Still don't own them. Hints of yaoi but nothing scarring. Changing POV. Many thanks to Xineko for beta. Many thanks to my kind reviewers!
Revenant
Chapter Two: Squall, Zell, Squall
In exactly 29 minutes I had stowed a few necessities in a leather postal-style carryall and was at the Dorm entrance. Irvine was already in position, wearing his working hat, carrying Exeter and what looked suspiciously like a purse with tassels and fringe. I could guess what was in the bag: medikit, potions, and the occasional incredibly useful item only Irvine would think to bring. I also knew what he'd tell us was in there if we asked: 'The barest necessities: ammo, lube, and a blowdryer.'
Seifer joined us seconds later. His hands were empty but he was wearing his tattered Blood Cross trenchcoat for luck. That spoke volumes about how nervous he was.
Just as I was about to breach the seal on the doors, Zell bounded up like his tail was ablaze, dragging a lumpy duffle. "Whoo! Ma called from Balamb; I thought I wasn't gunna make it on time!"
"She okay?" Irvine asked, sounding genuinely concerned. We all take an interest in Zell's parents, as he is the only one of us who has any, the over aged child I was saddled with not withstanding.
"Yeah," Zell shifted his bag to the opposite shoulder and fluffed his spiky cowlick, shuffling his sneakers. "I had to explain why I wasn't coming for dinner."
"Mission is only one word." I pointed out, faintly bemused.
"The pot roast was already in the oven, Baby." Zell poked me in the shoulder, "Next time, you can tell her."
I rolled my eyes and passed through the blast doors, which had blockaded the area for as far back as my memory reached. The stairwell leading to the lower dorms was newly renovated; I could smell the chemical tang of fresh paint. Behind me, Irvine asked if we'd be staying the night.
"Xu is convinced the local time is a factor, so I'd like to stay until after midnight." Pointing out how surreal our shadows looked lurching down the treads with us would not help Seifer's tension, so I kept that observation to myself.
Irvine sighed miserably. "I was so hoping we weren't. There goes my date. Hope one of you is planning to pick up the slack."
I made no promises but Zell did a little shimmy for him, shaking his ass suggestively. Not that you could see much through the baggy t-boarder pants.
Seifer forced himself to speak, talking like it pained him. "Status on the kid?"
"No change." I shook my head, our descent down the stairs continuing, the shadows congealing oddly in corners. "His parents will arrive in 2 days. I'd like to have concrete information by then."
Irvine scoffed, "Any explanation has to be better than Xu's 'Tales from the Crypt'."
It was weird down below. It looked new and unused but smelled old and musty. I gestured to the left. "The stairway down to Level 3 is there."
Irvine paused melodramatically, one hand to his heart, the other to his forehead. "Whatever happens, promise you won't bury me in Galbadia."
"Not until you're dead, at least," I agreed, earning a snort of amusement from Seifer.
"Thanks," Irvine grinned, "I like the beaches here."
"You'd haunt the women's locker room anyway, Irv," Zell said. "Kinda like you do now." He easily dodged the friendly cuff.
"Ew," Seifer said, "For eternity?"
"What do I care," Irvine shrugged, "I'm dead, right?"
"Go with the secret smoochie spot in the Training Center," Seifer advised, as if haunting the school was an option and location a vital consideration. "Caught two of the girls going at it hammer and tongs the other day."
I paused at the heavy doors and keyed open a switch pad. It swung open reluctantly, with a puff of dust. I entered the password and lights flickered around the door's edges. Slowly, with a grinding and scraping noise, the heavy metal doors parted, only to freeze in their tracks.
Zell, who had been pointing out the horrors of an eternity of watching and not getting to participate, let his voice trail off when the noise started. He managed a huff when the doors seized, leaving a narrow gap Seifer could not possibly fit through.
I slipped inside as soon as there was room, Irvine on my heels. He looked around and wrinkled his nose at the sweetish dead mouse in the walls scent permeating the area. "Well, damn, all my happy horny thoughts just faded away."
Behind us, Zell was checking the doors to see what impeded them. I heard the 'bookabooka' of graphite being applied, and then he and Seifer forced the doors to their fully open stand by position.
I coughed, the stale air was heavy in my lungs; I didn't like it.
Seifer took a ragged breath and sneezed. "Boy howdy, we're gunna have a pajama party, kids."
"All the Ocean Breeze air freshener in the Balamb Stop'n'Shop is not going to help this." Zell gagged, his tone strained from trying not to breathe through his nose.
Grateful for the distraction, Irvine said, "You think those people ever smelled an ocean? I could just quit cleaning my aquarium if I liked that aroma."
I flexed my hands and was reassured by the creak and resistance of my leather gloves. Summoning command where I felt none, I said, "Secure the area. Get the lights on. Let's see what we have here."
Zell dropped his overstuffed bag at the door and took point. I partnered Irvine, letting Seifer hang back closer to the doors, covering the rear. Locating the light switches wasn't an issue: all the Gardens are standardized. The lights struggled on, buzzing faintly, gradually filling the area with a sickly greenish yellow light; typical of aging fluorescents.
"Ah, that lovely corpselight, gotta love it," Seifer said.
"I brought my strobe light," Irvine offered. "Just in case."
"Just in case you are gripped with an uncontrollable urge to disco?" Zell snickered.
I led them to the room in question, at the end of the first hall. It was perceptibly colder there; our breaths made frosty puffs in the stagnant chill. Instinctively, we pulled close, into a tighter formation. I looked around the room, measuring it against the features of my own. "No windows, were they blocked out?"
"Don't know that they ever had them," Seifer said. "This used to be below ground level."
I drew Lionhart and nodded to Zell, who was hovering near the door to the bathroom, his usual bounce stifled to an insistent jitter. He set his chin and reached for the lights. I told myself he was the logical one to do it, no weapon to hold, but when Seifer reached out, a glowing swirl of a spell forming in his hand, it was more comforting than I care to admit.
The lights did not work.
Irvine shifted and grumbled, "I have a really bad feeling about this..."
"Musta burnt out," Zell's shrug was hopeful, a whistle in the darkness.
Seifer's palm burst into flames as the spell coalesced and he stepped in behind Zell. "Outta the way, Chickenwuss."
"I always knew you were a flamer," Zell snapped. Nothing gets under his skin faster than that nickname.
"Not when I'm holding back a Fira, Chicken." Seifer growled gently and raised his arm to spread the light.
"Zell, cover him. Irvine, cast Scan." Gunblade in hand, I had their backs in the doorway.
"I'm half afraid to look," Irvine said, but he readied the spell.
Zell pulled up Thundaga, making a fist and glaring defiantly at Seifer even as he covered him. "I am not chicken!"
"You're sure as fuck not beef," Seifer countered reasonably. "When you come up past my nipples, we'll talk. And tall hair doesn't count." In the flickering red light of Seifer's spell, we all saw...
...a very clean empty bathroom with two extremely dead hanging plants frizzled in the corner.
"Scan what?" Irvine laughed with relief. "I can tell you right now that Dollet Fern is history."
Zell changed the subject abruptly. "Is it just me, or it freezing in here?"
My breath was frosting in the fur trim of my collar. "Don't look at me, I was ready to Draw."
Seifer said indulgently, "Only Squall meets every unknown monster with Draw."
"Hey! The water in the toilet is skimming with ice," Zell said wonderingly.
Seifer scowled and looked around. "It wasn't this bad before, what the fuck changed?"
"Before what?" Irvine sounded confused. "We're here, can that be it?"
"Before," Seifer clarified, "When I was a kid."
I rested my hand against the solid assurance of Lionhart's hilt. "I'm seeing nothing but malfunctioning climate control," I told them. "Zell, you and Irvine go check the breakers. Seifer, let's check the bedroom again."
"Whoa, Baby, now we're talking."
I rolled my eyes at his leer and let Seifer follow me into the bedroom.
"It's a sad state of affairs when I'd rather be working with you than hanging out in a bedroom with Squall," Irvine chuckled. Then he reconsidered how that sounded, "Ah...No offense intended."
I laughed and shrugged. "Warmer out here, anyway." We walked to the mechanical alcove and the breaker box. If we were a little closer together than strictly necessary, well, no Seifer was around to make wise assed comments.
"I figure, when a guy is looking at circuit breakers, he's just guessing, anyway." Irvine leaned against the wall, not quite managing his usual laid-back poise. "Same with peering under a car hood."
"Hey, I know what I'm doing. Not my fault you flirted your way through the mechanical classes." I reached to unlock the popup access ring on the cover...
... and the lights went out in the halls.
"Dincht!" Seifer roared.
Startled from an empty search of a faintly dusty dresser, I blinked when the dimness flattened to near pitch black. "Wrong switch?" I guessed.
"Hold me," Seifer said. I'm not sure he was kidding.
"I didn't do it!" Zell shouted from the corridor.
I could still see; Seifer was still holding the Fira spell. He grinned at me and whispered conspiratorially, "I knew that was gunna happen."
