Icicle Knight, Firey SeeD
Chapter 15
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Nearly six months after Time Compression ended, and exactly three months after his now infamous kidnapping and torture escapade, Squall Leonhart faced his rival across a clearing in the Training Center, gunblades glinting in both their hands, both of them ready for anything. What was about to happen had waited for far too long, on that they both readily agreed. The six months since their momentous double-kill duel during Time Compression seemed ages ago, and why shouldn't it have been, given that it was one of the longest stretches of time they had gone without crossing blades in all their years of rivalry.
Gingerly, Squall gently swung Lionheart, allowing the weight of the gunblade to settle in his hands just a bit more securely than before. This would be a tricky match, given that Seifer would no doubt try to drag it out, in hopes of exhausting his still limited stamina before closing in to end the match. Which meant that he'd have to try to end it early, which would mean going on the offensive early and never letting up.
No matter what ended up happening, both rivals would be giving beyond their all for the match. Not only bragging rights were at stake, though that was one of the various prizes awarded the winner, at least until the next duel and the next winner. No, this duel was a measuring stick of where they stood with each other since the War, the events of Time Compression, and the recent kidnapping, something that was long over due.
For some inexplicable reason, Seifer had avoided Squall for nearly 3 months after Time Compression, and they had only barely started talking to each other again by the time he'd been taken by General Caraway. After that, Seifer had been treating him whenever they'd encountered each other in the corridors as if he'd been made from spun glass, an attitude that was somehow more infuriating, if that were possible, than his previous attitude of asshole-in-your-face.
When Squall had learned that Seifer had been the one to cut several of his early training sessions after his recovery off prematurely, and that he'd been the one to alert Dr. Kadowaki that he was overdoing it each time, he'd nearly strangled the blond. The only reason he'd hadn't had been because the said smothering doctor had been standing over him at the time, making it perfectly clear what would happen to him if he so much as put a toe wrong under her watch.
It wasn't entirely fair, Squall thought a touch resentfully as he watched Seifer settle Hyperion into his own grip. Seifer was naturally charismatic, and why wouldn't he be, what with those clear sea-green eyes, that shinning blond hair, and a personality that naturally gathered other people's attention. It didn't matter if you loved him or hated his guts, no one could successfully ignore him for long, and Squall should know; having definitely tried it on multiple occasions, and failed at it every last time. If Seifer had wanted to, he could no doubt have found any number of SeeDs or cadets to practice with, even before the War, not to mention his posse that seemed to worship the very ground he stood on. And yet, out of all the people in Garden who idolized him for what he'd done during the Sorceress War and before, Seifer, for some inane reason known only to him, went out of his way to include, bully, badger, and torment (it must be said), an anti-social, shy, retiring cadet-turned ex-Sorceress knight into participating more fully in the activities Garden had to offer.
Squall acknowledged that without Seifer to goad him into training and practicing more, he definitely wouldn't be as skilled as he was today, just as he knew that if Seifer hadn't striven to master him, the blond would be equally unskilled. The both owed their presence here to the other; neither would let the other forget it.
"Scared, Leonhart?" Seifer's face was set into his usual sneer, the mocking question nearly obligatory in their perpetual struggle.
Squall considered merely shrugging in answer, or even the entertaining possibility of not reacting at all, but eventually discarded both. For some reason, he wanted to do something different in their dance of wits, reactions and blades, and it would certainly shake Seifer up for him to actually verbalize a reaction to one of his taunts, possibly creating an opening Squall could use in the process.
"You wish." Was all he said, but sure enough, it was enough to make Seifer gape briefly in surprise, and while the blond was still slightly off guard, Squall charged.
No matter how long he lived, he would never fail to appreciate the song a gunblade makes when swung through the air, nor would he ever fail to recognize the strange beauty of the fighting dance. It was one of strange things that only professional soldiers and SeeDs really noticed, the way fighters moved with or against each other, hyperaware of the other's movements, something that civilian eyes rarely recognized. It was something only truly possible with fighters who had either trained together often, fought each other often, or both, as the case was with himself and Seifer. Each of them knew the other's fighting style by heart, and as such, they could predict each other's movements from only the slightest of physical cues.
Hah, look there. Seifer began an overhead slash, which Squall avoided easily by swaying out of the way, only to abort his own mid-level thrust halfway in order to parry Seifer's side thrust aimed at his head. Neither of them were pulling any punches in the fight, but then, they never did. But for all that, neither were planning on actually killing each other, which was against Garden rules anyway (one of the few that Seifer, and himself, Squall had to admit, had never truly challenged) that both boys had followed strictly from Day 1.
The sole departure from their normal fighting routine was that they both were Junctioned with a single GF apiece, at Dr. Kadowaki's insistence due to his continued recovery. The stamina boost afforded by Junctioning meant that he had a chance of making a good showing before his strength gave out, possibly, just possibly good enough to take the victory. Squall had argued that meant that Seifer shouldn't be Junctioned then , if the intention was to give himself a boost, but Seifer had raised a fuss at the thought and Squall had been overruled.
But why was he thinking about that now? Hurriedly ducking before his brief moment of reflection resulted in Hyperion parting his head from his shoulders, Squall retaliated with a burst of energy, hacking and slashing almost recklessly, forcing Seifer to give way before his relentless onslaught, the blond cursing as the uneven ground of the Training Center nearly caused him to trip, which would have given the victory to Squall easily. Too easily, for Squall's liking.
Moving with his trademark speed, Squall pressed his momentary advantage, though he spared enough mind from his assault to try and imagine how Seifer would try and counterattack, try being the relevant word in this case, he was certain. Fighting Seifer was similar to a chess game as well as a violent dance, each one trying to anticipate and counter the other's moves almost before they were even made. It was exhilarating, combat on several levels at once, and Squall would have it no other way.
Blue-grey eyes narrowed slightly in thought, how would Seifer try to counter him? It sure looked like he had the blond on the ropes so to speak; a not unreasonable assumption given that all Seifer could do at the moment was trying to block the majority of Squall's strikes. But he knew Seifer, knew him better than he knew anyone else, and the blond would never allow himself to get into such a situation without at least even a fragment of a plan to try and get out of it. It went against almost everything Squall knew of the blond's nature. So what was his plan…?
His eyes widened briefly as it came to him. Nearly too late, he just barely managed to pull Lionheart back into a guard position as Hyperion finally counterattacked. Seifer had been deliberately holding back his attack, waiting until the rapid strokes of Squall's assault had tired him out somewhat, and until the rhythm of the attack had been firmly established. A simple thrust, but one strategically placed as to be breaking the pattern, with the double hope that he, Squall, would be left flatfooted by Lionheart not being blocked as planned and Seifer would score the winning blow in that moment of distraction. It had been a good plan; one that Squall freely gave credit where it was due with a sharp nod, and the only thing that had saved him from falling for it had been his suspicion of what Seifer might have been planning.
As good as Seifer's gambit had been, it hadn't been good enough. The duel wasn't over yet, not by a long shot. But Seifer now held the advantage and it was now Squall who tried to hold him off as the blond steadily advanced. It was always stunning, the sheer power Seifer's one-handed swing could produce, and for all that Squall used two hands, he was hard put to defend himself against it.
But that didn't mean that he'd given up. On the contrary, his mind was working franticly to try and find a way to turn Seifer's attack to his own advantage. For a brief moment his mind went blank, Seifer's onslaught was simply too strong, the strikes were coming too fast. Then he managed to shake the slight panic away, and the first real glimmerings of a plan began to come to him.
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Seifer grinned openly at the sight of the renewed fires of determination kindling in Squall's eyes. It looked like little Squally might actually have a plan after all. Good, the fight would be boring if he didn't. So far, his rival hadn't disappointed him in the least regarding the quality of the fight he'd provided. The brunet had nearly had him when he'd almost tripped. Nearly, that is, given that the fight was still on.
He pressed his advantage, moving somewhat slower than Squall had, but still never giving his rival the breathing space to mount a counterattack. He was completely focused on the duel, so focused that if another opponent had come upon them, or some idiot cadet programmed a monster in their section of the Training Center, they would both have likely taken serious injury before they redirected their attention to the new threat and obliterated it together.
But there would be no interruptions tonight, not when the duel was deliberately scheduled for a late enough hour that all the cadets would be in their quarters for curfew, the halls patrolled by the new Disciplinary Committee appointed just a few months ago, three triplet sisters, all upper-level cadets who had fought exceptionally well in the attack by Galbadia Garden, one of them haven taken command of one of the various balconies, one who'd showed some real talent at organizing the underclassmen so that none of them ventured into a combat zone but still managed to help Balamb Garden repulse the invasion, re-organizing the internal barricades to better restrict access to Garden's corridors and sending stocks of potions to the hard-pressed defenders and the like, and one who had fought the Galbadian soldiers with a ferocity that had stunned onlookers and had impressed all who had seen her, even Fujin. Seifer had been oddly nostalgic giving them their new responsibilities, remembering when he and his posse had been given a similar responsibility by the Old Fart.
He tore himself away from his reminiscences in time to watch Squall somehow turn his attack inside out, the brunet kicking out with one slender leg and jerking at the blond's ankle, and while Seifer was still slightly off balance, use his legendary speed and agility to twist right out of Seifer's line of attack before Seifer could stop him, seemingly with the intention of running that uncanny blade right through Seifer's guts. Franticly he tried to dodge, tried to parry, only managing to raise Hyperion enough to just slightly alter the path of the glowing gunblade, dropping nearly flat on the ground to avoid the rest of it. Like their other duels, the fight was to first blood or submission, whatever came first, and if even the slightest bit of blood stained the bright blue blade, the fight would be over, with himself as the looser.
He refused to let that happen, at least not without a proper fight. Rolling swiftly to gain his feet before Squall took advantage of his position, he brought Hyperion up just in time to deflect a second strike, before he spotted a possible opening in Squall's guard. Quick as a snake, he took it.
While Squall's attention was fixed on Hyperion and the deadlock of blades they were currently maintaining, Seifer used his free hand to snatch at one of Squall's unprotected legs, positive that the Ice Prince wouldn't have anticipated such a tactic. Sure enough, it worked like a charm. Squall went down, hard, his exotic blade torn from his grip in the process, locked with Hyperion as it was.
Afterward, Seifer wouldn't have been able to say why what had occurred next had happened. It had just had, as if it had been the only thing that could happen at this stage. Deprived of his gunblade (at least temporarily) Squall had leapt on Seifer, using his speed to knock Hyperion from his grip, the both of them rolling around it the grass of the Training Center more like civilian children than the trained SeeDs they were, barely avoiding their discarded blades, grappling with each other and punching whenever they could find the room for it, at whatever they could reach. Somewhere, in the middle of it, something shifted, altered from the hate-filled atmosphere of a fight, to something…different.
Instead of trying to break free, and or hurt each other, the struggles took on a different tone, though no less desperate though for the change. Hands still grappled, though the grips were different, their purpose changed. Punching hands opened, grabbing at various articles of clothing, yanking them off, almost with out thought. Seifer didn't notice exactly when he had unbuckled Squall's insane collection of belts. Squall's trademark pants followed swiftly after the belts, surprisingly easy to remove, but Seifer didn't spare the time to savor that fact, his mind immediately occupied with the wealth of pale, smooth skin thus revealed for his inspection.
Squall was equally busy. No sooner had Seifer unbuckled the brunet's belts, than Squall had his trench coat off and was busily working on his pants, yanking them down without so much as a by-your-leave. Seifer didn't mind, he simply repeated the boldness, tugging Squall's jacket away, and the shirt, the leather pants following shortly thereafter. Both of them caressed the revealed skin, covering it with their swarming hands, tasting it with their mouths. By an unspoken, mutual decision they both avoided their straining cocks, wanting to wait as long as possible before they committed themselves to what they had begun, before they allowed themselves to acknowledge that what they were doing, was real.
Finally, the temptation grew to be too much for Seifer. They were both completely naked by that point, and the sight of all that pale skin, perfect except for the few places Seifer had laid scars on the otherwise flawless body, had become far too tempting. He'd touched most of it already, had let his fingers and tongue trace the scars with mocking gentleness, letting Squall feel the violence that had abruptly found a different outlet than normal in the pressure of his fingertips, saying without words that it would be very easy to cause serious damage with the slightest shift of mood. Squall had responded to that, the pressure of the brunet's fingers tracing Seifer's own battle scars had come so very close to ecstatic pain, the kind of pain he hadn't felt in nearly a year, since the sharp edge of Squall's gunblade had last touched his skin, marking him as the brunet's.
The touch of those sure, white fingers electrified Seifer, made him want to intensify this new contest, wanting to make Squall twist and turn in truth, wanted to make Squall be the first one to squirm at his touch. And he knew just the way to do it, knew just the way to make the Ice Prince melt.
One tanned hand closed firmly on the thick cock. Squall writhed like he'd been struck by lightning, eyes rolling back in his head, a short hiss of pleasure slipping past tight lips before the proud Ice Prince stifled the sound. Seifer bared his teeth at it, relishing the audible proof that he'd affected the icy brunet. He moved his hand, wanting to hear that faint sound of surrender escape his rival's mouth again.
He barely had time to properly enjoy the victory before Squall turned the tables, a slim, strong hand taking a hold on Seifer's own cock, so tight it was nearly painful. Seifer's eyes rolled back in his head at the sensation, forcing them open again to glare daggers down at Squall, the brunet's own eyes mere twilight blue slits sending his glare right back up at him.
Abruptly, Squall gave a heave, toppling Seifer onto his back, neither of them letting go of their prizes. Seifer tried to break free, but the slimmer boy was a dead weight atop him, and would not be budged. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't break free. Abruptly he went limp, and like he'd anticipated, Squall, expecting more struggling, overbalanced and Seifer was able to shift their positions yet again. Seifer hissed as Squall tightened his bone-white fist about his cock in revenge, the brunet still struggling to regain his advantage.
They settled into a rhythm then, taking turns on top, their hands pumping each other's cocks while their bodies rubbed up against each other as they struggled, both of them determined to be the one to hold out the longest, to be the one who forced the other to orgasm first. Rational thought fled, no heed was paid to the deadly weapons lying abandoned mere feet away from them in the grass as they struggled, struggled to win.
Their mutual orgasm caught them both by surprise with the force of it, miniature suns exploding inside them, as they lay, side by side in the cool grass, letting the simulated breeze of the Training Center cool down their overheated bodies.
Reality abruptly returned with a jolt. Squall broke away first, gathering his scattered clothes and retrieving his gunblade, running for the Training Center's entrance. Seifer made no move to stop him. He was far too stunned as well at what had just occurred to offer any protest at Squall's flight. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, trying to find enough of a semblance of composure that he felt as if he could safely brave Garden's corridors, deserted, as they no doubt were.
One thought ran through his mind, blotting out everything else, and undermining his attempts at self-control: whatever happened, he was seriously fucked.
//\\
It took long time before Seifer felt comfortable even thinking about what had happened in the Training Center, without reflexively trying to blank it out of his memory, and that was because he had no choice. He'd failed miserably at each attempt to erase it, each try only embedding the details deeper into his brain the more he tried to get rid of them. Even then, he tried to avoid thinking about it as much as possible, spending long hours at the Training Center (though he avoided the clearing where the abortive duel had taken place like the plague) trying to exhaust himself fighting monsters so he couldn't think anymore. That effort failed. Next he'd tried to bury himself in paperwork, that attempt failed even more miserably than the hard training. Every scrap of idea he had to try an escape the memory of what had happened in the Training Center with Squall, failed almost before he'd tried it.
Even in sleep he had no escape. On the contrary, it was worse while he slept. His dreams were full of memories mixed with fantasies alike, full of satin skin, silky hair and the way they had both felt under his hands, it was no wonder that it has ceased to be strange to wake up, hard and aching, with the sheets already damp and stained with both sweat and seed from his dreams.
Even though he might have wanted to blame Squall for his dreams, and his current inability to think, which he did, make no mistake, at least a little, the lions share of the guilt he felt, he laid at what he felt to be the proper target: himself. He's promised Squall a usual spar, to regain their usual footing with each other after the War, and the disorienting effects of Time Compression. Then the brunet had been kidnapped, and as a result had lain at death's doorstep for much longer than Seifer would ever be comfortable with. The duel had been supposed to set all the uncertainties they felt to rest, restructuring their relationship back into the rivalry that had defined them for the majority of their lives.
Instead, it had done nearly the exact opposite. Instead of putting things back in their proper places, it had jumbled them up even more, adding uncertainty instead of taking it away. Instead pf placing them back on familiar footing, it had sundered them, both of them fleeing to opposite ends of Garden's vast complex, maintaining the distance between them, neither willing to face the other.
Seifer couldn't honestly blame Squall if that was indeed the case. But even if he was completely wrong about what the brunet was feeling (something he very much doubted was true) if what Squall was experiencing was only half as confusing as what he was going through, he wished the Ice Prince luck at resolving it. Even half was more than enough to make a person's head spin.
Hyne's flaming balls. Would he ever be free of the memory of it? Would he spend the rest of his life, half-tormented by dreams and fantasies that would never come true in reality? He knew one thing: that even if what had occurred with Squall driven them both to mutual orgasm, it had been chaste compared to some of his other affairs, but nevertheless, it had ruined him for future encounters. Every kiss, every dalliance, every affair he embarked on in the future, and he had no reason to think that there wouldn't be affairs, he'd found plenty of willing bedmates even before the War, how much more would his stock rise with the female population after he'd become a genuine hero? At least, that had been the case.
He knew, deep in his bones, that any attempt to find some moderately attractive girl to scratch the itch would only make it worse. He'd actually tried a few times, went down to Balamb for a night of drinking and fucking, hoping that the combination of alcohol and willing flesh would block out the traitorous memory. Instead, it had backfired completely, for some reason the experienced whore's touches had felt worse than a fumbling virgin's, he'd barely been able to maintain an erection, at least before his traitorous mind had mentally replaced her with Squall, only then had he become hard in earnest. Even with the picture, his reluctance had showed, making it hard for him to achieve orgasm, the whore had climaxed at least twice before he'd finally cum.
Afterward, instead of feeling satisfied and sated, he felt dirty, used. He paid the whore, then walked slowly back to Garden, lost in thought, absently waving off the groundcar he'd arrived in. The walk had helped somewhat, had cleared his head from the majority of the alcoholic stupor he'd been suffering from since before the whore had picked him up in the bar, but that had backfired as well. True, it had helped with the hangover he'd been suffering from, but where his mind cleared, it clouded in other ways, thoughts of what he'd been trying to forget in the first place haunting him.
After nearly a month had gone by, he thought, briefly, of talking to someone about it, thinking that he might (possibly) get it off his chest, verbalize the images crowding his brain, he might gain some peace from it all. Almost as soon as it crossed his mind he banished the thought, discarding the notion almost reflexively. No, if he wanted to maintain any sanity at all, he couldn't. Not to mention, talking about it would spread the story, even if he only told Fujin and Raijin, who he trusted almost beyond all doubt.
Almost beyond all doubt, because Raijin's loyalties were slowly transferring to Fujin first, and because Fujin had leaked her interpretation of his pre-duel confusion to Squall before the brunet was kidnapped. They would always be his posse, but they were beginning to find a life where he did not always play a central part, and he couldn't, not truly, blame them entirely, as much as the more spiteful part of himself might want to. They would never cut him out completely, but their differing responsibilities, not to mention Fujin's and Raijin's visibly growing bond, didn't leave them the time together that they'd once had. Seifer understood that, just as he understood that if he ever needed them for anything, they would be at his side in a heartbeat, ready to aid him however they could.
Like they had during Squall's kidnapping. It had been Raijin who had organized the briefing and set up the base camp from which they'd launched the assault. Fujin had led one of the squads searching for the ex-knight, making Seifer understand that due to that status, she might be able to pick out his magical signature. Both of them had managed the camp while in use, had supervised the dismantling of it, and set Garden back on course to Balamb while Seifer had been glued to the Infirmary and Dr. Kadowaki's treatment of the then critically-injured Squall.
But it wasn't the same, and would never be the same. It was something, he was slowly coming to realize, that could be applied to a variety of things in the aftermath of the Sorceress War. He could see it in the eyes of the clients that came to request missions from him, heard it in the Intelligence reports he received. Could even feel it when he woke in the mornings, hard as a fucking rock, sticky, and aching, with Squall Leonhart's name on his lips. Everything was changing, things he'd thought to be rock solid beneath his feet had turned out to the consistency of packed dirt, still solid, but with the option of slipping out beneath him like quicksand if something happened. Squall, his posse, Garden, himself. Everyone was changing around him, and he still didn't know what to make of it, fighting to keep his feet with everything shifting around him, not to mention the infernal paperwork taking up far too much of his day and distracting him from puzzling out the answer to any one of the number of things he had to ponder over.
He truly didn't know what to think anymore. Right now, in the aftermath of the Sorceress War, and of the poorly thought out "duel" with Squall, nothing was certain. Nothing.
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For the first few days after his abortive duel with Seifer, Squall hid. He avoided all common areas, rarely straying beyond his quarters unless he absolutely had to leave. He might have continued the behavior indefinitely, but Dr. Kadowaki used her medical override code on his door after not showing up in either her infirmary for his continuing
checkups, or in the cafeteria for meals. Stern and unsympathetic, she had shooed him out of his own room (he still wasn't entirely sure haw that had happened) and had somehow extracted a promise from him to avoid repeating that behavior in the future, combined with dire threats of what he could expect if she caught him at it again in the future.
That left him with little choice but to try and find isolated places in Garden to hole up in, places where he could be almost sure that Seifer wouldn't find him, venturing into public locations like the cafeteria only when they were about to close, and the only people left there were the workers starting to clean up. Thus they were able to report to Dr. Kadowaki that Squall did indeed show up for and eat at least two meals a day (the doctor would have preferred three, but ha known making the bargain that two would be the best she could get), and that any possibility of encountering Seifer had been nearly completely erased, even if Seifer had been looking for him in the first place.
In the name of all of Shiva's Ice, why had he jumped on top of Seifer like he had? It was obvious (to him at least) that if he hadn't done that, the whole…incident in the Training Center would never have happened. That made what had occurred there his fault, just like it was his fault that Ultimecia had taken him as Her knight, no matter what Seifer believed.
When he'd been released from the Infirmary full time, he'd made a bee-line for the Library, finding there that his clearance was completely restored, something that he'd put to immediate use in researching Seifer's claim that the reason Ultimecia had found him vulnerable (something he deeply resented the implication of) to Her influence because he'd been so alone at Garden. He hadn't been able to find any direct proof of that, but what he did find was a paper by an Estharian scientist named Odine, the same scientist who had designed a good deal of the SeeD magical equipment supply. In it, Odine (who Squall privately came to think of as a bit of a quack) described the strange abilities of his test subject, who, though not named directly in the paper (though reading between the lines Squall discovered that it was a young girl, maybe four or five years of age), was seemingly capable of "Connecting" to others, either present, or with whom she had an important emotional connection already established. Depending on how those she could remotely connect to felt about her, she could even reach beyond them to Connect to people that they in turn felt close to, and so on and so forth.
The catch in the ability came if one if the people she contacted in that manner, distrusted her for any reason, consciously or unconsciously, even just a little bit. She was able to reach that one person, but was prevented from traveling further down the figurative road of intimate ties. Odine wrote that he planned to make a machine that could replicate that ability, allowing others to use the girl's abilities, which, he wrote, were unique in the world. A nearly valid claim, Squall acknowledged, given that at the time Odine wrote it, Esthar had been a mighty empire, ruled by the nearly-invincible Sorceress Adel, someone Squall vaguely recalled as someone Ultimecia had been interested in, though he couldn't say just why.
Closing the file, he'd sat back in his chair and thought. Odine had written that paper just before Esthar had closed its borders 17 years ago. From what little Ultimecia had told him about the girl She had torn the world apart searching for, and that he remembered, Ellone had been about four or five years old about that time. And the machine Odine built to replicate her abilities, must have been what enabled Ultimecia to reach into this time frame to wreak Her havoc.
Calling up a few files on sorceresses, again out of an Estharian database Garden had access to, he read a few reports on just how a Sorceress passed Her power off to another, and just what the requirements were for such a transfer to be completed successfully. Apparently they couldn't be passed off to any random person like the common wisdom said, but there were specific requirements needed for the transfer to work.
One of the things needed, was an advanced magical ability, it didn't have to be active at the time of transference, it just had to be there. And something else was needed, something Odine and other Estharian scientists had hemmed and hawed about, but had failed to pin down in any real detail, apparently it was some core of inner ruthlessness that shaped the influx of magic, an iron hard will that forced the incoming rush of power to twist, to change from raw energy the transfer really was, into a Sorceress's unique brand of magic.
That told him that if Ultimecia had indeed used Dr. Odine's machine, fully realized by Her time period, she would have needed someone to latch on to in this one, a sorceress in fact, who shared the same diamond core that she did. Once there, in the mind of Sorceress Edea, She was able to influence and use Matron's connections, both political and emotional, to carve out a place for Herself in this new time frame, and claim a knight.
That was where his own part came in. While Seifer had been targeted by Ultimecia's usage of Edea's pathways, he had been able to keep Ultimecia out of his mind. Squall had not, though it seemed as if he had managed to block off his own emotional connections to Her, forcing Her to search for Ellone the hard way.
That didn't matter to him. Seifer had fought off Ultimecia' tentacles, had managed to evade Her snare. He had seen it, he knew it was the truth. But he, Squall Leonhart, had failed where Seifer had succeeded, had fallen under Her spell, while Seifer had managed to stay free. That was why he hadn't fought the probation, harsh as it had been. That was why a small part of himself had welcomed the torture, because it had been no more than his due. Now he had another burning shame to throw on top of the first. What had occurred between Seifer and himself in the Training Center… he felt his cheeks heat at the mere thought of it, then sobered. It hadn't happened, that's what he kept trying to tell himself, and what he'd tell anyone else incase the word somehow got out and some idiot was foolish enough to ask him what had happened. Nothing had happened. Nothing.
For the millionth time, he retraced the progress of the duel in his mind, trying to see if there had been anyway those events could have been avoided. For the millionth time he tried to change events in his mind, so that things fell out differently. No dice. Every time he tried it, he'd failed miserably at his intended goal, the figures in his mind representing himself and Seifer fell on each other, sometimes hard, sometimes tenderly (of all the weirdness), sometimes playing out exactly what had happened to the letter. Every time he tried to diagram out a fight where…that didn't happen, it did, much to his profound annoyance. He'd had cause to regret having a closet full of nothing but tight leather pants after each attempt.
No matter. He would continue trying until he found a way to fight Seifer in a way like they used to do, where no mystifying kisses or…other related events happened, where he and Seifer simply fought each other to exhaustion and beyond, only to repeat the fight with a different outcome the next week or so, if not sooner.
And as unappealing as it may sound, those fights might be over for good, unless he and Seifer could get their acts together enough so that the only mauling that occurred during one of their duels was due to gunblades and fists, not…other stuff. Which, based on the last two times they had fought, didn't look as if it would happen anytime soon, right now, the only surefire way to make sure that it didn't happen again, was to avoid fighting with Seifer, and to even more sure, was to avoid Seifer entirely. It shouldn't even take that much effort, at least for now. Not given that Seifer was most likely avoiding him, just as much as he was avoiding Seifer.
It would take time, not to mention a miracle, to bring them together again, at least for now, Squall knew in his bones. Now, it was time for both of them to consider the repercussions of their actions, something he knew they both needed. Maybe by the time they allowed each other to find each other again, these issues would have been dealt with, and wouldn't half to trouble them again. He hoped as much.
//\\
ta-da!!! Something that you've been anticipating for a loooong time finally happened, didn't it? Didn't it??? Nice to know that a bit of nudging can get me to eventually deliver, isn't it???
In all seriousness, this chapter was a difficult one. and that was for one reason, and one reason only. This was my very first yaoi sex scene (my first sex scene period) that I've felt good enough about to post. Please review and let me know how I did?
And don't worry, Squall and Seifer WILL sort out their confusion (they'd better… or else!) at least partway by the next chapter. But if they were freaking out the way they did over a single KISS, then you can bet they'd freak out even more now. That's just the way they are. Though you can bet that once their respective support groups find out what just happened… things are going to get interesting, very soon.
Please be patient for the next chapter, I'm nearly at the end of what I'd planned (again!) so I need to do a little brainstorming if the story is going to continue past next chapter. Or not, so please bare with me.
You will review, won't you? :puppy eyes: