BEYOND THIS MORNING

Part I. Making the Rules

Seifer Almasy was the kind of a person you didn't want sleeping next to you. I'm saying this because I know what it's like. He was an extremely restless sleeper, he was flailing, thrashing, turning and twisting all around and getting himself tangled in the sheets. He was kicking the wall next to the bed as well as the possible another person sharing the bed with him. He was moaning, groaning, snoring and talking in his sleep, completely unaware and ignorant of the fact that there might've been someone who actually wanted to sleep without getting punched in the face or listening to mindless sleep-talk all night long.

Someone like me, for example.

He was heavy sleeper to boot, so it was useless to try to shake him awake when he snored and impossible to shout at him so he might've woken up and maybe gotten a hold of himself. Not even kicking his ass made any difference.

Every night he eased up a bit at some point, muttered something quite incoherent in a half-sleep, half-awake state and wrapped his arms around me, nuzzled his face in my neck and pressed himself tightly against my back.

If he woke up in that exact position, there was only one possible outcome. I knew it very well and that feeling of knowledge was in my spine. It was a very familiar sensation, something I had always anticipated and yearned for, but back then, when it had happened for the first time, I had felt inadequate and helpless, reluctant even. It hadn't been exactly how I had imagined it would be, and I still felt the same. That feeling also meant that I could struggle, I could kick him, bite him, scream my lungs out and he would still take me, whether I liked it or not.

And I liked it, in spite of all that eager protesting. That is something I can never say out loud because it would mean showing him that he has gained the upper hand, that he owns me. Thus, he can do whatever he wants with me.

So as long as he has to fight to be worthy of my attention, fight to deserve my burning skin against his and all those words I whisper, ends bitten off in passion and pleasure, he can't own me and turn into a smug bastard.

Seifer Almasy liked a challenge and I surely was one: very acquirable and relatively easy to catch, but a challenge nevertheless.

I was sure he knew that I would never let him make me completely his. I was also quite sure that he liked it. It gave his actions a wicked non-consensual twist and that was something he liked the most about his challenges.

Although I liked it rough there were times when I stared at his anxious sleeping face in the heart of the night and thought that maybe it wouldn't hurt either of us if he were once – even once – gentle, forgetting that arrogance of his and the need to be in control of things. Asking him to be gentle would've been stupid, after that he would never leave me alone, believing I had fell for him.

Not in a lifetime.

My reasons went far deeper than being in love. The roots of things were in such depths I couldn't even remember what was it that made me accept him and want for more. I just vaguely knew that it had to make sense or I wouldn't be enduring it in the first place.

However, thinking about the effects made me feel weak.

What I felt wasn't love and probably not even caring, but rather a wicked yearning for proximity with another person and maybe getting a little bit hurt in the process. Years of loneliness make you tough and a bit of masochistic. You can't go from sorrow to contentment just like that without wanting to be miserable. I guess he was the first one to come along and tell me what I wanted.

He made the rules of this game.

But it didn't make it his game.

If he suddenly became gentle and stopped hurting me I would be scared out of my guts. I would have to call a foul, because he'd be breaking the rules he himself made. Being gentle would mean something and I don't want to give this thing, our thing, any meaning at all. I don't deserve anyone, because there is no way I can return their feelings. I am detached, far from everybody's reach.

In the end Seifer kept me sane and likewise. Hurting each other was our way. Our game.

It was a very early morning, sun hadn't yet risen but the darkness was recoiling slowly, revealing grey, slightly blue-tinted dull dawn.

Balamb Garden was quiet, since the students weren't allowed to move outside the dormitories during night hours. Students weren't allowed to spend the night outside their own rooms. And for one, Seifer Almasy wasn't my roommate, even though he was in my room at the moment, in my very bed, no less. He was still asleep, but I figured the subdued joy I felt because of it wouldn't last for long.

Where my real roommate was, I didn't know. He had courteously sneaked out of the room after Seifer came knocking on our door two minutes after the curfew, smirking mischievously and declaring that he was going to perform a room inspection as the head of the disciplinary committee.

I felt him move next to me, and my joy subsided.

"...morning", he groaned into my neck and reached out to nibble my earlobe, while his hand snaked over me to grab something from the nightstand. I failed to understand where he got all this energy right after waking up.

Sticking his hand into my underwear was his idea of foreplay.

After preparing me quite half-heartedly his leg slid between my thighs and then slowly up to lift my left leg so he could have a better entrance. His hands came for help, one gripping my thigh to keep it in the air and the other one pushing down on my waist to keep me pinned to the bed. He entered with a satisfied groan, his fingers digging into my flesh, whispering "Tight… so tight…", his voice low and raw.

My back arched, fingernails drilling into my palms and I bit the pillow to keep all the escaping sounds muffled. I wasn't going to allow him the joy of hearing me cry out.

He filled me completely and his blazing skin pressed against my back as he leaned over me and nibbled playfully my ear. His hand wrapped inattentively around my arousal, teasing, not granting any relief. His thumb brushed lazily over the tip, his fingers grazing the shaft, barely touching. He wanted to make me beg. His movements may have been lazy but his thrusts were violent, needy and cruel.

I gasped, clenching the damp sheets when he suddenly forced me to turn on my stomach and his hand landed over my head, entangling carelessly with my hair. Another hand helped me on my knees. Though I was initially fighting against his every movement, I had no time to act when he suddenly pressed me face down against the pillow.

It was nearly impossible to breathe. I tried to scream, almost panicking as the fear of suffocation flashed in my mind. Every attempt for making a sound was muffled by the pillow. I gasped for inexistent air, my lungs suddenly afire and I tried to push him away with my body. He didn't let go, just dug deeper into me all the way to the hilt so I felt his abdomen pressing against my back, sweaty and hot. Then he yanked my head up, panting "You like it, don't you?" into my ear, his breath almost burning. He allowed me to take one shallow breath and then my head was shoved back into the pillows.

Soon fear had to loosen its gripping hold of my mind to make way for sheer pleasure, strangely multiplied with the spinning sensation in my head caused by the cruel breath control. Finally the hand keeping me imprisoned in the pillow was gone and I could devour all the heated air I wanted. Both his hands were now embracing my chest, abdomen and finally, agonizingly slowly my member, determinately wrapping around its length. Breathing wasn't my first priority anymore so I gave into his ministrations, moaning a bit just because I knew he liked it so much.

The relentless rose-tinted dawn was lurking behind the window.

Afterwards we laid on the bed in the middle of rumpled, sweat-dampened sheets and the air of the small room was heavy with the smell of sex, sweat and the warm, dusty scent of sleep. Both of us were blazing, exhausted and satisfied and I was angry because he had tried to suffocate me.

"It's breath control" he said with his trademark smirk. He was laying partly on top of me, his fingers tracing lazily circles on my shoulders.

"It's sick", I retorted into the pillow, sounding more hurt than I had meant.

"You liked it", he replied matter-of-factly. "Chill out."

He tried to kiss me but I was already beyond the phase of carrying out the obedient little boyfriend act. I got up and snorted loudly, strode into the bathroom without saying a word and left him to kiss the goddamned pillow. Now as I was satisfied and weary, I needed breathing space. The closeness crept me out and being with Seifer was making me extremely edgy and uncomfortable for a change.

One of these days Seifer might learn too much about me although I was trying to keep myself hidden from him. It's relatively hard to hide yourself from a person you deliberately call a "lover".

I didn't bother to lock the bathroom door as I walked in, reached the shower and turned the water on. I stood underneath the spray of the shower, facing the glazed tile wall and felt the cold, purifying water wash Seifer away from my skin. His touch, his feel, his smell…

"You have indeed a gorgeous ass, Leonhart", came his obnoxious voice from the door.

I hated when he called me that. I hated when he complimented the way I looked. Right now I hated him standing there in the doorway and looking at me.

"Fuck off", I greeted him, not bothering to turn to face him. I didn't want him there, not now. I might end up wanting to hurt him for real.

"Don't mind if I do."

Seifer did what he wanted when he wanted. He walked up to me, took me by my shoulders and turned me around to face him. He was prepared for the attempted punch and his grip of my shoulders was nearly vice-like thus I couldn't even move my arms or perform the act of violence I had planned.

Having me unarmed he dared to lean closer and kiss me.

It was a hasty kiss and he broke it before I could bite his lip, which I would have done, considering I was mighty pissed off. Then he let go of my shoulders, sunk down to his knees and devoured me. At first I tried to push him away but I'm a sucker and he's too talented for his own good, so my resistance was in vain. All I could do was sigh and lean back against the cold wall. Water poured over me and over him and I thought that hating him was too easy.

A/N: ...there might be a part II coming. Just don't count on it.