Icicle Knight, Firey SeeD
Chapter 14
//\\
Everything hurt. Every muscle and joint ached, every inch of skin smarted as Squall again dragged himself slowly back to consciousness. For a long moment he simply lay there, eyes closed, cataloguing his body and how fast it could react when faced with a threat.
The answer was depressing. Given the way everything in his body ached, he'd be able to move, but slowly, certainly not fast enough to dodge a blow, or raise Lionheart in his defense. And given that the majority of his fighting style was based around speed, he'd be lucky to even graze an opponent before being killed himself.
Finally opening his eyes, blinking in the unexpected bright light, he gazed dumbly around the familiar confines of the Infirmary. When had he returned to Garden? The last thing he remembered, was… was being tortured by General Caraway in D-District prison.
Footsteps sounded abruptly in the corridor outside. Hurriedly he closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to resume the steady pattern of sleep, so as to give no hint of his wakefulness. This may have looked like the Infirmary at Garden, but one could never be too careful. He wouldn't have put it past the Galbadian General to devise mental torments to go alongside the physical ones. Shiva, Ultimecia's favorite punishments when he'd displeased Her had been purely mental, and those had been the ones he'd been most eager to avoid.
The door swished open, admitting…two people he judged, one taller than the other. He could hear the differing strides, the quicker steps as one attempted to keep up with the other, and failing miserably. The taller set of steps came to stand directly by his bed and stopped dead, before whirling around (he could hear the rustle of fabric) to face the other figure.
"I thought you said he'd be awake by now!" the taller figure (Seifer?) hissed quietly, almost as if,, Squall thought wonderingly, that the blond was trying to avoid waking him, though Seifer showing that much consideration was almost too much to credit.
"What I said," the other voice, older than the first, and feminine (Dr. Kadowaki?) said firmly, "was that the spells and potions keeping him asleep should have faded by now. If he's still not awake, then it's likely because he's replenishing his reserves of strength that were depleted by the torture. And you should let him rest."
"It wasn't like this for me." The first voice protested, not letting up in the least.
"You were tortured for a significantly shorter period of time than he was, not to mention you were Junctioned as well for it. And you were operating under a rapidly shortening time limit trying to save Garden, and were thus bolstered by adrenaline. And don't think that you didn't crash after it was clear that Garden was safe. Give him time."
"I gave him Shiva-"
"For which I am very grateful, as the GF's healing abilities has made it considerably easier for me to work on him without the threat of him dieing in the middle of treatment. But Shiva wasn't with him throughout the torture, healing most of the damage as it occurred, unlike Ifrit was with you." Her voice softened. "I know you're worried. And I will inform you of the slightest change."
"See that you do." Seifer's footsteps sounded again, moving toward the Infirmary's door, only to stop when Dr. Kadowaki's voice spoke up again.
"I'm having a hard time understanding just why you're being so protective of him Seifer. After all, you were the one responsible for putting him in my care the majority of times he ended up there before the War."
"You didn't know?" Squall could hear the rare note of honesty in Seifer's voice, something that Squall heard only rarely. "It's because he doesn't have anyone else. Laguna doesn't have the time, he's got his hands full with rebuilding Esthar and when he's not doing that, he's still getting used to the idea that he has a son, much less that his son is the same one who's laid waste to his country. Not to mention that once he does get used to it, he's so different from Squall, personality-wise, that anything he does to include Squall and show him that he cares will be far too much for our fair Ice Prince and only piss him off. Ellone is helping with the rebuilding, she's too scared of anything remotely to do with Squall, half-paralyzed with guilt that she caused opened him to Ultimecia's influence, not to mention she's still having nightmares about when the Bitch used Squall's body to free Adel. Add that to the fact that they've both been away from his life long enough to have him move on without them. They don't know the Squall I do, they only know the little Squally that he was when he was four and the Sorceress knight."
"That still doesn't explain your involvement. Even if what you say is true, and no Seifer, I do believe you, the Squall I've known didn't want or need family of any kind."
Seifer laughed at that, hollowly. "The whole War puts the lie to that statement Doc. The only reason the Bitch was able to take him in the first place was because he was so alone, because he was so devastated when Sis left that Matron formed a special tie with Squall to try and compensate, and the lack of other ties left him open to the Bitch's influence. She tried to take me too, did you know that?" Evidently Dr. Kadowaki hadn't because Seifer continued. "She tried to take me as Her knight, but She couldn't find a way into my head. The reason she could get into Squall's was because he was so alone."
"So this is because you feel guilty about not being able to prevent him from being taken as a knight?" Seifer must have given the doctor one of his looks, because before too long she laughed a bit and said, "I forgot for a moment to whom I was talking to. Go on, get out of here. You'll be the first to know if anything changes." The door swished open, and Seifer's footsteps finally left, returning back the way he'd come.
For a long moment, Squall nearly forgot to breathe. What Seifer was implying… it scarcely bore thinking about. And how did Seifer know Laguna? Much less imply that the moron he'd seen in a dream on the way to Timber was Squall's father? No. It couldn't be true. And what Seifer had implied as well, that he had been weak since he lost Sis, and that the reason Ultimecia had taken him was because of that weakness…no. Just, no.
He was so rattled by what Seifer had said, or implied, that for a moment he forgot to feign sleeping, long enough for the ever-alert Dr. Kadowaki to discover he was awake. "Ah, so your awake after all. How long were you faking?"
Bewildered, Squall didn't answer, unsure if he could speak without tripping over his tongue. He finally shrugged in answer, as if to say he had no idea. It was nearly the truth. To his relief, the doctor seemed to accept it, nodding to herself without question.
He had a question or two of his own. "How long?" he croaked after several abortive tries, unable to get out more than that with his sore, dry throat.
Thankfully the doctor understood what he meant. While bringing him a soothing drink of water, she answered, "It's been two days since we brought you back, four since Seifer discovered you missing. And no," she said abruptly, correctly interpreting his questioning glance, "we don't know just how long you were tortured. Some hours at least, depending on how long an interval they waited between pulses. Unless you can remember and tell us?" she imbued the last word with a question, though by her expression it was obvious she didn't hold out that much hope for his memory.
Squall shook his head in a negative. He'd lost all sense of time pretty early on in the proceedings, and he had no way of knowing how long they'd continued to torture him after he'd fallen unconscious before Seifer interrupted them, or even how long he'd held out before succumbing. Not to mention that the overdose of Sleep spells had screwed with his sense of time, well before the torture had actually begun. Letting his gaze drift absently around the Infirmary, he suddenly froze as his eye came to rest on a familiar sight.
There, propped up against one wall, where Dr. Kadowaki usually left an injured SeeD's or cadet's weapons, was Lionheart, sheathed in its holster like it had never been taken from him. His eyes drank in the sight, and what it meant. For nearly three entire months, he had been forced by his probation to leave the gunblade in the Training Center, locked in one of the lockers available for storing precious items that a cadet didn't want to lose while training or to keep a fresh change of clothes (one free from sweat and monster gore) to wear when finished with training. And even though he'd received Lionheart from the Sorceress, there was something about the gunblade that called to him, that said it was his own. Maybe it was the way the grip felt as if it had been made for him alone, or the way the strangely glowing metal felt like an extension of his arm, even more so than the Revolver model he'd favored before. Lionheart defined him, in a way no other weapon, no matter how finely crafted, had done so. He suspected that Seifer felt similarly toward Hyperion, the reason why Garden's commander had never used another gunblade besides the one he'd used when he'd first graduated to live steel.
But there was a message for him in the gunblade lying so serenely against one wall, a faint blue glow just peeping over the rim of the holster, just waiting for him to buckle it back into place. Lionheart, here, without any restrictions save Dr. Kadowaki's eagle-eyed glare if he so much as touched it without her approval, was an unspoken signal that his probation was over, that Seifer-or Fujin as the case might well have been- trusted him enough to at least allow him to have his weapon back, if not all the privileges that a graduated SeeD enjoyed in Garden.
Dr. Kadowaki saw what had captured his attention, following his gaze, and chuckled lightly. "Oh yes, I thought you would notice that sooner or later. Seifer dropped that off for you yesterday, as soon as the strap on the holster was repaired-" she caught his startled glance, and explained herself. "One of the thigh straps on your holster was torn when you were taken, that was one of the things that clued Seifer in that you had been taken against your will after you didn't show up for your scheduled duel." Now her gaze was purely disapproving. But then, Squall thought with a mental sigh, the doctor had never approved of his rivalry with Seifer, largely because she had been forced to patch the two of them up every time they'd injured each other in one thinly-disguised sparing match or another.
"Now, where was I again? Oh yes. Seifer told me to tell you that getting kidnapped doesn't excuse you from skipping out on your rematch, though I'll tell you what I told him, that it will have to wait for at least another month or two before you can fight."
Squall stared at her in naked shock. "A month?" he choked out. A month before he could fight again? That just didn't seem possible. Sure, he hurt all over, but a full month to get back in to fighting shape?
"At least." Dr. Kadowaki's expression was sympathetic, but stern. "You nearly died. Several times. And that's just for basic fighting, I want you to wait another month as well before I'll allow you to fight Seifer again."
Two months before he could have his rematch with Seifer, Squall thought numbly. There was no way Seifer would be willing to wait that long. He told the doctor as much.
The doctor bit back a smile. "Actually, he was willing to wait. He told me that he could wait as long as it took for you to recover enough to… how did he put it… 'fail miserably at kicking my ass in a fair fight..' or something to that effect. You know how colorful he can be at times."
Squall did know. That knowledge didn't prevent him from seeing red as he visualized the snide tone Seifer had most likely used while saying those words, and more besides. Grey-blue eyes hardened. If Seifer expected an easy win, he could think again. He'd heal, and once he could fight again he would train as hard as he could so that by the time Dr. Kadowaki cleared him to fight Seifer, he would kick Seifer's ass so hard the blond would be seeing stars, and not fail miserably at the task. And when he stood over Seifer, Lionheart on the blond's arrogant neck, he would make him eat those words, several times over.
Dr. Kadowaki recognized the familiar gleam of vengeance in his eyes with the ease of long experience, and snorted briefly, but didn't say anything against it, also knowing from experience that it was useless. Squall remembered the last time she had spoke obviously against his rivalry, just before the exam when he'd woken up in the Infirmary, a fresh scar on his brow. The pointed disapproval had barely registered with him, given that he'd been faced with the prospect of Quistis's suffocating idea of understanding almost immediately afterward.
Finally the doctor simply sighed, and shook her head. "Promise me that you won't immediately go of and challenge Seifer the instant you leave this room," she requested as she tidied up the detritus that always accumulated in even the most scrupulously-kept infirmaries when a patient was in residence. She met Squall's rebellious gaze squarely, impressing her seriousness on him. "And don't think I won't know. Seifer promised to inform me if you challenge him before I clear you, and don't think you won't live to regret it."
Internally, Squall winced at the threat. Dr. Kadowaki was dangerously inventive when it came to devising punishments for disobeying her orders. Still, he had to speak up. "How do you know Seifer would come to you? Or what if he challenges me?"
She laughed a bit at the thought, but then subsided in the face of Squall's stony glare. "Because I know that he knows that I'll subject him to the same punishment as I would you if he didn't come to me, not to mention he's still too spooked by what happened to you to put a foot wrong. He will make sure you obey, even if you don't want to."
With a scowl, Squall looked away. Shiva freeze it, but the explanations made sense. Except for one thing. "Spooked?" it didn't seem like Seifer to get spooked about anything, much less his welfare. He couldn't understand it.
"Frantic, more like." the doctor clarified. "I've seen corpses with more color than he had when he brought you out of the prison. I don't think he so much as looked away or moved once, the entire time my team was stabilizing you."
It still didn't seem possible to Squall. Not only was it dangerous and contrary to their training, but Seifer? frantic over him? , Seifer, the arrogant asshole who had made his life at Garden hell on more than one occasion, pale with fright over what had happened to him? He couldn't credit it, and told the doctor as much.
"All I'm saying is that Seifer seemed to be awfully concerned about your welfare." She paused to snort briefly. "If I didn't know any better, I'd also say that boy was more than a little in love with you."
Squall visibly froze. That word again. Fujin, Selphie, Seifer, and now Dr. Kadowaki as well, all of them bringing up that word into conversations it had no place intruding into. It seemed that as soon as he'd returned to Garden after Time Compression, the whole facility had gone mad over love, specifically, love between himself and Seifer.
He should have known that he could never have hidden his reaction from the ever-alert doctor. Barely had he tensed, then the doctor was at his side, checking him over with gentle hands, making sure that he hadn't tensed because of a new, inadvertent injury. He hadn't, of course, Dr. Kadowaki's care was as excellent as always, and her perceptions against accidental injury were no doubt doubled or tripled due to the level of care her blunt "you almost died," statement camouflaged.
But there was some other reaction to the word love he was feeling. Something… that was at first opaque, then, as he focused on it, the memory began to unfold, unleashing an emotional storm in its wake. He started to shake, and tears began to involuntarily leak from his eyes. He could hear the doctor's startled indrawn breath, then felt strong arms wrap around him, careful not to trap his arms in the embrace, as 13 years of pain and loneliness spent themselves in a storm of tears.
After the fit had worked itself out, and sipping yet another cup of soothing water, Squall glared daggers at the imperturbable doctor, telling her without words that she had better keep quiet about what had just occurred if she knew what was best for her. If Seifer got wind of this… he didn't want to think about what would happen. He'd likely have to kill the blond to keep him from spreading the story all over Garden.
It was wasted effort, and he knew it. Dr. Kadowaki wouldn't tell anyone what happened inside her domain, absolute privacy within the Infirmary was a hallmark of her tenure. Still, it made him feel better, so he ignored any guilt he might have felt over the reflexive action. Not to mention that it helped him regain his mental footing after the embarrassing break down.
Re-focusing on the water he was drinking, Squall had just started the process of blanking the entire incident from his memory (using a trick taught to cadets for forgetting classified client codes after the conclusion of a mission) when Dr. Kadowaki interrupted his concentration. "Do you want to talk about it?" he fought down his first reaction, a violent "NO!", and reluctantly discarded his second as well, outright denial that anything had happened, finally settling on making his face completely blank and staring into his cup like it held the secrets of the universe.
"Squall…" her voice was heavy with disappointment. He looked up, taking in her expression, thinking rapidly. Dr. Kadowaki stood apart from the various power struggles that took place in Garden on a daily basis. Her infirmary was open to all, no matter how humiliating or embarrassing an injury happened to be, she treated it in silence like all the others. Though he had never himself done so, he knew that several cadets and SeeDs went to her for her help and advice on a variety of matters, from guilt and anguish over their first human kill, to relationship advise, and for the female cadets at least, the little mysteries that the female body went through during puberty. She never breathed a word of what she'd learned, keeping her mouth shut with such skill that an Intelligence SeeD in enemy territory might envy. If he could talk to anyone, and be absolutely sure that it wouldn't be leaked to the Garden rumor pool, he could talk to the doctor.
"If you tell anyone…" he muttered in acquiescence, catching Dr. Kadowaki's exasperated nod of assent as he lifted his eyes from his lap.
"I swear," she said, traces of exasperation in her voice, though not so much that Squall doubted what she'd said. He stared at the sheets on the bed, his eye locked on the pattern of threads in the starched linen, unsure of how best to proceed
"Sis loved me," he whispered eventually, his voice scarcely audible even to his own ears. "She told me she did many times. That wasn't enough to prevent her from leaving. She didn't even say goodbye." Shit, he sounded like a small child, whimpering for his mother. He was a SeeD, the equal of the commander of Balamb Garden in skill, not some helpless infant crying in the rain.
Dr. Kadowaki didn't offer any verbal sympathy, just slowly nodded her head in silent acknowledgement of his words. Squall was unaccountably grateful for the silent listening, without the suffocating feeling of sympathy that he'd get from telling someone like Quistis or Selphie. That was the only thing that gave him the courage to continue speaking.
"Matron also told me that she loved me. But that wasn't enough to prevent her from sending me to Garden, or to prevent her from stopping Ultimecia from taking me as Her knight. And I know," he said quickly, holding up a hand to stop Dr. Kadowaki's reflexive comment, "that she wasn't in control of herself at that point, but…"
"But that knowledge isn't enough to stop the hurting." The doctor guessed, completing Squall's thought without him having to spell it all out himself. She continued, watching his face closely for any further cues regarding the topic at hand. "And the reason you find yourself shrinking away from other people, and the word love as well, is because your experience is, that when you let someone in close, they nearly always abandon you. Am I right?"
He nodded wordlessly, grateful she understood. The doctor continued, her no-nonsense voice unaccountably gentle. "But Seifer is different."
Squall didn't normally throw tantrums, that was like more Seifer's behavior than his, but he couldn't stop himself this once, leaping from his bed to pace, or at least, he tried to. "He makes me go insane! He's always following me, bothering me, never giving me a moment's peace, and has the colossal nerve to tell me its for my own good!"
"But what about those times when it actually was for your own good?" there was something unreadable in the doctor's dark eyes, something that some part of Squall shied away from trying to read as she steadied his weakened form, helping him back to bed. "Wouldn't the War, and Seifer's pursuit of you, even when you were under Ultimecia's influence, be an example of when he shouldn't have left you alone? Or the times he dragged you in here because you were suffering from malnutrition and dehydration? Should he have left you alone then?"
Squall shook his head rapidly, trying and failing to bring his thoughts back under control. He wasn't sure what to think anymore. Seeing his confusion, Dr. Kadowaki called a halt to their discussion. "Squall, I want you to think on what we just talked about, as well as something else. If you're so closed off from everyone else as you believe you are, tell me why Seifer couldn't look away as I treated you, why he transferred his entire arsenal of spells to one of my assistants when she called for any healing spells that could be spared. Not to mention, why do you care? Why do you let Seifer get to you, goad you into reacting, even when he's not present? You don't try and puzzle out the motivations of say…" Dr. Kadowaki cast about for a random name, "Zell Dincht, or Instructor Trepe for example. "
That was an easy answer, Squall thought, a touch resentfully. Quistis and Zell were almost transparently easy to read, so much so that it wasn't any kind of challenge to find out what they were thinking, or why they were doing something at a given time. Seifer on the other hand…wordlessly Squall shook his head. Seifer, Seifer was another matter. If at anytime he had the slightest clue as to the blond's motivations, the asshole would say or do something to completely shatter that preconception. It was frustrating, and annoying the way Seifer defied placement into any one category, something he fully believed that the blond had deliberately done as yet one more attempt to get under Squall's skin, and something he couldn't let on to the arrogant blond if he wanted to get anywhere in their rivalry.
His thoughts must have been transparent on his face, because Dr. Kadowaki nodded sagely. "All I'm saying Squall, is that it doesn't have to be always about rivalry between the two of you. There are other ways to show you care, and yes you do care about him. Do you remember the time several years ago when Seifer got illegally drunk in Balamb and was late reporting back to Garden because he got waylaid by grats on the way back? You were the one to organize a search party for him, found him and brought him to me to get treated for that nasty gash on his arm, if you recall. You were the first one to realize he was missing, even before Fujin and Raijin did."
Squall did remember. It had been one of the first times that he had seen Seifer as human, as more than merely an annoyance to be dismissed, or as an obstacle to overcome. Seeing Seifer listing against a tree, barely able to lift his heavy gunblade as dangerous grats closed in around him, blood already staining one sleeve of his coat, had ignited something strange within him. He also remembered that it had been the first time he'd faced real monsters, not the Training Center's simulations that, while still dangerous, could be adjusted for level of difficulty, depending on the progress of the cadet or SeeD programming the beast, but anyone watching wouldn't have known it from the way he'd torn into the grats menacing Seifer, ripping them apart before they could touch the blonde again.
He reflexively shook his head, trying to dispel his confusion. No, it didn't mean what he thought it did. It couldn't.
His illusions couldn't last. Dr. Kadowaki spoke again, softly, but in a way he couldn't ignore. "However you rationalize it, Squall, there is some part of you that harbors stronger feelings than mere rivalry for Seifer. If what you two feel isn't love exactly, than it's something similar. I've seen it in Seifer as well. And," she added gently, "Love doesn't have to be about pain and loss. It can simply be about caring for another person, no matter how that care is expressed. And in his own way at least, Seifer does care for you. Can you deny it? Do you harbor any similar kind of caring toward Seifer?"
Squall couldn't answer, half-paralyzed at the doctor's words. His mind flashed over his interactions with Seifer over the years, spending more time analyzing Seifer's actions during the course of the War, from the fateful duel that had left both of them scarred, to his torture of the blond in D-District prison, to the meeting during the clash of Gardens, and the encounter in the Lunatic Pandora and during Time Compression, the double-kill match, and the Kiss.
"If it makes you feel better, I believe that Seifer is as scared as you are," Dr. Kadowaki commented, ignoring Squall's sharp look that spoke volumes about his opinion about Seifer and the blond's ability to feel fear, and that spoke eloquently as well about his own relationship with that emotion. "Squall, you don't have to be in love with Seifer, you are under no obligation to return his feelings. But if there is even the slightest chance you do, don't squander this opportunity. And you don't have to simply take my word for it either. Investigate if you want to, make your own judgments as to both what Seifer is feeling, and what you yourself are feeling. And don't lie to yourself as you do so, as I know you have far too much practice at," she warned, with a twinkle in her eye that told him that she had at least a general knowledge about the thoughts that regularly ran through his head on a daily basis.
"Now," the doctor said, changing the subject, "as I told Seifer, you still need rest to help you recover from your ordeal, not to mention giving your mind time to rest and absorb the things we just talked about. I know you Squall," her voice took on a teasing cast as one hand collected the distinctive colored light of a Sleep spell. He involuntarily tensed at the sight, memories of his recent kidnapping hovering just out of reach. "If I leave you too it, you'll be up all night trying to brood on all the new ideas and concepts I've just exposed you to. If you don't fall asleep on your own…" her voice trailed of as the spell in her hand gained greater coherence, a clear expression of what would happen if he failed to comply with her directive.
Reflexively, stupidly, spooked more than he would ever admit by the softly glowing blue light and what it meant, he protested. "But Shiva-"
Dr. Kadowaki cut him off. "Is with you, true, but her status affect immunity ability is not Junctioned to you at this time. Deliberately," she emphasized, "given that some crucial healing spells that I needed to keep you alive were also covered by that immunity. So, the choice is yours: sleep on your own, or sleep assisted by the spell."
There really wasn't any choice. With a soft sigh of surrender he lay back, eyelids closing over blue-grey eyes, breath gradually slowing down toward the rhythms of sleep. He felt, rather than saw, Dr. Kadowaki dim the lights of the Infirmary, nodding absently in acknowledgement of her soft threat to check on him in an hour, and if he wasn't sleeping on his own by then, she'd use the spell.
Frankly, Squall wasn't certain if the doctor had in fact used the spell once his eyes were closed, given how rapidly exhaustion closed in around him. He hurt, everywhere, but the pain seemed to be dulling a bit. His last thought before darkness claimed him again was that maybe it didn't have to be the end of the world for Seifer to like him, or him to like Seifer in return. And then he knew no more.
//\\
There was something, while not exactly wrong, but… different about Squall, Seifer reflected in the weeks that followed, something more than the gunblade buckled securely in its holster at his rival's side, as if it had never left the brunet's side. It was almost as it, something that had been missing before, something that had been gone so long that even Squall had forgotten whatever it might have been, had abruptly been returned, clicking into place so seamlessly that it was difficult to know what had been absent in the first place.
It wasn't his expression that was different, that was for sure. Squall's expression, or lack of same, was the same all-purpose scowl that Seifer had seen more times than he'd cared to over the years they'd trained together. Not the look in his eyes, though, from the look of things, Leonhart had found a real doozy of a problem to sink that brooding mind of his into. Definitely not the clothes, though he still wasn't sure where the brunet found leather pants so tight he might well have been sewn into them, or how he got them off at night. Seifer found unexpectedly that he actually looked forward to figuring out the last question
Whatever it was, he couldn't figure it out, at least not from a distance. He grinned, toothily to himself at the thought. He'd already made the mistake of keeping his distance from Squall once; he didn't intend to do it again. Maybe that would finally get it through the thick brains of some of the dumber cadets and SeeDs in Garden that Squall was an ally, not an enemy. If not, then, well, he'd personally teach them the error of their ways in a one-on-one duel. It was a pity that as Garden's Commander, he wasn't allowed to kill any of the little shits, but bloodying them up a bit should both get the message through that Squall Leonhart was not to be touched, and relieve a bit of his frustration. His frustration at both their refusal to get on the fucking bandwagon, and at the confusion that haunted him every waking moment. The thoughts and stirrings that he couldn't get away from, that had stalked him constantly ever since he'd had the supremely foolish idea to kiss one Squall Leonhart during Time Compression.
After Time Compression, he'd tried to bury the feelings in paperwork (of all the horrors), avoiding Squall like the plague, in part to avoid the brunet's imagined retribution, but also in part to try and get away from the dreams, and feelings that haunted his mind. Fujin had spoiled that for him, barging into his office and forcing him to verbalize what he felt, which had somehow led her to the preposterous conclusion that he was in love with Squall. Somehow Tillmit had jumped on the bandwagon as well, delivering that coded message that Squall of all people, harbored romantic feelings for him, something that the Ice Prince had soundly denied when confronted face to face.
He really didn't know what to believe. He could dismiss Tillmit's idea without a qualm, just like he could tune her hyperactive voice out when he needed to, but Fujin was another matter. He trusted Fujin, normally more than he trusted himself, but this was different. Or was it? While the silver-haired sorceress might play the occasional joke on him (something he expected, and kept an eye out for, even though he knew full well that Fujin didn't mean anything malicious by it) he knew in his bones that when the chips were down, Fujin would move mountains, without magic, to make things happen for him. And he also knew, that when she said something, she meant it, something that should be obvious to an idiot given that his lovely sorceress spoke so little.
Ordinarily, he would have trusted Fujin's declaration almost without question, if not for the fact that his gut said it was impossible. There was simply no way it could be true, right? But Fujin had been confidant enough in her proclamation to share it with Squall, something she had confessed to him while Squall was still stuck in the Infirmary. Seifer still wasn't sure what to think on that score. While at first glance it had seemed to be a betrayal that he had a hard time crediting to Fujin, because he was rock-certain of her loyalties he'd been forced to look deeper. That, and because Fujin had recently subjected him to one of her slashing glances that not even he was immune to.
So here he was, in the Training Center observation room, spying on his rival hack grats and marlboros to death with his unique blade. Someone unfamiliar with Squall would have missed it, but he could easily tell that the brunet was chafing under the restrictions his recovering body forced him into. A glance at the control board told him that the monsters Squall was fighting were set at a level that was less than half the level that Squall normally trained at. He smirked, because every line of the brunet's posture as he efficiently cut the holographic monsters to pieces, all but shouted his displeasure at the level Dr. Kadowaki was forcing him to perform at.
Though, on a more somber note, he could also see just why the doctor had cut him off where she had. He could tell that Squall was getting tired, his stores of energy nearly not enough to sustain him through the battle, weak as the monsters were. Something painful pulled at his chest to see his powerful rival, brought so low by the interference of others. The recovery from the prolonged electrical torture the brunet had endured, was progressing more rapidly than the doctor had originally anticipated, hence Squall's presence here in the Training Center a mere three weeks after he'd been returned to Garden.
Out in the Training Center, Squall stumbled and fell; only barely missing what could have been a lethal strike from a grat tentacle. Sea-green eyes hard, Seifer slammed his hand on the controls, and with a sparkle of light, the monsters pressing Squall vanished. He smirked at Squall's reflexive glare in his direction, not only was the Ice Prince mad that he'd prematurely ended his fight, but the brunet was pissed that someone was checking up on him in the first place.
Discretely, Seifer sent a message to Dr. Kadowaki in the Infirmary, telling her to come collect Squall before he injured himself further. While the doctor was traversing the distance between her domain and the Training Center, he used his personal passcode to lock out any more attempts from Squall to program more opponents. Almost as soon as he finished, the tone indicating an unsuccessful attempt filled the control room, causing his already-present smirk to gain an additional toothy edge.
For a moment, Seifer toyed with activating the audio sensors scattered throughout the Training Center to hopefully pick up some of Squall's rare cursing (when pushed, the brunet could be impressively inventive), then abandoned the idea when the main doors swept open admitting Dr. Kadowaki's imperious form. He watched as she argued with Squall briefly, then grinned further at the way his rival finally nodded once at something the doctor was saying, and then meekly (well, as meek as Squall Leonhart could get anyway), follow her out.
Once they were gone, Seifer exited the observation room, slowly making his way to the place where Squall had nearly fallen. Reaching it, he positioned himself like Squall had before he'd fallen, wondering to himself.
He had been ready to end Squall's practice, long before it had proven necessary. His hand had been hovering over the abort command, had had the majority of the sequence typed out long minutes before Squall had fallen. Why? If it had been merely rivalry, he would have timed the brunet, would have been watching a clock to know just how long Squall lasted in his first practice since his torture before he'd fallen. He'd hadn't, the timing function of the observation room had never been activated.
Abruptly he started pacing, too restless to stay still. It all came down to this, he thought savagely. Wither or not Fujin, or Tillmit, or even both were right in their estimation of his and Squall's feelings. It was tempting to just say no, they were wrong, but no matter what Seifer did, he couldn't dismiss the possibility from his mind, the very fact of which was nearly enough to get him to consider the very faint possibility that they might just be right.
Finally he collapsed on the grass, unsure of what to do now. Even if, by some remote chance, he held any tender feeling for Squall, what would he do if those feelings turned out to be a lie, or even worse, that they weren't returned?
//\\
I know, I'm completely evil to leave it there, aren't I? I had to at least get the two boys to at least consider that they have some feelings for the other that aren't solely born of rivalry. I have to be so careful, because no matter how much I want them snuggling with each other, I want them to come to that place on their own, and not because I'm simply forcing them together. That means lots of hints, and slow dawning of realizations, no matter how slow and frustrating it might be to write (or to read, I know your impatient).
Don't forget to review my loyal readers! The more you review, the faster I work and the sooner the next chapter comes.