him. She picked up the whisky
bottle and took a swig, her mouth twisting. "Shit, that stuff was
rough." She wiped her hand across her mouth.
Seifer bent forwards to wrest the bottle off her, because dammit,
it was his whisky.
Jade leant forwards to hitch her stockings up at the same time, his
chin hit her nose, not hard, and then her lips his mouth.
It was an awkward, clumsy, wrong kiss, tasting of smoke and
alcohol. It was like being kissed by a washing machine. It was like
getting off with someone you really didn't like, or even care
about, just because they were there and you were drunk and
shit happened.
The best thing that could be said about it was that it was thorough.
Seifer broke it off, swore, washed his mouth out with the last shot
of whisky and pushed the girl away. He stood up, simultaneously
pushing the table away and moving away from Jade. Half of his
brain was frantically trying to decide what to do next, and the
other half reeling in amazement that he'd actually managed to get up.
One thing seemed very clear. He didn't want this. He didn't
need this, and he was damned if he was going to wake next to
someone he didn't know and then be willing to chew his own
arm off to get the fuck out.
There was a cigarette machine by the door to give him the excuse
he needed, and a handful of change from the twenty to use in it.
Jade was sprawled across his table and the remaining two chairs,
looking drunker than was sensible. Her eyes were half-closed,
her hair straggling into the spilt beer while her mascara trailed
twin greasy slicks down her cheeks. She didn't notice when he
left, retreating as quietly as he could manage across the bar's
squeaking lino floor. The whole bar seemed to have a cigarette
smouldering in ashtrays in front of them or held loosely between
two fingers, and the smell of the nicotine was making Seifer jumpy.
He wound up by the bar vending machine, feeding blurry coins
with suddenly clumsy hands and pressing random buttons until a
small white packet rattled into the basket. A quick enquiry at the
bar produced a lighter and used up the remainder of his money
and a few steps across the floor took him out into the rain.
He stood under the shelter of the bar door for a while, staring at the
weather. Water flooded gutters and melted the town's ever present
underfoot dust into a thin layer of fine mud that glistened in the
lights. The packet of smokes he'd bought from the vending
machine turned out to be Carcinoma Angels instead of his favourite
Lucky Strikes, which darkened Seifer's mood further. Still, he
lit one anyway and moved out from under the shelter of the
bar. The rain prickled coldly against his skin, more mist now
than anything else. It was a pity, because he was in the mood
for a really big typhoon. The kind with weather warnings.
If I'm damn miserable, everyone else might as well have it
bad too.
Bastards.
He was about half way home, keeping to the relative shelter
of overhanging awnings and other people's doorways, when
he heard voices behind him. He wasn't sure what time it was.
Late, anyway. The cigarette, his second, was about halfway
burned down.
The voice sounded both mocking and familiar.
"Down and out again, Matthews?"
Seifer was about to retort 'Who the fuck is Matthew?' before
it dawned on him that it would be extremely unwise.
He recognised the shape coming toward him, anyway. There
couldn't be too many people in Hana that looked like a
weather balloon in full sail.
Lou.
Seifer had second thoughts. It's a pity I didn't tell you my
real name, because then I'd have to kill you. In Marduk,
I charged five hundred gil for that, but I'll take out you for
free.
He ignored the older man, leaning back against the wall and
cupping the cigarette in his hands to protect it from the rain.
The movement turned him away from Lou and gave him a
precious extra fix of nicotine before his smoke at last
succumbed to the weather.
"Whatsa matter? Your girl dump you?"
Have I got a fucking sign on my forehead?
Seifer flicked his smouldering cigarette into the gutter with
irritation. He watched it float down to the nearest drain
where it disappeared, still smoking, from sight.
"At least I have one."
He turned, masking a stagger with the ease of habit, self-
preservation and long practice. A couple of seconds later he
leaned one arm against the wall to stop the street spinning.
As soon as he could focus Seifer got his second nasty surprise
of the night.
Lou wasn't alone.
Seifer stifled a swearword.
Lou stood about a foot away, rain running off him like the
dumpster a few feet away in the alley. The streetlights shone
off his bald head and neatly outlined the silhouettes of three
other men standing right behind. The nearest was just as big
as Lou, thickset and pretty much bald. They all stared at
each other for a second.
Like the protagonist in some old movie, Seifer began to have
a bad feeling about this.
Lou smirked, as far as Seifer could see in the rain. His body
language was relaxed, though trying to read intention off
Lou was like trying to analyse the Michelin Man.
"Kid got dumped. Too fucking bad."
Kid.
I knew not actually stabbing him on the boat was a mistake.
I didn't even look like a kid when I was one.
He scowled at Lou. "At least I don't have to pay for it."
Lou didn't look quite so happy. "There's lots of women
who'd want to get a piece of this." He patted his stomach,
which rippled rather like a blancmange.
"Only during food shortages."
"Screw you."
Witty.
The sensible thing would have been to turn and walk away,
but then Seifer had never even pretended to be sensible.
The drink did nothing to help matters.
"One tip, the Trabia Hospital For The Blind's only a couple
of miles away. Maybe you should try that."
Lou growled. He looked Seifer up and down, critically, in a
way that vaguely reminded Seifer of Quistis, Of course, after
the events of the previous evening, pretty much everything was
beginning to remind him of Quistis. The girl at the bar. The
whisky logo. The rain. Everything.
"Finding it hard to get a job, since Mike fired your ass.?" His
voice was taunting.
"I'll never have enough to pay someone to date you."
It would have been funny if he hadn't been so drunk. Bloody
typical.
"He thinks he's funny."
"You think you're funny, kid?"
Kid.
I've earned the right to be tried as an adult, the least they could
do is let off with the kid thing.
Seifer leant back against the brick wall, pretending an outer ease
he certainly didn't feel, and said "What the fuck do you want?"
Lou said "We don't want anything. It's just a happy coincidence
that we all seem to be on a night out."
"Fine with me." Seifer slid off the wall and balanced a palm
against the bricks, turning his back on Lou.
This put his eyes on about the level of the nearest man's chin.
"Going somewhere?"
"I would be if you'd just get the hell out of my way."
"We just want a friendly chat."
"Tough." Seifer concentrated on speaking coherently. He
wandered to the side at the same time, reaching for his lighter
in the pocket of his jeans. The half-hearted effort at escaping was
blocked by one of Lou's seemingly interchangeable friends/
minions/paid thugs who moved to the left, cutting off his exit
route. Their expressions were slightly warier than Lou's, maybe
picking up something in his attitude that the fisherman hadn't
bothered to notice.
They still didn't hesitate to block his way. Just another dead-
drunk kid with no mates.
He snarled. "Back. The hell. Off."
Seifer could see what was coming. And right now his train of
thought was heading to Sudden Imminent Violence with stops
at platforms Steal All Your Money and Run.
He glanced round.
He still didn't know where the fuck he was, apart from a vague
feeling that he'd been heading through the town centre in the
direction of home. There was a pub open across the street and
from the lights and music coming from the windows it looked
as if a lock-in was in progress. A couple of pale blurs of faces
peered through the window, but the street was dark and it was
unlikely that anyone who cared was going to see unless he
crashed through the plate glass window.
Seifer hadn't expected anyone to. What went around came around,
and he'd sure as hell watched a lot of brawls in Marduk
without lifting a finger to intervene. An eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, and give as good as you get until the cops
arrive.
They weren't going to do anything, except maybe take bets.
And right now, he wouldn't have taken odds of a hundred to
one that he'd win. The men were big. All four of them, and
Seifer was uncomfortably aware that he was drunk. Not really
knocked-down-drug-out-can't-remember-what-day-of-the-
week-it-was-drunk, but drunk enough for the men to notice
and for professional fat-bastard Lou to think him an easy target.
Drunk enough to slow his usually excellent reflexes and blur
the edges of sight and speech.
Drunk enough to die….
When outnumbered, drunk and unarmed, what was the sensible
thing to do? Well, first, never get into a situation like it, and two,
tactical retreat.
So much for Quistis's 'normal people don't carry weapons, Seifer'
spiel. He'd left both his knives at home, and right now they
would have been really useful, if more of a deterrent than a
real threat. He didn't intend to get pulled in by the cops for
anything so small.
She's so going to get it in the morning.
There isn't going to be a morning, at least not with her.
That's why you're like this.
Since when was it so hard to concentrate?
His last remaining brain cell snarled 'since you just drank an
entire bottle of whisky, dumbass', and then gave up the ghost.
I'm so screwed..
The thought cut through his alcohol-furred brain with sobering
force. Lou, as an obstacle, measured exactly zero on Seifer's
Threatening Scale, but three other guys his size rated considerably
higher and the alcohol made up the remainder of the equation.
The sensible part of his brain was telling him to run. The drink
was telling him to fight.
Okay…..
Rain prickled coldly on his skin, starting a chill that seemed to
sweep right up to the roots of his hair and left him feeling not
quite sober.
When outnumbered and outgunned, the sole advantage left was
the element of surprise. Start with a fight you can win.
His gaze flickered over faces. The obvious weak link was Lou,
whose shit-eating grin was making Seifer's fists itch. He looked
like he was enjoying the sport, obviously expecting Seifer to
shout, apologise or show some kind of fear. Some luck.
Sorry. I don't work that way.
"Scared, kid? You should be."
"Not so tough now, are we?"
Tough no, Drunk, yes.
Seifer's hand found the lighter in his pocket.
He had long ago reached the stage when he could fight in his
sleep and although two-thirds of a bottle of whisky was some
serious drawback, it wasn't quite disabling enough to knock
out reflexes he had been learning since he was ten years old.
Plus, it had been fucking shite whisky. He'd really been ripped
off.
So he grinned in response, very slowly, locked eyes with the
biggest guy, and then took two fast steps sideways and was on
Lou before the fisherman had realised just what was happening.
The lighter drew Lou's attention, fear making his eyes go wide
and white in the glow before flailing hands knocked it from his
fist.
It skittered away on the concrete.
Lou's eyes followed it for just a fraction of a second before
switching back to a more immediate threat. By then, of course,
it was too late. It didn't matter that Seifer was mostly drunk, all
he had to do was fall forwards, twisting and bringing one knee
up to knee the other man in the groin. At the same time as the
fisherman folded, he brought his head forwards, grazing his
forehead on Lou's teeth just before the top of his skull smacked
into the fisherman's nose more by happy accident than by design.
Lou crumpled.
One down.
This state of affairs lasted all of three seconds before someone
else grabbed him by the hair. Seifer snapped his head back into
someone else's shoulder with a flash of bright pain and a hissed
curse that didn't do anything for his headache.
Everything was happening very fast. He couldn't see and there
was rain on his face. Someone at his back was trying to pull him
away from Lou, who had both hands clasped to his face in an
effort to stop the flow of blood coming from his nose. Seifer
ignored them, grabbed Lou with one hand and hit him in the
solar plexus with the other. As a target the man had one distinct
advantage: he was very hard to miss.
As Lou collapsed down into a curled ball of misery into a puddle
Seifer turned round to engage the man behind him.
With his usual luck, it turned out to be the largest of the three thugs.
The blow that he'd aimed at an unknown assailant's chin sank wrist
-deep into the larger man's belly. In the faint streetlight glow, it left
a smear of blood on his muscle shirt.
The large man gave an incoherent growl and lurched forwards. His
swings were powerful, but disorganised, easily avoided and just
as well. Seifer ducked and came up grinning, nerves strung higher
than piano wire. The other men had backed off to give the first
room and Lou was making bubbling noises on the floor behind
him that warmed his heart.
It felt like dancing on the razor's edge, like for just a moment,
he was at the centre of his own universe again. Even better, just
for a few seconds, it felt right.
Yeah, that's right, you bastards, you picked the wrong fucking
guy…
Instead, the inevitable happened. The alcohol finally caught up
with his head at the same time as the first of the big guy's
punches landed.
There was a blurred freezeframe of tilted images, rain and puddles,
people shouting. Within the space of a second he was down on the
floor with his T shirt soaked with rain, a slight concussion and his
right shoulder hurting like a bitch right where some fucker had just
slammed into it. The world spun crazily.
Seifer went for his assailant's hamstrings and missed. Someone
else scraped him off with his boot and kicked him in the stomach
and head. It hurt in a vague drunk cushioned kind of way that
seemed detached from his body.
He threw up on someone's feet, messily, mouth tasting of nicotine,
whisky and faintly of lime liquor.
When he could see again, the view was mainly legs that hazed in
and out of his vision, changing in number. He wasn't sure who
they were, and had mostly given up caring. Whoever they were,
it was lucky they weren't professionals, or he'd have been dead long ago.
It's not SeeD. They would have done it properly.
Thank Hyne for small mercies.
Seifer threw one arm out and jerked himself up onto one elbow.
He picked out the one man that wasn't paying attention to the
game of beat-the-mercenary with exaggerated care and kicked
him hard in the back of the knees more by luck than judgement.
The man fell with a surprised shout, knees impacting hard
on the concrete. As he landed he pushed the other two men
away, leaving a gap in their tightly bunched crowd and a pause
in the beating. Seifer grabbed his legs, yanked the guy towards
him, and then knotted hands in his hair and smashed his face
against the concrete. Nose-deep in the gutter, the man gasped
for air and gurgled for help that couldn't come fast enough in
the form of a boot in the ribs and a kick to the face as they
dragged him off the fallen one.
Seifer was pleased to see that he wasn't getting up any time
soon.
Curled up into a ball on the concrete next to Lou, his assailant's
breathing was rasping and fast like a wounded animal, his face
a bloody mess.
It was one of the first things that they taught in Garden. If you
were really in trouble, outnumbered, outgunned and out of luck
then maximum damage was sometimes the only way to make
people sit up and pay attention. The ones who weren't in pieces
on the floor, anyway. There were a dozen other techniques, but
you mostly had to be both standing and sober to employ them.
Someone swore above his head. "Bastard."
It turned out to be the prelude to more kicks. You couldn't really
fight back if you couldn't get up and every blow made it more
difficult to stand in a world suddenly gone haywire. To Seifer, the
knowledge that he probably wasn't going to make it wasn't as
sobering as it ought to have been. He caught a glimpse of faces
peered round the door of the bar, eyes wide and hungry. Ghouls.
But it wasn't like he hadn't done the same thing, sat with a nice
cool beer as some poor sod got the shit kicked out of him for an
insult over nothing.
Couldn't really blame them
Who was he kidding? He could blame everyone except himself.
Lou, Quistis, the bystanders, but it all came back to the same thing.
He should never have got this drunk in the first place. Or, at the
very least, he should have done it at home.
He couldn't see, couldn't read the sign over the bar or the letters
on the men's T shirts and it had less to do with the dark than with
the concussion.
Dammit.
Someone grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him upright, a wall
rough and cool at his back.
There were shouts from the bar, among the blur of faces and pink
haze. Frantic arm gestures in a universal semaphore of distress.
Someone shoved him hard, and his hands skidded against the wall,
though he managed to stay on his feet, snarling.
The roar of engines, and then cool blessed silence.
Damn.
He'd be pissing blood for weeks.
Seifer wiped his eyes and opened them carefully. The alley was
empty except for him, the rain and the emphatically closed bar
door. The rain drummed on the street washing away Lou's blood
and setting up a sympathetic pulsing headache in Seifer's skull.
The silence was interrupted by a rainslick screech of tyres that
made him wince and glance up just in time to see the first of the
police cars slid round the corner.
Cops.
Time to leave.
Seifer didn't wait to see whether it was the fight or the lock-in
that they were interested in. He lurched round the corner and
then managed to work up a kind of half-assed jog across a
deserted intersection and into the safe dark coolness of an
alley mouth before he halted in the shadow of a doorway, breathing
hard. The rain made little spots of coldness on his skin, hazing
lamps in a glowing halo, or maybe that was just the alcohol, still.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder and Seifer spun with an
angry snarl, staggering back against the wall as the movement
threatened to centrifuge his brain out through his earholes. He
relaxed slightly as the figure (or figures) wavering in the hot amber
glow of the streetlights appeared to be nothing more than an old
bag lady. Her face was covered by a floppy dishevelled hat and
she seemed to be holding more carrier bags than any human
should easily be able to manage.
"My patch. Fuck off. Kids today..you can't just .."
The voice tailed off with a surprised gasp as she noticed Seifer's
battered face, flung one grubby hand out in protection or fear
and then turned tail and ran, scuttling off down the street with
shopping bags bobbing madly round her ankles.
Must look bad. I'm scaring the bag ladies
In the darkness, the woman's footsteps died away quietly. A
dog barked, far off, a snatch of music drifted from an upstairs
window, dimmed by the cool drizzling mist that followed the
rain. It looked like cotton wool filling the streets, a white tide
as if someone had poured a bottle of washing up liquid or thirty
into the sea and then there had been a real serious flood. Almost
like a live animal.
Seifer turned round a few times, randomly, trying to orient himself.
The alleys all looked the same in the growing fog.
Main street, thataway,,hell, notsuchagoodidea to go there, anyway
it's in the wrong direction. Bar, behind, not there, either, fuck.
Only one way to go, and that was forward. Home.
His head hurt, and the turning had had an entirely predictable
effect on his stomach.
He staggered over to the nearest wall, in the shadow and out
of the rain, and threw up down the wall, violently.
Fuck.
Back against the wall, he slumped, eyes closed and head down
and waiting for the sickness to stop. He couldn't think.
The whisky worked, then.
Shut up.
The clouds seemed to swirl darkly overhead, slowly disappearing
as the misty rain loaded the air with water droplets and sent the
streets vanishing into the fog.. Seifer turned, resting his back to the
wall, and leant his head back, trying to steady some of the spinning
Rain overflowing from the gutter over his head dripped down his
face, warm on his throat to soak his collar and T-shirt. It felt good.
Blood heat.
He closed his eyes. Bright clouds floated across behind his eyelids.
He vaguely remembered doing the same as a kid, sitting up not
sleeping all night and staring into the corners of his room,
listening to the quiet breathing of the other kids while dark
colours beyond black ran swelling in the shadows, eyes searching
so hard in the blackness for something to fix on that he started
seeing things that weren't there.
The scary thing was, when he closed his eyes he could still see
them too. Scary, but not as scary as some of the things he'd see
if he went to sleep.
Some of the things he could still see.
Seifer opened his eyes.
The rain was making the quiet streets almost unbearably muggy,
almost tropical. It was like being stuffed fully clothed into a wet
sock and just about as hard to breathe.
Despite it all, Seifer wished he still had his coat. He'd woken up
from half a hundred late night drunks wrapped in that, the lining
patched and missing in places, smelling comfortably of cigarettes.
About as much home as he'd had for a while, and even that was
gone. After he'd gone to unearth his stuff from the hole he'd dug
for it in the Trabian hills, his coat lining had been soaked and
worm-eaten when he'd unwrapped it from the plastic bag. He'd
cursed and pushed it back and hoped no one would think he was
burying a body. Hyperion had been all right. The worms couldn't
eat metal. He wished he still had his coat.
He wished he still had a brain.
With an effort he raised his arm up to his face and awkwardly
pawed back his damp shirt cuff back to glance at his watch.
2.05 am.
The numbers fogged as he watched and the time seemed to have
passed extremely fast. He supposed he should be getting home,
but the caps on his boots seemed to have rusted to the ground in
the rain. Mist swirled round his ankles when he glanced wearily
down the street, as if he was standing in a foamy sea.
It was quite a pleasant thought, just to walk into the sea and not
come up again. But life didn't work like that. Seifer imagined it,
water swilling over his legs, flowing in to fill the spaces he had
been. Nothing to ever show he'd been there.
Why couldn't history work like that? Why couldn't his memory
work like that?
Why?
I don't know.
It seemed like he didn't know a lot of things lately.
clink
A sound, muffled in the fog.
Seifer swung round, swore and meant it. The fog smelled of the sea,
salt and brine like blood on his mouth when he licked his lips
nervously. Or maybe it was blood.
clink.
He swung the other way, searching the dark fog until his vision
blurred again. The noise seemed to be coming from every direction.
"Who's there?"
Only victims said things like that. He'd heard enough in his time,
and grinned with shut mouth and grim amusement in the dark.
Sometimes he'd throw a stone, send it rolling into the shadows so
that the target whirled, leaving the back of their neck temptingly
vulnerable for an armlock followed by a swift knifestrike up and
into the armpit, straight to the heart.
His voice sounded slurred, even to his ears. The bitter aftertaste
of the vomit left in his throat made him cough wetly. Seifer did
not believe in karma, but at times like this he sometimes worried
that karma might believe in him.
"Who's there, fuck it?"
The noise echoed down the alley bouncing off the rainslick brick,
and was swallowed up by the mist.
The sound repeated.
clink
This was crazy. He was crazy.
No, you're drunk.
Same thing.
There was an eddying in the fog to his left. Seifer tensed. His
senses were straining, but the whole world seemed to have had
a blanket laid over it, hard to see, hard to hear. It was also
swaying gently, but he didn't think that was the fog.
He narrowed his eyes.
(who are you trying to fool?)
The noises seemed to have stopped and he weighed up the pros
and cons of calling louder. In his current state, he didn't think
it was a good idea to say' hey, I'm still standing, want to have
another go?'
As he stood motionless, another wave of nausea broke over him.
Shit.
After he'd finished throwing up for the second time he glanced
up to find something oval and black making his way along the
alley floor to him.
A cat.
Seifer sighed and slouched back against the wall, retching. You'd
think his body would have been used to having poison poured
into it on a regular basis, but no. He hadn't thrown up from
drinking in ages, but maybe it had to do with too many punches
in the stomach. He ached all over.
The cat pushed through the fog like a small submarine, serene
and unstoppable. The mist didn't seem to bother it at all. Water
glistened on its fur. It gave a questioning purr and settled down
against his leg, calmly raised a paw and began to wash itself. Its
body slowly warmed his damp trouser leg. It didn't seem to mind the smell.
Mrrow?
"Fucking cat. Sod off."
The cat, not surprisingly, didn't reply. Instead it lifted one leg
daintily and started to wash its arse with a singleminded enthusiasm.
One paw stuck up out of the mist, rather like a very small feline
Marie Celeste. The pose reminded Seifer of some of Quistis' more
demanding yoga routines.
"Go home."
The cat ignored him. It simply stared up at him in the smug way of
a cat who wasn't bothered about much except who the next meal
was coming from.
Its body language implied 'how about taking your own advice?'
Seifer groaned
Yeah, great, I'm tired and drunk and I'm talking to a cat…
But at least it's not talking back. Then I'd worry.
The cat sauntered off down the street. Seifer, with nothing better to
do, followed it.
He checked his watch but the numerals danced and blurred in front
of his face so after a while he gave up. It was late, was all he knew.
Too late.
He was tired, or at least more tired than usual.
The cat's tail waved in the fog as he made his way home, streets
dank and wet and drippingly quiet around his echoing footsteps.
Some time later, he got there.
This chapter is partly inspired by the realisation that Seifer spends
all of the game and two of my fics under the legal age for drinking in
America. I was pleased with it, but I'm not sure it works now. Oh well.
Onto the next.
Refs: the bar is heavily inspired by The Keyhole in Mackinac, Michigan.
100 reviews! Thanks everyone who contributed! I started out writing
Government Bloodhounds by promising that if I didn't get a hundred
reviews, then I wouldn't write any more fanfic. GB had its centenary at
about chapter twelve, so this has got to be good. I'm toying with the
idea of making it into a trilogy, if I have time, but I think that South
Down The Coast should run to around twenty chapters at least. This
may be a good thing. First reviewer to give me 200 reviews gets free
ficbit of their choice.
And everyone should go read Dust Traveller's Slayer's fic Shards
Of Chaos, that updated recently. It's on my favourites, right at the top.
Reviews:
Amber Tinted ( you can have sex with someone you hate, but you
can't be in love, if that makes sense.)
ArashiKisu1 (think I got your name right…I still think I write Seifer
too nice, too sarky and not enough of a bully, but if he tried any of
that shit with Quistis she'd break his legs, so it's probably just as well)
Ayanamiyuy (Everyone loves Seifer. I don't know why. He's really
a bastard. Kind of a mix of Spider Jerusalem, Cassandra Claire's Draco and Hellblazer's John Constantine.)
breaker-one( 100th reviewer! WOW! Sorry, no cookie, though.
Maybe 200. Have virtual popcorn though. I really appreciate it.)
Dalpal (hey there d00d and welcome back. Thanks for all the
reviews, I'm glad to see that you're still liking it. Keep writing
yourself. )
DBZ Fanfiction Queen (Wait 'till the next chapter for when she
has to go get the key back. It's good.)
Dust Traveller (the best Seifer who ever seifed..well, I KNOW
you don't read much ff8 fic, but thanks. A lot. Any chance of
more SOC?)
Ghost140 (yeah, okay…So love is strongly implied, but if loving
is that kind of caring-mutual-respect thing then they had that
already even if neither of them would admit to it under torture. I
love serial arguments, btw)
Mana Angel (as my sister said, a proper relationship starts after your
first big fight. It will be fun when they meet the rest and have to
explain why a/Seifer's still alive and b/what the hell Quistis is
doing with him, but it isn't going to happen for a while. I imagine
the conversation to go something like this: -"So, you've been
sleeping with Seifer Almasy?" "..Well, sleeping was probably the
least interesting part, but yeah…"and everyone else sweatdrops.)
nynaeve77 (Ah, come on. They're both quite volatile people and
they don't back down. Plus, they both have issues. I don't have
(thank God) that kind of huge argument break-up-make-up
relationship, but I know people who do. In retrospect, I should
have split chapter seven and padded it out a bit, but I had a map
of where everything's going to go up to chapter twelve, and I
thought that it'd all fit in. The stuff that I was going to have
happen happened in the same way, but it took a bit longer,
if you get me. )
Quistis88 ( Yeah. It had to be somewhere. It wouldn't be them
if they didn't fight.)
Ripley (Quistis' shoes are sensible, probably flat but elegant
in a kind of understated way. She won't tell me where she
bought them. Seifer's shoes are black steel toecapped boots,
peeling at the end. And they smell. I leave it up to you to
pick which pair of shoes you should most like to be in.)
seatbelts (Ta. Your predictive powers amaze me, though
Seifer isn't the breakdown type. He breaks other people,
they don't break him. And of course, he never admits anything.)
superviolinist ( Thanks. I'm flattered.)
Technoelfie (Oh.GOD. Thanks for the sex=fighting=
Seifer/Squall point…I've read some S/S, but as Fuujin
would say, SEIFER, HETEROSEXUAL, dammit.),
VegaKeep (which illustration do you like? Are they all showing?
There should be a little chapter pic and a minicomic.)
Kate( ..is brought to you tonight by force…)