Chapter Fourteen: This Thing You Call Love
And you're down to your last cigarette
And this 'we are one crap' as you're invading
This thing you call love
She smiles way too much
But I'm glad you're on my side, sure
I'm glad you're on my side still.
Tori Amos-Taxi Ride
Warning: more slash ahead. As normal, it's rated heavily PG-13. I try not to traumatise and view sex as a fairly important part of a relationship between two consenting adults. However, everyone knows where the back button is. If you don't like the idea of two completely fictional people making love, I suggest you use it.
This public service announcement was brought to you by xahra99.
Enjoy : )
"Feeling better?"
Quistis's headache was finally vanishing, thanks to Seifer's aspirin. There was a tense knot at the base of her skull where she guessed Bahamut had finally taken up residence and a fatalistic feeling of anticipation in her gut, but it no longer felt like somebody was dancing in the space between her temples. The other GFs were no trouble. Shiva had settled into her normal place somewhere under Quistis's skin and Siren, for once, was silent.
"Want to get going on that trip?" Seifer dragged his bag towards him and rummaged in one of the side pockets, lifting out a lighter and a fresh packet of cigarettes.
Quistis heard the crackle of cellophane as he unwrapped the carton in the gathering dusk. She chewed a fingernail and made a mental note to find some particularly horrible anti-smoking leaflets to leave in his pockets.
"In a minute. There's something I need to tell you first."
As soon as the words left her lips, Quistis wished she'd never said them. As an opening sentence to watch out for, the one she'd just spoken rated on a par with "I don't want to be nasty, but…"
She held her breath for a second and then exhaled softly as Seifer ignored her comment.
Some times there was a bright side to dating a man with a les-than subtle personality
He merely leant back on his elbows in the sand and said "So what is it?" in a bored tone of voice. Some time in the last few minutes he'd managed to light a cigarette and the glowing embers at its tip burned like a small supernova against the glittering evening sky. "Let me guess…you're pregnant…"
"No!"
"…and it's Squall's?"
"That's not funny." Quistis replied in a thoroughly disapproving tone of voice. She sat down beside Seifer and rubbed gently at the back of her neck, where the fair skin had been badly sunburned during her time on the roof.
Around her the wind rattled in dead dune grass, sweeping away the marks of their fight like an expensive vacuum cleaner.
Seifer grinned, glanced away down the empty grey beach, and took the cigarette out of his mouth. "Anyway, I doubt Leonhart's got enough testosterone to actually…."
There was a short pause as Quistis picked up her rucksack and hit Seifer with it, though it came too late to abbreviate several suggestive hand gestures.
When her wrists started to ache she let the bag drop to the floor, where the impact raised up sand and made her cough. Ignoring his quiet laughter, she suggested in a deceptively kind voice, "At least he isn't on a hormone-crazed male power trip."
Seifer shrugged and gave a lopsided smirk. "Yeah. I feel sorry for you. Those damn hormones."
"You do?" This was a new one. "What have I got to do with this?" She was slightly puzzled, though this didn't stop her from thinking that most of Seifer's more unfortunate attitude problems could be easily solved by castration.
"It must be a real bitch having PMS twenty-four seve…"
Seconds later, Quistis discovered that the light from Seifer's cigarette made a perfect target in the evening light. When she looked up from dealing out her righteous wrath, it was nearly full dark. The last rays of the sun painted the sky an unearthly shade of red that resembled a nosebleed.
There was no one else up amongst the dunes and only a few people left on the beach, visible only as darker shadows silhouetted against the greying sand. Quistis licked her lips nervously, tasting salt, and wondered what on earth she was going to say. She couldn't seem to settle down. The beach was gritty, the grasses prickled against her skin, aggravating her sunburn and Seifer, sprawled out on the warm sand beside her, looked entirely too comfortable. She ran through phrases in her head until her internal monologue was forcibly derailed by a lazy comment.
"What the hell is it?"
She looked round, guiltily. Seifer was only visible as a shadow amongst pale grey dunes, but she could smell the smoke from his cigarette clearly. Like its owner, it had somehow survived her retribution.
"What?"
"Thought it might be some kind of mental problem. I can hear you whispering to yourself, but nothing's coming out."
"I am?"
"Uh huh. And you're rocking backwards and forwards, too. So just what the hell is it? Ever since Selphie and Rinoa came you've been jumpier than a virgin on prom night…and it isn't just 'cause of me. Though I'd like to think so."
Quistis looked along the dunes to the city lights, trying to think of an acceptable way to phrase her news. The calm surroundings conspired to create a false feeling of peace that did nothing for her mental turmoil.
To think that people come to the beach to relax…
Seifer exhaled in a cloud of pale smoke. "I'm dying of excitement here."
Quistis snapped "Try harder, then."
There was a short silence, in which she decided impulsively to jump straight in without testing the conversational waters. "Look. They want me to go on a mission but I'm coming right back." She paused to let the implications of her words sink in and assess Seifer's possible response.
He sighed and stubbed his cigarette out in the sand, only half-smoked. "Fucking great."
There was an undercurrent of some emotion beneath the sentence, words sharply edged, though Quistis couldn't work out exactly which one of Seifer's limited palette of emotions was currently on display. Anger, possibly, disappointment, maybe, or even regret, which surprised her. Seifer never seemed to regret much openly, maybe because there just wasn't enough time in the day. Or the year, century or millennium, if it came to that.
There was a sudden silence. Quistis scratched at the back of her neck, peeling off shreds of skin. Seifer picked his cigarette up from the sand and glared at it like he was trying to ignite it with a stare.
"It's just a mission. I'll be back in a day or so."
"Like I care."
"Squall said I can finish my vacation afterwards."
"That's nice." His sarcasm would have made anyone with a thinner skin than Quistis wince.
"You knew this was going to happen."
"Mm." Seifer reached for the bag and drew out Hyperion. He took the weapon from its cases and examined it in the dark, though Quistis knew that he couldn't possibly see anything. Then again, if she had been a betting woman, she would have gambled that Seifer could strip and rebuild the gun by touch in less than two seconds. That was the great thing about her weapon of choice: a whip was extremely low on maintenance.
He flicked the chamber out with a click, tilted the handle to let the bullets fall into his palm and then reloaded and chambered the gunblade.
Quistis watched with mild apprehension while he ran a hand along the blade, millimetres away from the cutting edge, to brush off any grains of sand. She rested her other palm lightly on her chin, trying not to scratch, and squinted faintly in the dim light while Seifer sighted along Hyperion's barrel to the sea.
Maybe I should tie him to the bed to keep him out of trouble. I can untie him in two days time when I come back.
Maybe I should tie him to the bed anyway…down girl.
I don't think he'd like that, anyway. The on-top thing.
Quistis shook her head, waking Siren's sleepy song between her ears. Bondage fantasies tended to be slightly too far-fetched in a profession where the handcuffs might not always be fluffy.
Seifer, thankfully unaware of just what she was considering, planted the gunblade point-down in the sand, where it stuck like a flagpole.
"You brought me all the way out here just to tell me this?"
Quistis tried to ignore the music in her head and concentrate upon the matter at hand. "It's no big deal. I just have to find a draw point in that forest and I wanted some company."
"And that's the only reason you asked me to come? As backup?" His voice had taken on a dangerous edge.
Quistis tried hard to keep her own tone utterly businesslike and as matter-of-fact as possible. "Look. You know the group that attacked the Gardens? That's who I'm after. We're going to neutralise them."
"Terminally?"
Quistis noticed with relief that Seifer's voice had lost its edge, his permanent aggression focused on the rebels rather than on her. The growing tension between them had slightly disappeared. "My job's to make sure they don't do it again. By whatever means possible."
"How's this your job?"
"Because the prevailing attitude in the corridors of power is that the CLA should be sterilised with the strongest spell we have."
"Wind's blowing towards Galbadia." Seifer said, nastily.
One of Quistis's hands found a piece of stick in the dark. She ripped the bark off it with her nails absently and thought carefully before answering "Not all Galbadians are bad. Take Irvine for example."
"Okay, the last time I saw any of the motherfuckers they shot me in the leg, but I'm sure they're really damn nice people. Deep down, you know."
"The fact they were trying to kill you confirms their morality and high ideals." Quistis said.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Look, we need to do this mission. I need to do this mission. I need to make sure these people don't hurt Garden." She was playing on the threat connection like a harpsichord, banking on Seifer's mixed emotions when Balamb was concerned. On one hand, he'd tried to destroy it, but with the history went a certain amount of protectiveness.
That much was clear, at least.
As far as Quistis could tell in the heavy salt-scented darkness, her approach seemed to work. Seifer just looked thoughtful and asked "Going alone?
Quistis nodded. Her neck itched, her head hurt and her hands were sticky with sap but it looked as if her news wasn't going to be an unmitigated disaster after all.
Seifer kept his mouth shut for a few seconds, but his expression said it all. Congratulations. Leonhart's now passed the border from 'Asshole' to 'Certifiably Insane' without even stopping to get his passport stamped.
His hand reached for the moulded adamantine handle of Hyperion. "You'll need backup."
"I'll have to manage without any, since I'm not getting it"
Seifer carried on like she hadn't spoken a word. "I'm coming."
Quistis exploded. "That's supposed to be helpful? You must be completely insane to suggest it." The shadow of one late-evening dog walker turned its head and she hastily softened her voice.
Seifer shrugged "So? What's your point?"
"It's supposed to be diplomatic negotiations. Add in the fact that you're officially missing, presumed thankfully deceased, and we've got one hell of a disaster on our hands."
"You can't tell me not to come. I'm not a SeeD."
"Well, technically you still are a SeeD. I think you left before they had a chance to expel you from the entire school system."
"Well, technically, I'm dead. Nice to know we've got that problem sorted out."
"No. Way. If you are a SeeD, you have to play by our rules. Which you don't. On the other hand, if you're a civilian then you can't even carry weapons without being a criminal."
"I don't see you arresting me." Seifer pointed out. "What the fuck do you expect me to do?"
"Stay here. I can't take you with me."
"You mean you won't. And you won't have to. I'll come myself."
"Seifer, it's a matter of life or death. I have to go tomorrow."
"Mercenaries are such fucking prima donnas. You said it's just paperwork. That means they'll just find someone else."
"I can't…"
"Nobody's indispensable. Not even you. And if Selphie has time to turn up on your doorstep to go shopping, then why can't she do it?"
Quistis ignored his comment. "It's not paperwork. Just bureaucracy. It's not like I'm going to be in any actual physical danger-so nothing exiting or anything- and you'd just find it boring even if it was feasible for you to come." Sensing Seifer wavering, she pushed her point. "It's preliminary negotiations. That's all. It's almost as bad as teaching. And I'll be back after the mission."
"So we can talk about this shit again when you have to go back in two weeks time? No thanks."
"We've got to talk about it sometime."
"You could quit Garden."
"I can't. I'm sorry."
"Forget I even said it, okay? Just forget. Use those GFs or something. Hell, it was a bad idea anyway. I thought we were going to kill some monsters, not sit round there bitching all night."
"You don't have to."
"I need to kill something." Seifer yanked the gunblade out from the soft sand and stood up in one fluid motion, glancing at the wire mesh of the beach fence.
Quistis looked up at him, sighed and shrugged. "You're fine with coming, then"
Seifer grinned. "Fine. First thing tomorrow, then?"
This time her sigh was louder. "Coming to the draw point. I haven't changed my mind about the mission. You're okay with that?"
"I'm not great. Feel kind of used, in fact. But I'm not letting you wander off in there by yourself without some backup."
"You don't have to be all protective."
"You asked me."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"What the fuck do you need, anyway?"
Quistis said "Magic." and levered herself up from the beach, dusting her butt off as she stood up. She peeled on a pair of her shortest combat gloves, took Save The Queen out of her bag and looped it at her belt, adjusting her stance automatically to compensate for the familiar weight of the weapon on her hip. Woven from chains and tentacles, the whip packed enough force to break ribs with one stroke and enough accuracy to take out an eye if you had the skill to use it well. Quistis did.
Seifer frowned, as far as she could see in the dim light. "Magic? You junctioned?"
She kicked their bags into a pile in the lee side of the dune and half-buried them with sand. "Selphie gave me some GFs in the hotel. After the wardrobe incident." She scratched at her neck again and started walking over to the fence, feeling her shoes fill with sand again as soon as she moved
"They screw with your head."
"Oh? Thanks for enlightening me." Quistis's voice dripped with sarcasm as she reached the chain-linked barrier. She laced her fingers through the wire mesh, listening for sounds from the other side of the fence. "You never get something for nothing. There's always a price, and as long as I'm happy to pay it then it's no concern of yours. It's my business. "
Seifer leant against the fence, which gave slightly under his weight with a soft clink. "You know what I think."
"You don't exactly hide your opinions, no."
"I can manage without them." Seifer stubbed his cigarette out on the chains and let it fall to the floor. He slung Hyperion across his back and set one foot on the fence, testing it to make sure it held his weight. It creaked but held, and satisfied, he started to climb, moving like a foulmouthed shadow up the mesh.
Quistis muttered 'Well, I can cope without your opinions'. She took one last glance round the deserted beach to make sure the coast was clear and slotted both toes and one hand in the diamondshaped holes of wire. She climbed quickly and easily, with an economy of movement that got her to the top in three quick steps, swung over carefully, so as not to catch her jeans on the razor-sharp edges at the top, and then dropped to the ground.
Seifer waited impatiently for her on the other side. He'd already unsheathed Hyperion and was staring off into the dark, danksmelling undergrowth of the forest, listening alertly. The bushes were thick with the sounds of small nocturnal creatures. The warm air sang with insects. As Quistis's feet touched the floor there was a much louder roar from somewhere off to their left, deep into the wood, and all smaller noises fell silent, to resume cautiously a few seconds later.
"Sounds like a T-Rexaur"
"Let's hope it's not." Quistis consulted her map in the dark. "We're not going that way, anyway." She unhooked her whip from her belt, running over words of magic in her mind like she always did before any mission. Adrenaline crept beneath her skin and the quiet beach suddenly began to feel very safe as she viewed the map and listened to the night around them. "This path. It's not far."
Seifer glanced round doubtfully, squinted at the map and then set off into the undergrowth, walking in the wrong direction and wearing a purposeful expression. Quistis cursed, stuffed the map in her jeans pocket and hurried after him. "You do realise that this isn't the path we want?"
Seifer grabbed for the map, held it up to his nose and glared at it in the dark. Quistis didn't offer to lend a light. She pointed off among close-packed black trees, lifting her feet with faint disgust as something slithered across the toe of her polished trainers.
"This way."
"Women can't read maps."
"And men don't ask for directions." Quistis shaded her face, took one step forwards and caught a faint glimmer of light out of the corner of one eye. "I'm sure you knew exactly where you were all that time in Trabia, didn't you?" She continued on without waiting for an answer, ignoring a baleful glare from Seifer. "And you wonder why I don't want you to come to Velalisier."
"I thought it was because you'd get fired."
"Well, it is, but it's also because I happen to like you in one piece."
"Knew you liked me." There was a happy satisfied tone to his voice.
"One day you're going to look back on all this and realize I was right,"
Seifer ducked under a branch "No, one day I'm going to look back on all this and crash into a tree 'cause I was looking the wrong bloody way. And I'll still be having a better time than this."
"Well, it's your own fault."
"You asked me to come."
"You agreed." Quistis said loudly, and then drew a finger across her lips as she realised that any number of monsters were probably within shouting distance. She pointed with the same hand, keeping a tight hold on her whip with the other. "The draw point's that way."
"Joy." Seifer said flatly. "Let's get this over with, so you can go do whatever the fuck you want." He hacked aimlessly with his sword at an overhanging vine. "Damn these plants."
Quistis snapped "Don't be too enthusiastic, will you?" and cast her eyes to the heavens, dramatically. There was a flicker of movement in her peripheral vision and she swung round to fix sights on Seifer.
He was standing motionlessly, dark clothes blending into the shadows. With one hand resting on a tendril of the thick creeper he'd just been slashing at and the other holding the grip of his gunblade, he was staring off into the night in the direction of the draw point.
Quistis narrowed her eyes behind her wire-framed glasses and squinted hard at the vine. Even in the dim light there was something wrong about its anatomy. You really got some large tropical plants this far south, but she didn't think any of them bled. She moved one step closer, quietly.
No doubt about it, that thing definitely twitched…
There was a larger movement in the trees behind them both. Sensing the motion, Seifer half-turned, to face the greenery and released the creeper with his left hand. The vine dipped gracefully and moved like a fat snake in the shadows to catch at his wrist. Seifer nonchalantly raised the gunblade and started to hack away at its fibrous strands.
"Could do with some light here, Quistis.."
Quistis gestured with her free hand and said "Fira."softly. A grapefruit-sized ball of fire appeared between her spread fingers and levitated slowly up above her head. It was the latest technique from the Garden scientists: theoretically, at least, the energy channelling methods that the SeeDs used in battle could also be applied to more commonplace situations. Unfortunately it also required skill, control and days of practice, but that suited Quistis down to the ground.
She took a moment to admire the intricate spell and then swiftly moved to back Seifer up, shaking the whip from her belt. " I think that's an …"
"Ochu." He finished the sentence off for her.
"I thought so." Quistis pressed one hand to her head as Siren's song swelled and intensified. The shadows in the trees solidified into a recognisable squat green silhouette as the globe of light rose higher, finally halting about two metres from the ground, where it burned harmlessly with a bright thin light. The Ochu snarled and Seifer flicked the gunblade up as the tentacle fell away from his hand.
"Seifer, just stand back, okay." Quistis raised her hands. "Summon GF; Shiva." She opened her arms to the sky, feeling her vision blur as the ice elemental rushed through her with a torrent of Arctic wind and the tinkling crack of ice crystals. She heard Seifer swear and then her psyche exploded, lost in the sensation. She'd long ago decided that you never, ever got used to junctioning.
Somewhere in the very back of her mind Quistis was dimly aware of the iridescent blue light that was Shiva's Diamond Dust attack and the icy bite of frost on her skin. She was blind to her surroundings, her companion and her opponent, deaf to everything except fracturing glaciers and she smelt nothing except the clean fresh scent of the air after snow for five blissful seconds before real life came back and slapped her in the face.
The Ochu stood motionless in the trees, inert and covered with a faint opalescent sheen. Seifer was staring at her with an expression of faint awe. Quistis mentally preened, waiting for the praise, and pushed her spectacles up with one finger. The fire spell guttered and burned out overhead, dissolving into a shower of ash, and she felt her pupils suddenly contract in the unexpected darkness.
"Holy shit"
"No compliments?"
"Overkill." Seifer experimentally kicked the monster. His boot impacted with a high chiming sound. It didn't move, but one tentacle broke off and fell to the ground to shatter into tiny pale green crystals. He wiped Ochu blood from his arm. "Nothing there. Bloody cheap monsters. And now I can't even sell the tentacles."
"You're not that hard up, surely?" Quistis had always regarded Ochu tentacles as the nougat swirl in the chocolate box of life, they weren't much use and replaced much more favoured and rare objects. She examined the monster with interest, tapping the handle of her whip gently against its frozen body. There was something satisfying about ice spells. They were so…clean.
Seifer shrugged with one shoulder. He wiped his sword on the sparse stringy grass, looked at it critically and then cleaned it on his jeans, where the blade left a faint oily mark. "Magic?"
"Magic." Quistis confirmed. She doused the light and glanced round in the direction of the draw point. Seifer had moved over to the Ochu and was attempting to prise something off its flash-frozen carcass, judging by the tinkles and smashes of falling ice and several swearwords.
"I thought you said the tentacles were useless." Quistis ran a hand through her hair. One of the pleasant side-effects of summoning an ice GF in such oppressive humid heat was a cooling breeze that lasted a good five minutes after the attack.
There were more shattering sounds by way of a reply. "I'm not after the tentacles…shit, you really don't go by halves, do you? This thing's chilled right the way through."
"I don't want to know how you found that out. Now let's get moving, before we run into something larger."
"Carnivorous fucking plants. What next? Won't be a minute."
He sounded slightly shamefaced, and Quistis wondered if it was sour grapes due to the fact that she'd finished off the Ochu, or merely embarrassment at having to sell monster by-products for money. She shrugged, and said "They wouldn't be such a bother if they didn't move."
And if wishes were horses then beggars would ride…
Now that sounded like some kind of childhood parable. Quistis set a course towards the draw point and was racking the depths of her mind for more associated memories when Seifer caught up with her, footsteps crunching loudly on the paper-dry leaves and wood chips that carpeted the forest. He tapped her on the head lightly as he brushed past and Quistis automatically put one palm up to her head, glaring at his retreating back. To her surprise her fingers touched something cool, tracing across a smooth surface which blossomed out into a complicated series of ridges and folds.
Quistis loosened the object from her hair and turned it over in her hands, tucking Save The Queen back in her belt.
It turned out to be one of the pink flowers from the Ochu's long, dangerous tentacles, frozen by the force of Shiva's ice attack. In the dark it looked grey, but she knew the flowers were usually a vivid pink. She couldn't for the life of her work out how Seifer, a man to whom the word 'finesse' usually meant 'without any actual bleeding' had managed to detach the delicate structure from the melting Ochu corpse. The flower gave out a strong musky but not unpleasant scent that made Quistis feel a little more comfortable with wearing part of a dismembered animal in her hair.
She tucked it back in her bun, skewering it carefully in place with her hairpins by touch alone and tried not to mind as it dripped water down the back of her neck.
Seifer, ahead, had reached the clearing.
In appearance it could have been any one of a dozen small areas within the forest, created weeks or months ago by the felling of some forest giant. However, natural clearings changed their pattern as old trees died and younger, smaller one rose up to take their place. This one was a constant. Quistis knew that she could have returned ten years later, or five years earlier, and the clearing would still have been there, even though she'd never visited the spot before.
In its centre was a small, pale grey chunk of stone, about the size of a basketball. Above this unremarkable rock, a faint white haze rose like a ghost to illuminate the entire clearing with a faint and unearthly light.
The vibrations of strong magic set Quistis' nerves on edge as soon as she stepped out of the trees. Seifer was standing uncomfortably a few feet away from the draw stone, and she joined him, gritting her teeth against the sudden ache as Bahamut growled angrily near the base of her skull.
Seifer glanced at the flower in her hair, but said nothing.
"Do you want to junction?" Quistis tapped her fingers on her belt, running her nails along the dangling chains hooked at her hip.
"Me?" Seifer kicked the stone with a clink of metal on rock, and then turned to face her. He scratched at his scar, eyebrows meeting in the familiar scowl.
"I thought maybe you needed the practice."
"I thought maybe you didn't want me to use magic. I might use it for evil." Seifer said 'evil' with a kind of defiance and looked away as he spoke. He kicked the stone again, peeling curling strips of leather from the blunt toes of his boots to reveal silvery metal beneath.
Quistis sighed. "Seifer. I've known evil. I've fought evil. And you, believe me, are not. Nasty, (mostly), arrogant, (always), violent (ditto), selfish, (sometimes), manipulative, (same.) and delusional (occasionally). But not evil. Do you think I'd sleep with you if you were?"
Seifer was staring at her. "Hyne. You can pronounce brackets."
"So?" She watched him closely. Strangely enough, he didn't seem offended by her cataloguing his faults.
"Well, uh, thanks for the vote of confidence. But isn't it illegal…" he spoke the last word with a bitter contempt "for civilians to junction magic?"
Quistis gestured at the draw point. It sat there, squat and small in the clearing. The withered drought-struck leaves that carpeted the clearing's floor had conspicuously failed to rest on the rock. A faint haze shimmered palely just above its surface. "It's all right if you give the spells to me afterwards and you draw under my supervision. So, what about it?"
I don't know why he's reluctant: it surely can't be the fact that it's against the rules…
Seifer looked suddenly unsure. She knew he'd never been any good at sharing. His scowl deepened, face and hair pale in the dusk. "If you'd let me come with you this might have some point."
"I won't have this conversation again." Quistis said automatically. She folded her arms. "Over my dead body."
"See, if I don't come with you, it might really happen."
"It's just a meeting."
"That's what they all think." He turned away again and experimentally waved one hand through the haze covering the stone. It glittered into visibility and then melted back into the night. "Anyway, let's do this, if you want to. How?"
"Easy. Like we teach the cadets, you draw from the stone, and then I draw from you."
"Sounds kinky." Seifer rubbed at his scar harder, like it itched. Quistis noticed that he'd bought gloves somewhere, the blocky patched kind that motorcyclists often used. Acquired, anyway. She doubted that he'd actually paid for them.
"It's really not. Didn't you ever practice with other cadets?"
The atmosphere of magic was almost palpable, obvious to anyone with any training. Everyone said the feeling of paramagic varied to different people. To Quistis it always tasted like copper on her tongue, a faint scent of hot metal and a singing, high-pitched sound buzzing just behind her head.
"Nah." Seifer said flatly.
"Not even your..posse?" The noise was getting stronger, melting into Siren's song.. Quistis shook her head, trying to remove it from her ears. If she squinted, she could almost see a faint pink glaze a foot above the stone.
Seifer looked puzzled. "No. Fuu junctioned Wind. Raijin got the thunder. I took the fire. Simple."
It didn't surprise Quistis that they'd never shared. There was a strange kind of intimacy on passing on magic. SeeD didn't teach it in class, it was one of those things that everyone just assumed you'd done. Most people didn't bother focusing on just one kind of magic, because although it made you strong in some ways, it made you terrifyingly weak in others. It would have made more sense if the posse had fought as a group, but Seifer made his fights personal.
"Let's do it, then."
Quistis couldn't have said why she suddenly wanted him to junction so much. Maybe it was because she'd seen him watch her cast a year ago in Trabia, eyeing her with a kind of half-jealous and half-angry expression. Maybe it was her version of a present, like the flower defrosting in her hair, some lame attempt to make up for leaving him behind. Maybe it was her teacher's instincts coming out. Maybe, if she was really honest, it was because she wanted to feel what it was like.
"How?"
"Just draw like normal." Quistis rubbed at her lips. Her fingers were beginning to twitch with the proximity of the draw, tiny spasms that shook and flicked her hands.
"What about if you draw, and then I draw off you?"
Quistis would have called the remark nervous on anybody else. She'd seen enough students to tell the difference, though, and Seifer just looked wary. It was good to see him showing any kind of hesitation, but there was a high humming in her ears and she knew that if he didn't junction soon, she'd have to leave or do it herself.
She sighed impatiently and beckoned him forwards. "You first."
Seifer gave her an unreadable look, shrugged, and stepped forwards, pulling his gloves off with his teeth. The night was still and dark around them and it all seemed unnaturally quiet. She could feel herself leaning unconsciously into Seifer, warm and familiar. He shifted slightly, aligning hip with hip so their bodies fit comfortably together. Far away there was the crash and roll of the waves swirling into the beach. Quistis could feel the magic in the air, hot and tense and sparkling. It crackled, calling to her.
The noise of Seifer's gloves falling to the floor was very loud.
He waited for a second, raising his hands and aligning them slowly at chest height in a move that was almost hesitation. As he stepped forwards to the edge of the stone he brought his bare palms down to touch the rock in one swift motion.
Quistis watched as his head came up and he inhaled fast, eyes opening as if in surprise, his expression for a moment totally unguarded. His hair stirred as if in a breeze.
She waited quietly in the dark and watched as the stone began to glow gently. The light brightened into a fiery heat that turned Seifer into a black silhouette. There was a sense of waiting in the air, as if the whole clearing had taken a breath, before the glow exploded into a kaleidoscopic display. A wind whipped the trees, leaves spinning out and clouds of dust rising from the ground to spin in miniature tornadoes against Seifer's back.
Quistis could guess exactly what he would be feeling. There was nothing like junctioning magic. It felt as if you had channelled all your energy into one element and released it to race through your body, magic grounded along veins and sinews, nerves and muscle until it earthed somewhere under your ribcage and departed.
There was a pale burning glow in the air that Quistis recognised. Fira, then.
It would be.
She waited with the magic singing in angry jealous spurts along her own veins until the wind died down and the pyrotechnics vanished. Seifer took his hands from the stone and turned towards her, with a slightly shaky grin.
"Shit, that feels good."
"Good?"
"Really fucking good." He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, whispered a few words and held out one hand. A ball of fire slowly coalesced in his palm, hovering a few inches above the skin. Seifer stubbed the cigarette in it with the other, took a deep drag and then clenched his fist. He inhaled, took the cigarette from his mouth and opened his hand again with a theatrical flick. It was empty, hardly visible in the gathering dusk. The fire had vanished completely, taking with it the taste of magic in the air. Quistis relaxed slightly, rubbing her hands together to erase the furious rush of tension.
"Seifer, you are not supposed to light cigarettes with Fire spells."
"It could be worse. I could be burning things. You know, trees, buildings, random people…." He waved a hand round the clearing and sat down on the drawing stone, now glittering a pure white.
Quistis realised she was wringing her hands and stopped. Seifer shot her a shrewd look. "Bugs you, huh?"
Quistis gave a stiff little nod. "It's like...oh, I don't know. It's just really annoying. Tastes like sucking a fork."
"I always thought it tasted like burnt sugar or something. Kind of sweet, you know?"
Quistis stirred one booted foot round the mass of fallen leaves. "It changes. Different casters."
The cloying scent of hothouse flowers reminded her vividly of the Training Centre, of fighting monsters until her wrist ached from the strain of her whip. "When was the last time you did that?"
"Burned people?" Seifer clicked his fingers. Sparks flared briefly and died, almost invisible in a faint shaft of moonlight.
"Junctioned magic."
" Two years. Roughly. On the other hand, 'stab people?' Two weeks." His voice was faintly mocking, and husky with cigarette smoke.
Quistis ignored the last comment (which she knew categorically to be untrue) and regarded him critically. "You could have been faster. How many?"
Seifer shrugged, and then his eyes unfocused. "Nine." He glanced up and ashed his cigarette with one hand on the edge of the draw stone. "Minus one for the smoke."
"Not bad."
"That's one thing I like about you, Quistis, always so generous with the praise. Same as fucking ever."
"Since when?" Quistis waved smoke away from her face, feeling her clothes stick limply to her skin. Long trousers afforded some protection but they were worse than useless in the sub-tropical heat.
"When you taught us." Seifer leant the gunblade carefully against his impromptu seat.
"Do you have any idea how annoying that was?"
"What, because I always tried to show you up?"
Despite Seifer's mocking words, his heart didn't sound in it. His cigarette smoke drifted up vertically, drawing a pale line in the hot, still air.
"No. Because you always wasted everything."
"I was good."
"You knew you were good. I knew you were good. Squall knew you were good."
Seifer scowled. "Better than hi…." His hand reached down to touch the gunblade again, unconsciously.
"Let me finish. Being a good soldier means toeing the line. It means not questioning what other people tell you. It means doing it by the book. You're a good fighter but you're an awful soldier."
"And you're a perfect one, I suppose."
"It's no use being able to fight T-Rexaurs solo at fifteen if you can't pass your first-level exam. You could have made a good SeeD if you'd just bothered to play by the rules."
"I did."
"They don't count if they're your own." Quistis pointed out. As she fell silent she was painfully aware that she seemed to have slipped into her default mode, taking the lecturer's role while Seifer cheerfully ignored her advice, comments and criticisms.
To her surprise he elected not to pursue the topic.
"Fine. Now are we going to do this or not?"
"Yes."
"How do I do it?" Seifer stood up, stubbed his cigarette out on the stone and flicked it off into the bushes.
"It has to be body contact. Most people do it by touching the forehead but hands, anything will do. Bare skin-don't say it!" She held up one hand, almost invisible in the dark. "It'll feel like drawing, but in reverse. It's pretty failsafe. Not much goes wrong."
And of course, the operative word in that sentence is much, but I don't think you noticed.
Seifer glanced down at his hands and then on his gloves, lying on the floor. He stepped in close, leaving Hyperion propped up against the stone.
She expected him to brush her forehead with one ungloved hand. Instead he kissed her, hard, a fierce kiss that was all Seifer. Quistis' mouth opened in shock before instinct took over and she began to kiss him back. She'd forgotten that there was an intimacy in passing on magic hand to hand, rather than the swift Garden dispensary or drawing from inanimate stones, mere repositories for power.
All in all, it was one hell of a kiss.
She had to fight to keep the grin off her face.
Seifer's hands settled into the small of her back, pulling her closer, and within seconds as the magic in her blood died down and desire took its place, she forgot all about spells. The darkness pressed close and heavy around them both, smelling of flowers, salt and, very faintly, burnt sugar.
Quistis ran her hands up Seifer's back, encouraging him. She brushed her hands up his spine to the back of his neck and traced the line of his jaw with her fingertips. Seifer turned his head and kissed them, giving her a teasing smile. The marks of his mouth seemed to burn against her skin. Quistis blushed, grateful for the dark, removed her hands politely from his possessive grip and slid them down again to the ass of his jeans, where they fitted neatly, one in each worn pocket.
She swallowed.
Sweat seemed to have broken out all over her skin and her breathing was coming faster. It seemed to have got markedly more humid in the clearing over the space of about five minutes, for some reason it was hard to draw breath. That was the only logical explanation.
The warmth of his body heat should have repelled her in the hot, muggy evening, but instead she pulled him closer, hooking one hand under his belt while thinking that she had obviously taken leave of her senses.
The logical part of her mind argued that it was only an excuse and that she should be ashamed of herself. Another part of her commented caustically that she should do it more often.
Seifer took his hands from her shoulders and traced his fingers down to the outline of her small breasts against her top. He was watching her intensely with a kind of possessive half-hungry desire that made her want to do things she didn't even like to admit to herself.
It scared her.
It was unprofessional and morally ambiguous. Quistis knew that Seifer had an extremely dark side, partly because he'd never bothered to hide it from her, but it was difficult to reconcile this with the guy who currently had his tongue down her throat. She knew what he'd done and she still didn't care, and that scared her more than anything. She'd lied to her team mates, something that she'd sworn she'd never do. She was helping to conceal a wanted criminal and secretly sleeping with the enemy might lead to a problem when they had to fight him again and gods that felt so good….
Seifer took one hand off her breasts long enough to pull the pins out of her hair, dropping each one on the floor carelessly as he went.
Quistis gave a half- muttered protest and took her hands out of his pockets to go and retrieve them. They had somehow moved across the clearing, there was a shadowed mosaic of leaves above her head and her back was hard against the bark of a tree. He kissed her urgently one last time and then pulled back, shoving his hands deep into his pockets like a child being told not to touch.
Quistis ignored the pins, looked up at him through tangled strands of yellow hair and put one hand on his side, sliding her palms down under his shirt. Seifer groaned.
"What about the..uhnnn…monsters?"
Quistis moved her other hand to the hem of his top and worked both hands up, hoping that what she was about to say was true. "It'll be all right. They don't normally come near draw points…..not really near, anyway."
Seifer placed both hands flat to the bark of the tree, one on either side of her head. He moved in close and kissed her hair. "Do you want to?"
"Do I want to what?" Quistis said, slightly puzzled. She thought she heard a faint crack and mourned the loss of her hairpins. Seifer had his good points, but he was hard on the possessions of others.
The professional part of her mind, as usual, seemed to have taken a quick vacation. She shook her head and ran one hand up into her hair, twisting the loose locks back into a messy bun until Seifer pulled her wrist away and the heavy weight fell round her shoulders again.
"Come near a ..ohh, never mind.."
Quistis mentally rewound the conversation, and groaned. "No-one here."
"Good." Seifer peeled her right glove off and threw it over his shoulder, followed swiftly by the left one.
"We can go back to my-" Quistis said. She took his hand from the metal tag of her zip and placed it firmly, though not without regret, onto the bark of the tree behind her.
"No. Here."
She gave it a second, half-hearted try. "It'll be more comfortab…..oh. Ohhh."
"Mmmm?"
"Forget it."
By the time he'd figured out how to undo the tiny, near-invisible clasps of her shirt she'd forgotten about the flower-scent and the heat and the rough bark of the tree behind her and nearly everything else except the blond-haired man who was kissing her and the stars gleaming overhead and she was fast forgetting about them as well.
Seifer buried his head in her neck and whispered surprisingly gentle words that washed over both of them, hands busy with the zip of her jeans. His eyes were closed against her skin, she could feel the tiny scratching of his eyelashes. Never one to let her own guard down, Quistis let her own eyes slide shut as well.
Shortly it stopped mattering that it was pitch dark and that neither of them could see a thing. Touch took the place of sight and never stopped to apologise.
Some time later the busy silence was broken by one comment.
"I'll never….nnnnuh….get my boots off.."
"Keep them on."
"You want?"
"Hyne, yeah."
Some time later, Quistis lay on her back staring up at the stars while Seifer lit another cigarette. A faint wind, scented with salt and iodine, blew the grass in tiny waves that lapped gently around her body. They tickled faintly in a small and pleasant way that almost made up for the fact that her legs were cold and she had a cramp in the small of her back. She ran a hand across her chin and then sighed as her palm caught against rough, slightly sore skin.
I'm so going to have stubble rash in the morning.
Also, she was pretty sure she'd broken a nail in Seifer's belt.
The harsh, artificial scent of nicotine and burning paper drifted over to her from where Seifer was lying in the grass.
After their first rather al fresco coupling practicalities such as insects, the possibility of inconvenient monster attack and the rather slim chance of other wanderers had taken sudden priority, with the result that they were both almost fully clothed but with rather more bug bites that they'd started out with..
Quistis let her breath out in a long sigh and watched the dim orange lights of fireflies rise up from the grass like the ghosts of trodden ants. There was a harsh sound from some other kind of insect hiding off in the trees as the night buzzed with life around them.
She scratched a mosquito bite and said. "Let's go."
Seifer stretched, his voice lazy. "Why? S' not late."
"It is for me. I have to get ready for the mission. I've got stuff to pack. Things to do. You know how it is."
"I thought you were coming back to mine?" His voice sharpened in the blurry half-dark as Quistis' hands sought for her hairpins.
"I don't think that's really appropriate, do you?"
"There's nothing appropriate about this whole thing, but that didn't stop it happening."
"Maybe it shouldn't have….." One pin. Two pins. Forget the last one, it could stay. She stabbed them home into her hair and felt bits of crushed leaves tickle her neck.
Seifer rolled over, sat up and zipped up his fly. "Look me in the eye and tell me that's what you really fucking think."
Quistis lay back in the grass, suddenly reluctant to sit up and face the facts. She didn't particularly want to have a conversation with Seifer about a topic she hadn't even got sorted out in her own head, but it looked as if there was no other option. "I don't know what I think any more….and I don't like it. It's just a mission. You can't expect me to put my life on hold just because.."
"Because I'm a wanted criminal?"
"I didn't want this." She didn't know what she was referring to. No-strings attached sex was one thing, but it had always been ultimately too meaningless and unfulfilling for her liking. She hadn't quite envisaged the number of obstacles that her relationship with Seifer possessed, number one being the fact that he didn't officially exist and number two being the fact that it was probably a good thing for him that he didn't.
And on top of that, she had a nasty feeling that his opinions were different, and that she was very soon going to hear them.
Seifer didn't turn to look down at her. He sat in the deep grass a few centimetres away, arms clasped loosely around his knees. "You didn't want what? You don't want to be here now? I think you're lying." He took a deep drag on his cigarette. "You sure sounded like it, five minutes ago."
"Seifer, that was uncalled for." Quistis hiked her top up, exposing slightly less cleavage.
"Admit it, you're having fun, and you don't know how to cope. Shit, I bet sleeping with me's probably the only unprofessional thing you've done in your entire life…."
"The sleeping's not a problem. It's just while we're awake. Things are complicated."
"So rise to the challenge."
His comment needled Quistis's finely developed sense of efficiency. "Are you that desperate to be remembered? Because even if you spend the rest of your life saving whales, you'll still be the guy who tried to take over the world."
Seifer glanced at her incredulously. "Am I what?" The pale light of the draw point bleached his tanned skin and made his face look abnormally pale.
"Or are you just jealous I've got somewhere to go back to?" Quistis said, trying to talk through the situation in her own head. "You, on the other hand, have no friends, no job, no money, and no chance of things improving. Of course, you've also got a self-preservation instinct the size of Esthar City, so you won't crash and burn completely."
Seifer's expression looked as if he was trying hard not to smile, and that he was not quite sure as to whether that was a good or a bad thing
Quistis internally groaned. She asked "Did I say that out loud?"
"Hell yeah. I'm taking it as a compliment, -at least you're finally trusting me to take care of myself."
Quistis narrowed her eyes and ignored the sarcasm, rubbing the tiny dents each side of her nose where her glasses rested. "I'm just trying to make my mind up."
Without losing this argument, she could have said, but didn't.
Without making you think you're easily forgettable or disposable –being left like a cheap plastic toothbrush in a hotel room's got to suck
Without offending you so badly that I spend the next five years of my life fearing revenge attacks…
Without letting Garden down
My head hurts. I never thought it could be so hard trying to do the right thing
Quistis could feel the skin bunching up between her brows. She suddenly realised that she was scowling ferociously into the darkness whilst trying to make her decisions.
Seifer absent-mindedly passed his cigarette to her and flopped back down into the grass. "Maybe you should think less."
Quistis handed the smoke back, a miniature peace-pipe. "Maybe you should think more..Seifer, this can't go on." She rolled over to face him, shifting as stones jabbed into her hipbone. Her knee brushed his thigh.
Seifer raised himself up on his elbows, keeping the hand holding his cigarette an inch from his lips. "Damn right it can't. But you're only seeing one way out."
"There is only one way out." I go, I come back, we sort it…
He reached out and ran his hand over the curve of waist and hip. "Stay here."
Quistis looked him straight in the eye and pressed one hand to her temple, drawing circles in the earth with her free hand. "You know I can't."
"I know you won't. I know you well. Scared?"
"Yeah." Her tone of voice said not at all. " But I'll be fine, once I'm away on the mission."
"You'd be better with me at your back." Seifer said reflectively. He cupped his cigarette in his hand and took one last drag, holding his breath as the embers of the smoke smouldered out.
"That's not going to happen, and I know you know why." Quistis wished she had her bag, just so she could have taken out a Post-It note, written 'I'm going on a mission, but I'LL BE RIGHT BACK' on it in lemon-yellow highlighter, and then sticky-taped it to Seifer's forehead in lieu of conversation.
"You might need help if you get into trouble."
Quistis considered retorting that the chances of her encountering trouble were minimised incredibly by Seifer staying in Hana, but decided against it. "They'll catch you."
"They won't."
"They will. And then you'll be in prison or executed and I'll be out of a job." Quistis ticked the options off on her fingers, absently cleaning her nails with her other hand. She scanned the surroundings for monsters, absently, but heard nothing.
Seifer flicked the butt of his last cigarette off into the grass, reached for another and then seemed to realise that their bags were the other side of a tall fence and a monster-infested forest. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Hit me." Quistis realised moments later that her comment had been a mistake, but luckily Seifer didn't take her too literally.
"Which'd be more important?"
"Which what?" She noticed that there were leaves in Seifer's hair, too.
"To you. Losing your job, or me?"
Quistis worked her hand towards Seifer's head, waited a moment to consider the question as he recoiled slightly and said, crossly. "You've got stuff in your hair."
Seifer leant his neck back, hesitated almost imperceptibly and then relented as she worked her arm closer. "Answer the question."
"I don't know, I've had my job for seven years now…."
Quistis's hand touched the front part of Seifer's hair. He crooked his head awkwardly round to allow her to comb the leaves out with her fingers, looked sideways at her through narrowed eyes and said
"You've known me for seventeen"
She concentrated on combing "Yeah, but I only liked you for..uh, less than one. And I'm not even sure about that." His hair was bristly and short under her hands as she brushed away twigs, the hastily-shaved remnants of a two-day beard rough against her wrist. The overpowering scent of crushed vegetation, heat and ocean breeze made it hard for her to detect his normal scent of cigarettes, oil, some kind of cheap soap and musk. Quistis was surprised to find that she missed it.
Seifer captured her hand, pinning it against the hot earth as Quistis gave him a critical glare. "Me neither."
She decided to go for the simple approach. "Stay. Please."
"You ordering me?" Seifer let go of her wrist and placed his hand on her hip.
Quistis covered it with her own. "Did that sound like an order? I'm asking you. Nicely." Force wasn't going to work, so the only option left was persuasion, and that was going to be a long shot if she'd ever seen one.
"I'll think about it."
"For how long? I don't care how good the sex was, I'm getting on that train alone."
He grinned sharply. "So it's okay if I meet you there. "
"No! Hyne's sake, Seifer, don't you listen?"
"Not when I don't like what I'm hearing."
Quistis cast desperately around in her mind for a way to persuade him. "Do you always have to follow someone?" She started him right in the face, noticing abstractly that there was a tiny scar over his right eyebrow that cleaved the very tip in half. It looked kind of cute, like abbreviated facial hair, but then she was starting to find lots of little things about Seifer cute.
This, predictably, worried her more that a little. Just another reason for her to go on the mission.
Seifer's eyebrows drew together in a flat line, proving definitively that they were not cute. "Do I what?"
"Do. You .Always. Have…."
"I heard. You're a hard woman to please."
"How would you know?"
"You want another demonstration? I mean, it's a bit soon, but.."
"You're still not coming to Velalisier."
"He muttered something that might have been "Okay, then" Quistis moved closer.
"Say that again."
Seifer pulled her to him. "Okay then."
"You're not coming?" Quistis flung a leg over his hips.
"No."
"You're not crossing your fingers?"
"No. Leave it. I might change my mind, and we've" he leaned forwards, and kissed her, "got better things to do."
Time passed.
Thankfully the comment Quistis had made earlier about monsters not being found in the immediate vicinity of a draw point turned out to be true. After all, it wasn't until they left the clearing, both slightly unorganised and no doubt smelling of sex and sweat, that the first T-Rexaur attacked.
They got back to the hotel at four a.m. still in one piece but slightly bruised, both extremely tired and in no condition to argue further. To her slight surprise, Quistis went to the train station the next morning alone. She didn't allow herself to relax until the train was at least thirty miles down the track and there was still no sign of Seifer, but it wasn't until she'd read the extra files that Squall had sent to her laptop, enjoyed the mid-journey drinks (non-alcoholic, of course) that the train service provided to all SeeDs, free of charge, and scanned through her mission statement for the fifth time that she remembered that she'd never junctioned the Fire magic from him.
Big mistake.
Hey, everyone …and thanks for the reviews. I was going to offer a ficbit for the first person who got me to two hundred, but owing to my current situation( i.e. volunteering 8.30-6 over my Easter vacation as part of my course and revising for exams) as well as keeping SDTC going, I don't think I'll be able to. People are welcome to suggest topics and who knows, maybe I'll get round to it, but well, I dunno.
Again, liberties have been taken with GFs and junctioning for story reasons.
Mood: stressed
Anyway…
Amber Tinted: You're right-Quistis will never kill Seifer. After all a hell of a lot of people have tried and been unsuccessful, and offing one of your protagonists in a romance does tend to make the relationship a little onanistic.
Breaker-one: I have a strategy guide, but I only just got it. I'm currently at the bit in the game when you have to fight Ultima Weapon for GF Eden. You find Marlboros in the Grandidi Forest north of the Esthar plains( you can only get there with Ragnarok), but you have to fight pretty much everything else to get one, and once you've found one of the buggers, it'll incapacitate all of your characters with its breath attack and then kill you. Hence my failure to upgrade all my main characters' weapons. Damn them all.
DisturbedVenus: We aim to please :D
Ghost140: * eats half a cupcake* OK, I was on a virtual candy Lent, anyway.
Kjata: I hope that you enjoyed the links. I more or less copied all of my favourites out, because I like sharing and I like people to like what I like. Like, ya know.
Mana Angel; I've never played FF7 or 10(I just have a PS1) As for the innuendo-it's MUCH more effective to leave stuff to the imagination. Plus a whole lot easier.
Melete: Yeah, so any hormone-driven female would happily chuck in a lucrative career to go with the blond haired sex god all us fangirls know and love, this IS Quistis.
Nynaeve77: Lots of people said Seifer was being very sweet. I put it down to him not actually doing anything nasty in the chapter. Maybe this is because most of it was from Quistis's POV. I'm sure he was off kicking kittens or something while she was busy reading files on the roof.
Quistis88: About the fic-it will continue to update biweekly come hell, exams, social life or minor Acts Of God. I'm hoping that the current plotline will wind up in mid-July, as I won't have a computer from then until September. Hopefully there will then be another sequel (damn those trilogies) in September which will probably be shorter, as we're entering a more intense part of our course.
Shorty38: I write the kind of fics I like to read: basically multichaptered character driven stories with more than a little blood, description and violence. So there you go.
Sickness In Salvation: Ta..and yes, Selphie really does have her mind in the gutter. I didn't plan it that way-it just happened.
Sulou: Thanks! Will Seifer let Quistis go far without tagging along? Um, what do you think?
Verdanni: Wow. Guess who gets the Most Reviews award for this chapter? No, that's good:D
Kate
(blood sugar sex majik)