Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Saltwater
Chapter VI
Sleep had evaded Seifer for much of that night. For the longest time he'd laid there, listening to the crash and recede of the tide against the sand and rocks, while thoughts did the same inside his tired head. At around four in the morning he had finally fallen into a fitful sleep, waking several times to pale light beginning to stream through the curtains.
The events that had unfolded several hours ago filled Seifer with a sort of cold dread. He struggled to believe that he had walked to Quistis's room, knocked the door and stood there like a serial killer while she had stared back at him like a deer caught in headlights. What had he even planned on doing? How did he possibly think that doing that could have even a remotely good outcome? He felt like an idiot, overwhelmed with his own stupidity.
Seifer stared for a long time at the bedroom door when he woke up. To leave this room would be to face crushing embarrassment and a level of awkwardness that would go beyond the shame that had descended on him last night outside Quistis's bedroom.
He debated staying in his bedroom for the remainder of the day, but this was a pathetic route to take and he knew it. He was a man who used to throw himself into battle without a second thought – "headstrong", they'd called him, among other less flattering things – and now he found himself cowering in his room for fear of having to cross paths with a petite blonde woman. It was laughable.
Seifer flung on a shirt and a battered pair of dark trousers that were in dire need of sewing and probably could have used a wash too. He swung open the door with more impetus than he truly felt, wincing slightly as it banged the side wall. He could hear someone playing the radio in the kitchen and the comforting clatter of plates. He could smell toast, but not burnt. Swallowing a lump in his throat he walked with a confidence that he did not feel into the kitchen, where Quistis stood, apparently tidying up a breakfast of scrambled eggs with toast.
She was dressed simply in a beige dress, different from her old ostentatious battle attire of bright orange. Her hair was tied back loosely at the nape of her neck, with several strands of hair at the front falling at the side of her face. The overall effect was one of indifferent elegance, of someone who was naturally so lovely that not even a plainly-coloured dress or a vaguely rushed hairstyle could dim her radiance.
Quistis looked at him with an expression of subdued surprise, one eyebrow very slightly raised. The morning light suited her. Pale light for a pale girl. She didn't know what to say and neither did he. Awkwardness was thick in the air, like a fog. Seifer cleared his throat.
"You made eggs?"
It was about the most feeble thing he could have said. He saw the corner of her mouth jerk slightly, as if she couldn't quite believe he'd said it either.
"Yes," she said. "Uh, do you want any? I made some toast too."
"Yeah, sure," said Seifer. He felt awkward having her make him food so often, or so it seemed. He was perfectly capable of doing it himself. He strode purposely towards the stove and reached out to take the bowl of beaten eggs from Quistis's hands.
"It's fine," he said. "I can do it."
"No, really," said Quistis, averting her eyes from his face and keeping them on the bowl. "I'll do it. You've just got up."
She didn't relinquish her hold on the bowl, but instead brought her vision slowly up to Seifer's face. It was a strange moment; the two of them with their hands on the same bowl, each one refusing to give in to the other in some bizarre power struggle. The silence between them would have been devastating had it not been for the cheery tune on the radio in the background.
Seifer could feel his heart pounding underneath his shirt. He still refused to let go of the bowl, slowly moving his other hand to fully take it from hers and place it on the sideboard next to the stove. His face was unsmiling, but he found that she let him take it. He could see a slight blush of red appearing on her light cheeks.
"You know... ah..." he began. "About last night-"
"I don't care," she said suddenly. Seifer cocked his head and frowned with confusion.
"What?"
"I don't care," she repeated, her expression strangely hard, although Seifer noticed that her voice was shaky and her breathing apparently closely controlled.
"Don't you want to know why I came to your room?" said Seifer, almost on the verge of smiling, but not quite.
"No," she said, and she raised her chin a little higher, making her look proud. "I don't know why you did and I don't much care."
A whisper of a thrill coursed through Seifer's veins at that moment. He felt reckless and stupid. In one swift movement he bent down to her face and looked her straight in those aquamarine eyes. She blinked, eyes wide and surprised.
"What are you doing?" she hissed, not quite with malice.
He didn't speak and instead pressed his mouth against hers, with no hands at her back or cupping her delicate face. She didn't move, like a statue. He pulled away, chest rising and falling with the shock of what he'd just done. It was his turn to register shock at himself, at his own foolish action.
Her face was impossible to read.
She lunged at him, grabbing his face in her hands, feeling the strong, fine bones of his jaw under her fingers and he made a small startled noise in his throat before he could wrap his arms around her slight form and drag her to him, devouring her mouth with his. He stumbled a little in the moment, and was dimly aware that he had knocked something over, but he didn't care what it was. All Seifer knew or felt at that moment in time was the feel of her mouth on his, the sense of her tongue in his mouth and the small waist underneath his hands. His heart was thudding away somewhere around his temples, in his throat. Quistis made a quiet animal sound into the kiss and Seifer felt his knees melt.
The moment was as defining as it was reckless.
Footsteps, then. Coming through the hallway to the kitchen and Seifer and Quistis let each other go, moving apart as if they had never even crossed paths. She turned quickly, and he saw her put a hand to her mouth. He looked to the floor to see that he had knocked over a butter knife, which had left a greasy streak where it had landed.
There was a flutter of dark silk, and a tiny fairy-like figure made its way into the kitchen. It was Matron, her black hair hanging down her back and her face as pale as the moon, ethereal and lovely. She smiled at Seifer and Quistis with visible pleasure and gave a sigh.
"It's such a beautiful day," she said. "I think I might go for a walk."
They were both at a loss for words, and managed an uneasy smile. Matron raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at Seifer. "Seifer, darling, why do you look so hangdog this morning?"
Seifer blinked at her, taken aback. Presumably, as a former sorceress, she had an inkling that things weren't as they seemed. "No reason," said Seifer, who as an afterthought flashed his most charming smile, a veritable wall of straight, white teeth to keep Matron out of his proverbial castle. "I just knocked over something and almost broke it."
"Oh?" said Matron, still looking at him quizzically
"Yeah... I almost destroyed the butter dish, but I only knocked over the knife."
"That's good then," she smiled. Then she said dreamily, "I do like that butter dish."
She didn't speak much after that, choosing instead to make herself a cup of tea and staring out of the kitchen window down towards the beach, occasionally repeating what a lovely day it was. Quistis smiled thinly and avoiding Seifer's gaze.
It was excruciating, but the moment had been so brief, so swift, that it was almost as if it had never happened. It seemed utterly nonsensical. Quistis touched her cheeks with a delicate hand, checking to see if they were as warm as she felt they were, but they seemed normal. Her stomach churned in a way that she didn't recognise at the memory of that recent, fleeting moment. She swore she could still taste him on her tongue.
Time dragged like a heavy corpse across a sand dune. Matron made pleasant chit-chat and discussed various vegetables that she wanted planted in her new plot. After half an hour, Quistis stood up from the kitchen table suddenly, unable to deal with the whirlwind of conflict inside her head and the hammering of her heart inside her ribcage. She felt herself flush at her sudden behaviour, and look from Matron to Seifer.
"I feel quite warm," she said. "I'm going to go get some air."
She didn't wait for a response, instead choosing to leave the kitchen swiftly. She followed the long, winding, stone path down to the beach and stood there, barefoot, on the sand, feeling the millions of tiny grains between her toes. She pulled her hair from its ponytail and let it fall down past her shoulders, blown in the wind. She ran a long, pale hand through the free strands, and shut her eyes, recalling the shocking moment that had occurred this morning.
Quistis couldn't deny to herself that she hadn't imagined a moment such as that over and over again. Many times she had lain awake at night, knowing that he was just down the hall, lying in a bed of his own much like hers. She'd lost count of the dreams she'd had where she'd felt his weight on top of her, and his tongue in her mouth. She had inevitably woken from those dreams feeling a maelstrom of confusion, shame and embarrassment, as well as an acute sense of dismay. Seifer was a person who several years ago she had been on the verge of killing, who at one point she could have said that she almost hated.
Now she was having the sorts of dreams about him that she associated with the poorly-written romance novels that Rinoa read.
But there was something about this that went beyond the usual carnal yearnings that everybody felt when they were lonely. Over the last few weeks she had grown to enjoy his company, but not just that – to crave it. Ever an expert actress, an Ice Queen, Quistis never let on how she would hang on Seifer's every word, how she had to hold back the true extent of her laughter at his jokes and sarcastic asides.
Last night where he had come to her room, knocked, done nothing and then walked away had weighed heavily on her mind. Sleep had been difficult, and she still felt tired. She had wanted nothing more than to drag him into her bedroom and pull him down with her, just to feel those large hands on her body and to watch him sleep, face flushed and radiant.
Quistis heard footsteps coming down the stone steps and inwardly groaned. She didn't have to look to know who it was – she knew that heavy tread far too well. She wouldn't look at him. She couldn't. Doing that would involve an affirmation of feelings that more than anything she wanted to crush.
Seifer didn't speak for a few moments, but she could sense his tall form standing behind her and see the long shadow he cast across the sand. Eventually, she turned to look at him, craning her neck up to stare him straight in the face with a stare so rude that she was surprised that he didn't flinch to see it.
"Well then," she said.
Seifer just looked back at her with a strangely calm expression on his face. He didn't seem to be experiencing the tumultuous riot of feelings that she was, and that made her angry in a way that she struggled to understand.
"You're angry at me," Seifer said. There was no humour in his voice, nor cockiness. It was disconcerting.
Quistis's lovely face twisted into a snarl that was almost feral. "You're damn right I'm angry at you," she said. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?"
Seifer raised an eyebrow at her and his mouth twitched as if he was fighting back the urge to laugh.
"Don't you dare laugh at me," Quistis snapped. She crossed her arms. "Well? What have you got to say for yourself?"
Seifer raised a hand and brushed a silky strand of light hair behind one of Quistis's little ears. "Someone as pretty as you doesn't need to be so mad all the time," he said.
Quistis slapped his hand away and gaped at him, incredulous. "Don't think for one second that your pitiful lines are going to work on me, Almasy," she said, in a tone as cold as liquid nitrogen.
Seifer's trademark grin worked its way back onto his face. "Ever the fucking instructor," he said, in a voice that was full of suppressed mirth.
Quistis went to say something cutting, feeling a surge of fury burst inside her chest. But it was fury merged with something else. It was a different kind of feeling that flowed from the chest outwards, wordless.
"I'm not going to say sorry you know," said Seifer, with a hint of his old obnoxiousness. "I'm glad that I kissed you." He stepped closer to her, so that they were only inches apart on the yellow sand. "I'd do it again too."
"Shut up," Quistis hissed.
"Even now," said Seifer. "You're still a fucking Ice Queen." This time there was no humour in his voice, or cockiness, or warmth. He had mirrored her to disarming effect and Quistis looked him straight in those sea-green eyes. They were narrowed in the way he used to do when he was a young boy, when he wanted to antagonise because he had been antagonised first. When he wanted to hurt. Quistis felt herself blanche with embarrassment. Why did she have to be so cold all the time, at the merest hint of feeling? Who ever benefited from her awkward nature and her coldness?
Seifer threw her one last look of contempt. "You know, I feel sorry for you," he said. And then he turned away from her and walked back the way he came, up the winding stairs while the sea howled at his back.
Pity. There was no worse fate for her. Quistis watched him walk away from her up those steps and felt a fist squeeze her heart.
Quistis was sick of being pitied.
Seifer stormed back to his room and slammed the door hard. Usually this reaction would illicit an instantaneous response from Matron, but nothing. She was nowhere to be found. The stone house was lonely and large and the walls loomed up around him, a prison, mocking him.
He felt like a fool. The events that had occurred this morning in the kitchen had been at once thrilling and apparently hugely stupid and misjudged. He thought she felt the same way he did. All those endless little moments, every lingering look that had made his stomach jump, each dream, each accidental touch, the quiet companionship he felt they shared, alone in this house.
Apparently it wasn't enough. In her eyes he was still the same selfish, doomed bastard who was responsible for the deaths of countless people, and for the suffering of many more. He was nothing. Seifer felt a tremendous wave of self-pity crash over him and felt overwhelmed with shame.
He slumped on the bed and hung his head.
It seemed that there was truly no redemption for a fallen knight.
Quistis spent the majority of the day outdoors. The concept of heading back into that house, that large, silent house, bereft of the comforting noise of children. That kitchen, the place where Seifer had pressed his lips to hers, and held her at the base of her spine. The memory made her stomach flip but it also incited a feeling of general nausea and discomfort.
She managed to drag out her walk for several hours, until the bright sun became lower and the sky turned darker, shortly before the sun disappeared from sight. The beach was cold though, and her feet were becoming uncomfortably chilled against the fast-cooling sand. Over and over in her head she had replayed the conversation, and recalled the dark look in Seifer's eyes as he'd reminded her of what a cold, sad human being she was, how incapable she was of experiencing normal human feelings.
But it wasn't that she was incapable of feeling those things. She felt them as strongly as anyone else. The problem was being incapable of showing them. Beyond normal human acts of kindness, the same as anyone would do, Quistis hit a mental roadblock. She had never been the sort of girl to drape herself over a boy and gaze stupidly into his eyes, or kiss in public, or anything like that. She wasn't Selphie or Rinoa. In many ways she was a lot more like Matron. She was subtle, not ostentatious.
Quistis made her way back into the house, every step loaded with dread and embarrassment. To her surprise, the only light burning in the house was from Seifer's room. There was no indication that anyone else was in the house. Quistis wondered vaguely where Matron was, but then again it wasn't unknown for her to disappear for hours at a time without telling anyone, either off with Cid or on one of her long walks. Now that her children were grown, she didn't feel the need to stay in the house all the time. Quistis felt simultaneously relieved and anxious – she had dreaded answering any questions that Matron may have directed her way, but she was also full of apprehension at being alone in the house with Seifer, with no one else for company.
She opened the door slowly, wincing at each creak and whine the hinge let out, and slowly tip-toed into the kitchen. She turned on a lamp and just stood there for a moment, today's scenes running through her head for what felt like the millionth time. She felt exhausted by it. If it had been possible for a brain to ache, hers would have.
It was almost dark now, and the house was full of shadows. Quistis debated making herself some food, but decided against it, choosing not to linger in the kitchen or anywhere else in the house. She made her way to her room stealthily and shut the door, again feeling perturbed and irritated by the creaking hinge.
She changed her clothes and brushed the stubborn leftover sand off the soles of her feet and stared at the door. It was as if her hearing was hyper-sensitive. Quistis listened hard for any signs of movement from the room down the hall, wondering if Seifer was doing the same. She doubted it.
This was Seifer, after all.
Quistis took a brush and ran it through her wind-swept hair. She wasn't sure why she was attributing all these feelings of kindness and gentleness and depth to Seifer. It seemed insane to imagine these things about someone who only several years ago was one of the most odious people she had ever met. Now he seemed different, but the key word there was "seemed". Quistis knew that logically people just didn't change overnight, but was several years on overnight?
It was true. He was different. While the old arrogance and obnoxiousness still exited on some level inside that man, it was nowhere near as potent. There was a strange silence about him now. It was hard to imagine that the same man who wielded a hyperion, who had slashed open Squall's face, who had thrown Rinoa to a 20ft tall sorceress was the same man who would go outside on sunny days and plant flowers and vegetables for the woman he considered his true mother, the same man who was pleasant, if sarcastic, friendly and so, so beautiful that it made her head spin.
It was as if there were two Seifer's.
Quistis felt tired from pondering this. She felt tired by a lot of things. She was tired of acting solely on logic and getting nowhere. She wanted to do something reckless and wild and thrilling. She wanted to feel things, to truly feel them.
Quistis put down the brush shakily and looked at herself straight in the mirror. Her hair was still a tangled mess from the sea air, but her skin glowed and her eyes were bright. She looked young in a way that she desperately wanted to feel.
She turned her head towards the door again and walked towards it, before opening it quickly and walking into the hallway.
She stopped dead and suppressed a shocked gasp. In the hallway was Seifer, who had seemingly just headed out of his own room in the same whirlwind. He looked at her, his eyes wide but not necessarily surprised. His expression was hard to read. She went to speak, but the words lodged in her throat.
He walked towards her, slowly, and she could hear his feet on the cold stone floor. A sliver of light from inside his room settled over him, making him look like something from a dream and not quite tangible.
Quistis let out a breath, as if she'd been holding it in for days. She shut her eyes, then opened them.
"I'm sorry," she said. It came out as a whisper. He was inches from her. She looked up and lost herself in those emerald eyes. Seifer wasn't smiling.
"I know," he said.
Then he dipped his head, brought himself down to her diminutive height and kissed her.
All her thoughts of confusion and worry evaporated and Quistis wrapped her arms around his back. He broke the kiss.
"I want you to stop thinking," he said. There were no words. She nodded mutely. He took her hand and led her into his room. Quistis's head swam with all the possibilities that were to erupt with the choice she was about to make, but she shut off her brain.
She stopped thinking and just lived. She breathed him in as he pulled her clothes over her head. She gasped as he bent down to kiss her neck. She arched into him.
He stopped, for one moment, and looked at her. A smile spread across his chiselled features and she felt shy, and dropped her gaze. "You're so beautiful," he breathed. "And you don't even know it."
After that it was all a skin-coloured haze. He was more beautiful than she'd ever imagined, all slim, toned limbs and strong arms. His movements were deft and practised, not the awkward fumblings she'd experienced as a teenage SeeD in an unlocked dorm. He wasn't gentle but he didn't hurt her. She let herself by carried away by him and was mesmerized. Quistis had forgotten how wonderful it was, to be this close with another human being, to feel him inside her, gasping into the curve of his shoulder and dragging her nails down his back with an animalistic need that belied her usual stoic nature. Hearing him moan and seeing him bite his lip as she pushed him on to his back was enough to inflame her. She watched his face contort with pleasure as she rocked back and forth, feeling his hands grip her hips, before pulling her into his lap, just so he could kiss her and groan into her mouth.
He was not how she imagined him to be. He was far, far more than that.
Finally Seifer reached his climax, that great arching peak of pleasure, and cried out, clutching her to him, tangling his hands in her hair, tiny droplets of sweat on his brow. He stared at her, both of them panting and kissed her once, twice on the forehead, before untangling himself from their sweaty limbs and lying down on the bed, side by side, arms around eachother and seemingly lost for words. He kissed her countless times on her lips and face and gave a deep sigh.
Seifer smiled at her and Quistis found herself smiling back. They were radiant and glowing in the dim light of the small lamp that Seifer kept in his room. Quistis felt elated and dizzy with happiness. For the first time in her life, it seemed, she had done something purely out of feeling rather than grim logic and it was wonderful. She ran a hand down Seifer's side, and that soft touch seemed to be just as full of emotion as what they had just done. He pulled her as close to him as she could possibly be and ran a hand down her face. The smile had left his face now and was instead replaced by an expression that was nothing if not intense, but altogether very, very calm at the same time.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then thought better of it. She studied his lips.
Like some god come down to earth to spend one night with a mortal, Quistis thought, dreamily.
Seifer gave a contented sigh and wrapped his arms around her, so that her head was resting on his chest. It was the most beautiful moment of his life, he decided. Within minutes he could feel her breathing slow, and he realised that she was asleep.
"I love you, you know," he muttered at her sleeping form.
It was so much easier to say when she couldn't hear. Seifer smiled to himself and shut his eyes, feeling a gentle wave of sleep pass over him, limbs heavy and languid.
It was like a sort of redemption. Seifer slept well for the first time in a long time.
Again, sorry for the wait for this chapter! I've been fussing over it for weeks, and now it's finally done. I'm sort of just making it up as I go along, but I've got a more concrete idea of what'll happen now, so hopefully it'll be updated faster now. Thanks for all your lovely reviews everyone. =)
-Lux
