Chapter 4: Story Time
"What the fuck is going on here?" Seifer burst out.
"This is my lab Seif, I never thought that Zell and Squall here would go snooping around when they could have just asked,' Aidan replied calmly, 'you didn't touch anything did y…."
Seifer and Aidan's eyes fell onto the monitors around the room that were displaying the old images from the Garden. Seifer stared at the man next to him in shock almost unable to believe what he was seeing, betrayal and anger flashed briefly in his eyes as he took a few paces forward to stand with Zell and Squall. The relief in Zell's eyes was obvious, Seifer didn't know about any of this.
Squall unsheathed his Lionheart and Seifer the Hyperion, whereas Zell simply assumed his usual fighting stance, ready to attack at his Commander and his best friends order.
Aidan simply looked over all three of them, wondering what was going on.
"Seif,' he began, almost pleading to the older man, 'please. You know me, this isn't what it looks like, I can explain."
"Then explain this." Zell reached into the open locker, removed its contents and flung it to the gravely ground.
A SeeD uniform lay there, surrounded by a cloud of disseminating dust, a pin of rank barely visible inside the right sleeve.
"Identify yourself." Squall stated in his all to familiar High Commander voice
Almost instinctively Aidan started to salute, but stopped mid way and put his hands in his pockets.
"Lieutenant Aidan Tygerson, Class A, Rank 28, SeeD no 851264." He stated in a monotone, but with a smirk on his face.
Squall looked at him, chocolate eyes met with steely grey and then Squall moved faster than a lion when it's prey was in sight. Lunging for Aidan with his gunblade, Squall locked his wrists in the standard posture, expecting another fight with him. Aidan however, surprised by the move, barely had time to draw his blade before Squall wiped the smirk off his face by pinning him to the ground, resting the tip of the Lionheart on Aidan's throat.
"Explain how you got access to this information,' Squall demanded, a slight growl in his voice, 'to access surveillance data from the GN requires Commander privileges. IF you're a lieutenant there is no way that you could have got this information."
"I helped upgrade the GN years ago. There's a trapdoor built into the system so that administrators are able to get in if something went wrong with network. I just used that. And I am SeeD, just ask Seif" Aidan replied, almost gasping for breath from the pressure on his neck from the sorceress killer.
All eyes looked to Seifer, who had replaced his sword back into its holster. "He's SeeD." He said, attempting in vain to break the tension, but failing miserably.
"Is there a direct link to Garden?" Asked Zell, unable to keep the hope out of his voice.
Aidan looked over at Zell, making eye contact with the warrior. "No, there's no way to get a direct link, not out here anyway. There's not even radio reception. Those images I got the last time I was in Esthar, about 4 years ago."
Zell's shoulders slumped, obviously there was going to be no easy way out.
Satisfied for the moment Squall slowly brought his gunblade back to its holster, re-sheathing it and allowing their host to return to his feet. Squall's attention was then turned on Seifer.
"How do you know him?" demanded Squall.
"Aidan was at Balamb Garden 'till about a year before the last sorceress war. He got transferred to Trabia Garden to take the SeeD exam, which was the last I heard. I thought he'd died when the missiles fell on Trabia, when I woke up I thought I was looking at a ghost. I screamed like chickie here when I laid eyes on him."
"Hey! Shut up ya bastard." Zell hit Seifer in the arm
"How did you survive?" Squall asked.
"Accidentally,' was Aidan's reply as he dusted himself off. 'I was on a mission and was delayed getting back home, when I did eventually return it was to late, the missiles had fallen and destroyed my home."
"Then why didn't you head to Balamb or at least Galbadia?" Questioned Zell, eager to hear more.
Aidan sat down on the nearest chair, picking up his old uniform and setting it down on one of the desks in the process, handling it with almost reverence. "Revenge." He uttered, with such finality and coldness Zell was briefly reminded of Squall B.R as he termed it (Before Rinoa).
"I don't understand." Was Squall's immediate reply to Aidan's cryptic statement.
"Everything I knew was destroyed totally in that attack. I took it on myself to strike out alone at the traitor who ordered it. Every breath and every step I took was with the object of killing him." Aidan enunciated the point by stabbing a finger at Seifer, who turned away in shame.
Aidan quickly apologised for his words, "I'm sorry Seif, I know better now and I know it wasn't you behind that mask. Even so I still went after both the Knight and the Sorceress. Actually I followed your trail as far as I could, right into the Lunatic Pandora, even into Ultimecia's castle, but I couldn't find you and there was no way I could follow you into Ultimecia's chambers, I wasn't powerful enough."
Zell, Seifer and Squall sat down, listening with intent to Aidan's words, every syllable he spoke was almost made powerful by the whirring of the machinery around him, but as the three friends looked at him all they could see was not a warrior, not a scientist, but a man who had suffered loneliness, hate and a passion for killing, yet had barely pulled away from those base urges. When Zell looked at him he could easily see that happening to Squall and the thought of that turned his stomach, he would never let that happen, not to his best friend.
Squall's outward reaction was, as usual, nothing. However his mind was spinning. SeeD had strict rules about a solider leaving the ranks and if Aidan's story was true it was Squall's responsibility as Commander and Headmaster to bring this man back to Garden. As much as Squall didn't want it to be so, there was something about Aidan's story that rang true.
"When time compression ended,' Aidan continued, softly, 'I knew there was nothing left, so I isolated myself, came here and let things take their course."
"And all this?" Zell asked, gesturing all around him at the technology and the resources scattered around the lab.
Aidan looked at Zell and a slight smile spread over his features as he made eye contact with the shorter warrior. "Borrowed." He said.
"You mean stolen." Retorted Squall.
"Something like that, I started to research in the mental effects of using the Guardian Forces. I used myself as an subject and came up with a few interesting results."
Seifer's ears almost literally pricked at Aidan's last statement and asked the obvious question. "What kind of results?"
Aidan smirked and gazed at Seifer. "Interesting ones, but I don't want to bore you with the details."
"Where are our Guardian Forces?" Inquired Squall, leaning forward in his chair.
"Over there." Aidan pointed at a small collection of objects on a nearby desk. A small ice figurine in the shape of a woman, a candle burning, but never going out, a small metal lightening bolt, a harp, a ring, a small oil lamp and finally a large gem, a ruby that shined from the inside out, sat on the desk, each different object symbolising a different guardian.
Squall got up, walked over to the table, put his hand onto the ice statuette and reached out with his mind.
Come to me Shiva
A cold presence entered his mind as Squall and his guardian once again became as one.
It's good to have you back princess Squall thought
It is good to be back my cold Prince
A slow smile spread over Squall's aquiline features as he felt Shiva's could presence wrap itself around his mind.
Zell and Seifer made their way over to the table next to Squall while Aidan still sat; his face aghast and his mouth wide open in shock.
"That's impossible" he began, but clamped his mouth shut.
Seifer and Zell reached out for there own Guardian Forces called them back into their minds. Zell felt the familiar tingle of electricity around him as he tried to bring back Quetzalcoatl, but instead of felling the power flood back into him he felt something else.
I cannot serve you. Your mind is closed to me.
Seifer got a similar message from Carbuncle and both men took a step back in horror, they no longer had any of their former powers!
Squall looked at the others, a confused look on his perfect face.
"Why haven't you drawn the others?" He asked
"We….We can't."
"What do you mean you can't?" Questioned Squall
"Like we can't draw, summon or junction any of our Guardian Forces 'Angst Boy', we're powerless!" Seifer practically yelled into Squall's face, partially because he was suddenly worried, but more because he had never known the feeling of being powerless that he was going through now. It was unpleasant and he certainly didn't like it.
"But how…" Began Squall, before all three of them slowly focused on Aedan, putting the relevant pieces of the puzzle together, or at least attempting to. Aedan just sat there and look sheepish, attempting to look innocent, but failing miserably.
"Erm…Sorry,' he offered.
Seifer strode over to Aedan and towered over him menacingly.
"What the FUCK have you done to us?" He practically screamed into the smaller man's face.
Aidan drew himself up to his full height, staring Seifer straight in the chin.
"I had to do it…" Aidan began, but was scarcely able to finish a sentence when Zell was at Seifer's side backing him up.
"I don't give a fuck what you had to do. What have you done?" The anger in Zell's words was only emphasised by the cool delivery that they were given. His fists were clenched tightly, the leather of the gloves making soft squeaking sounds as Zell fought, for the first time in years, to keep his cool.
"I had to seal off your minds from the Guardian Forces. You can't draw or use GF based magic. The Dragon Death you were suffering from would have used any part of your minds that it could get its claws on, I had to seal it off from any kind of external influence." Aidan passed his eyes over Zell, refusing to make eye contact, almost as if he was ashamed at what he'd had to do.
"And why didn't you remove this block once we got better?" Seifer asked in his best condescending tone.
"Because the poison eats at Junctions. It's benign in our systems, but make no mistake if you ever re-equipped a Guardian Force you'd be dead in less than a hour." Aedan replied.
Zell felt sick to his stomach. He felt violated in the worst kind of way. Someone he may or may not have known in the past he simply walked into his mind and shut part of it down. Granted Aidan had done it to save his, Seifer and Squall's lives, but that didn't give him the right to. Wait a minute, thought Zell, what about Squall?
"But why hasn't it affected me?" Inquired Squall, stepping over to stand with hi friends and predicting Zell's next question.
"I…I don't know,' he admitted reluctantly, the uncertainty evident in his voice and body language, 'you shouldn't be able to draw at all, but there were problems when I was treating you."
"What kind of problems?"
"Something was…different, you still had remnants of the poison in your system, even after I thought I'd purged it from you. There was something strange, it was almost as if you weren't completely de-junctioned.
Squall paused, his mind working overtime. Not de-junctioned? But how? Never mind, I'll get the doc to look us over when we get to Balamb; she'll be able to fix whatever damage has been done.
"Never mind about that,' said Squall, slipping into his High-Commander voice yet again, 'our main priority is to get the 'rok repaired and get beck to Garden."
"Agreed,' chipped in Zell, 'we can find out how to unseal our minds when we get back." Zell threw a withering glance at Aidan to punctuate his words, but instead of shrinking back or replying with a sarcastic remark the smaller man simply took it. Aidan raised his head and made eye contact with Zell. All Zell could see in Aidan's chocolate brown eyes were sadness and pain. Instantly Zell's mind was cast towards Squall and what could have easily been between him and the brunette lion.
Wait, thought Zell, where did that come from?
Squall stood impassive in the poorly lit room. He glanced across at Zell's face, but instead of seeing his friend's normal energetic expression he was greeted with a confused, pensive look. Squall instantly became worried about his friend. Unbeknownst to practically everyone Squall had always thought of Zell as his best friend, the idea of Zell hurt or lost almost literally made him sick.
Probably just uncomfortable without the guardians thought Squall, but still he was troubled. There was something else being held back, something somewhere that Squall didn't like, almost like a bitter aftertaste, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
Shaking his head slightly to clear his thoughts Squall once again took the lead.
"How long before the 'rok is flight worthy? He asked
"It'll be another 48 hours, unless something else happens. We had to stop for the day because it was getting dark, we had a few battles on the way back." Seifer replied, his usual sarcasm coming through loud and clear.
"Good. As soon as we can we're out of here and back to Balamb,' Squall stated, 'until then I suggest we all get some rest so we can finish the repairs as soon as possible."
Zell lay in one of the three beds that he and his friends had found themselves in when they first arrived in Aidan's home. The soft brown sheets were pulled up around him as he struggled to get to sleep, with no success.
Suddenly he felt a weight in the bed with him. Rolling over, about to punch Seifer for even trying anything like that he was beyond surprised when he felt a pair of lips clamp down on his and a tongue gently start to massage his own.
After a few seconds of this sweet pleasure Zell finally came to his senses and pushed the other body away from him ever so slightly. As his eyes became adjusted to the gloomy room he was able to make out the other figure in his bed, who was slowly wrapping his arms around Zell's waist, pulling him tighter and closer to him.
It was Squall.
"Squall, what the hell are you doing?" Whispered Zell fiercely, trying to keep control and give the impression that he wasn't enjoying the gentle rubbing motions Squall was making on his firm stomach and chest.
Again Squall drew himself up and kissed Zell deeply at the same time pulling the blonde warrior close to him, skin touching skin. Squall locked his arms around Zells waist, his hands travelling up and down the sapphire-eyed man's back making sure there was no way that the younger man was going to escape from the lions tight, but loving embrace.
Again Zell put up a fight, but his resistance was starting to wane rapidly.
"Squall, stop it. Rinoa…"
"I want you Zell, not Rinoa." Uttered Squall softly into Zell's ear, punctuating the statement by nibbling on it gently, teasingly.
That pushed Zell completely over the edge. He kissed Squall back with passion, all the blood draining from his brain and rushing straight to his crotch. Every touch, every gentle kiss and every smooth caress drove Zell further and further into madness. Squall started to move his slender frame in a passionate rhythm against Zell's muscular body.
Zell suddenly sat bolt upright in bed, his body drenched with sweat despite the cool night air being let in through the window.
Dear Hyne, he thought, what a dream.
He looked down at the now stained sheets.
Fuck, he thought, how am I going to explain this? It's not enough I'm having these dreams about Squall, but now I have a full-blown wet dream in someone else's bed, how embarrassing!
Zell collapsed back on the pillow silently. Well, it was worth it, he thought as a smile formed on his face. He rolled gently over on his pillow, closed his eyes and tried once more to fall asleep. The last image that burned onto his brain before unconsciousness took him was Squall's face, framed so perfectly by the brown locks of hair dangling on his face.
Zell's mind was in turmoil. "Well one thing's for sure; I'll never be able to look at him the same way again. What the hell am I going to do? How can I ever tell Squall that I may think of him in that way?"
On that final, depressing thought, Zell drifted to sleep, replaying his vivid dream over and over in his head, not noticing the miniscule smile on Squall's face.