Snippets of a Shaman Sniper – Part 2
Sleepwalking
by Skandranon
Fandom – Final Fantasy VIII
Warnings – semi morbid, kinda depressing, I think a cussword or two, very AU.
Summary – Squall dreams. Based on a shamanistic theory of spirit walking, but expanded to fit a fantasy world.
The grayness swirled and howled, and he clawed at his ears to drown it out.
Nothingness as far as the mind could see, the air stale and unmoving, but it hummed and screamed at him, with the voices of all the soldiers whose lives he had taken.
Rivers of blood, flowing and gurgling, with little waterfalls where the ground was uneven. The redness of a thousand innocents, flowing through the grey desert and pouring over the edge in muddy streams.
Rinoa's face, over and over, bloody tears dripping down her cheek. Seifer's face, with cold twisted smirk and cold haunted eyes. Matron's face, smug as ice exploded in her chest. Ellone's little childhood face, with the feverish hating eyes of Ultimecia.
He was chained to the desert floor, cold steel around cold skin, so heavy, weighing down his wrists and shoulders. And the dead mocked him, and pleaded with him, and screamed at him.
He begged them to stop, but it never stopped, it never stopped. And Seifer was standing over him, plunging his gunblade into his heart, then he was gone and Ultimecia was clawing his face with her chiseled nails, then she was Rinoa for an instant before being replaced with Laguna, so tall towering over him, patting him on the head and telling him to be nice to the other kids at the orphanage, goodbye.
Timber burned. The forest owls howled as their skin turned to ash. Deling shattered with an earthquake. Balamb fell into the sea. The Garden crashed in a rending scream of metal and flame.
And his gunblade was laying on the ground before him. He should pick it up, he really should, but his hands were bound, and no matter how he stretched, it was too far away, though it was only inches from his fingertips. And as he watched, the years passed over it, and the edge dulled, the metal rusted, and it slowly fell apart until it was nothing but wreckage, laying in front of a tombstone that said nothing more than S. L.
He called out, but the people around him didn't hear, didn't see him, didn't care. He begged, notice me, but he was alone in a crowd of faces of those who had said to him time and time before, we care, we'll be there for you. And they mocked him and scorned him but they didn't see him, and their eyes looked through him and saw only his terrible crimes and the blood
and Irvine's face replaced them, indigo eyes filled with worry, and he was crouched beside him, breaking the chain links with a touch.
Squall sobbed into Irvine's bare chest, body paint smudging onto his cheeks. "Make it stop, make it stop."
Warm arms came around him, holding him to the stillness, and the howling was only a faint sound outside. Soft words were murmured in his ear, meaningless except in their comfort. You're safe now, they said, without saying anything at all. The feather in Irvine's soft hair tickled his ear.
The world turned onwards without them, and they held each other in their motionless bubble until the blood river ran dry, and the tombstone cracked and eroded away.
He wailed his pain into the chest for years, until the tears wouldn't come anymore, and he collapsed. The support stayed, calloused fingertips massaging the tenseness from his shoulders.
When the anguish was only a distant memory, he glanced past the shoulder. The greyness didn't seem so bad now. Like a cloudy day, dull but meaningless.
"Better?"
He hiccupped, and clutched at the arms, his need to be held fading but still present.
"You're dreaming, Squall. Try to relax."
He frowned, and noticed for the first time how purple Irvine's eyes were. Purple, like a full moon over a snowy tundra when you're running between the pine trees.
"This is a dream. You're asleep. We're in your head."
But it felt so real. The pain, the blood, the body paint… it felt so real. "Are you real?"
Irvine smirked, and his smile was amusement and safety with a wildness beneath, the grin of a carnivore when it's sated and happy and basking in the sun. "Sort of."
"Don't go."
The sun faded a little, and concern flitted across the moonlit eyes like a black cloud. "I… can't stay for long. I felt I needed to pop in to stop your nightmare, but the pull won't let me hang around all night."
"I don't understand." He clung to the chest as if it were reality.
"I know you don't. I'm sorta… spirit walking right now. Etheral jaunt, what have you. I'd explain it, but you won't get it, and you'll just forget when you wake up," he tilted his head and listened to a distant clock that throbbed like a heartbeat, "which is pretty soon, actually."
"Don't go."
The grip loosened, and regret made the lips droop a bit, but the promise of safety was constant. "You won't have another nightmare tonight. Just take some regular R.E.M. time and dream of sexy chicks until your clock goes off."
He stood, bare feet scraping the dry ground. Squall whimpered at the loss.
"Oh, forgot to tell you. Quistis said for you to meet her in the training center at seven. Evaluation thing."
And he was alone in the emptiness, the wind murmuring hidden words, the air humming around him and there was a blood…
…red tulip in front of him, growing stubbornly out of the cracks in the ground. He touched the soft petals, the dew dripping onto his fingers, cool and safe and sparkling with sunlight.
But the air kept humming at him, grinding against his ear. Go away, he growled. I'm busy.
But it kept humming, and humming, and beeping.
Beep beep beep beep beep whap.
Squall groaned, blinking the sand out of his eyes. Fumbling his way to the bathroom, his dreams were hazy by the time he got the shower going, foggy glimpses by the time the toothpaste hit the bristles, and by the time he headed down to grab a quick coffee before meeting up with Quistis for her damn evaluation thing, they were gone completely.
((Author's notes)) If you're wondering what the heck is up with some of the descriptions of Irvine, let me put it this way – we each have a subconscious view of what we look like, and in our dreams, we are whoever we want to be.