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batsutousaiTitle: Broken For the Scars I Forgave
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Author: Batsutousai
Pairing: Seifer Almasy/Squall Leonhart
Rating: Teen
Warnings: AU, established relationship, post-canon, hurt/comfort, PTSD, recovery, learning to forgive, discrimination
Summary: Seifer's time serving Ultimecia had led to him betraying the person who meant the whole world to him, and, when all is said and done, a lonely death is the only future he can envision for himself. Squall, however, has different plans.
A/N: Listening to a Seifer & Squall playlist I started ages ago while I was playing Stardew Valley, and a few of them together left me with some ideas for a fic where Seifer and Squall had been an item before canon. Which is a plot I've wanted to do for a while, I just couldn't figure out when to set it and/or how to handle the canon.
You know, I somehow didn't think this was going to be nearly as long as it turned out. FML.
Uhm, no Rinoa-bashing? Apparently, I can handle her fine post-canon and/or without her irritating crush and all that came from it. ^^; She does play a relatively large part, but she should be tolerable to other people who wanted to wring her neck in canon. I hope. XD
Also, as a note, since people mentioned it the last time I didn't vilify Rinoa, she's not going to join Squall and Seifer in a threesome. They are only ever friends.
Can also be read on Archive of Our Own or LiveJournal.
It had always amused Seifer, just a lot, how everyone seemed so willing to believe that Squall was chillier than a Trabian winter.
Which wasn't to say that Squall was the warmest, most personable person on Gaia, because he wasn't. He had issues, the most obvious of which was that he hated to get attached to people – Seifer had always known it had something to doing with Squall being abandoned, but it had taken unjunctioning his GFs for almost a month before he could remember who the people who'd abandoned him (them both, really) were, and his inexplicable dislike of certain classmates and teachers had suddenly made a lot more sense – so he'd do his best to keep people at arm's length. But, once you got inside his shell, so long as you were in private, he was plenty personable.
(Not warm, though; probably because of who his favourite GF was, Squall's hands and feet were pretty much always blocks of ice. Which Seifer had cared a lot more about before he'd got Ifrit and was constantly running hot.)
Still, in a lot of ways, Seifer was glad that people avoided Squall, because it meant he had his partner all to himself. Outside of, you know, training and classes and meals and Seifer's duties with the Disciplinary Committee. And Squall's bad habit of losing time in the library or going down to the beach and staring out over the water for hours. (At least Seifer always knew where to find him.)
So why, one might then ask, was Seifer always such an ass to Squall in public? Mostly to keep up appearances – he could admit that he maybe, just a little, had some abandonment issues of his own and had found his own special way of keeping people from getting too close – but also because it was actually a little fun to have to 'make up' for being an unapologetic jerk. The fact that Squall would always laugh when Seifer prostrated himself and made an unnecessarily large production of the whole thing maybe also had a lot to do with it.
But he wouldn't be winning a laugh from Squall again, not after this massive fuck-up. He'd probably just turn around and walk away if Seifer tried to apologise, no matter how heartfelt it was.
Seifer would never again get to complain about how Squall knew where the socks and mittens were, or feel the pleasant chill of Squall curled tight again his back, arms wrapped tight across Seifer's chest, as though he was afraid Seifer might slip away while he slept. He'd never see the excited gleam in Squall's eyes again, neither in their bed, nor when they crossed blades. Because that gleam had been missing ever since D-District, when Seifer went too far, had been replaced by a grim shadow that made Seifer sick to think about.
(Not as sick as when he remembered D-District. That he'd strung up the man he loved and actually tortured him. And it didn't matter that Seifer hadn't been wholly himself, because Squall didn't know that, couldn't possibly know that Seifer had almost managed to stop himself, to pull Squall down and do everything to make it better. Except he hadn't, had been reminded that they were blowing up Garden and had thrown that in Squall's face, then left him to the soldier at the controls.)
"Here they come!" the man with the long hair called.
Seifer looked up, past the harpoon that the large, scarred man was holding out from his body, between Seifer and the rest of the people who had come to the Pandora with Squall and them. (The harpoon was meant as a threat, he knew: 'Move and I'll skewer you.' Which Seifer would totally deserve, but he wanted to live long enough, at least, to be sure that Squall had made it back alive. That Seifer's own stupidity hadn't ruined everything good in his life; he already knew he'd ruined his friendship with Fujin and Raijin, and likely marked them as traitors for the rest of their lives. At least if Squall returned, victorious and alive, Seifer would be able to die knowing that the man he loved wouldn't suffer any further because of him.)
One by one, the people Seifer had once watched leave him and Squall for the promise of parents reappeared with a shudder of space and a sickening sort of pop, like they were being shoved out of an opening that was too small. Each of them looked like shit, sporting a dozen obvious wounds and clothing that was almost more rips than fabric. (Kinneas politely offered the remains of his coat to Tilmitt, and she gave a tired laugh as she accepted it, though it didn't end up doing a whole lot once she'd managed to get her arms through the sleeves instead of one of the many holes.)
Rinoa was the second-to-last one to appear, and she collapsed to her knees almost right away, clearly exhausted. Tilmitt, Trepe, and Chicken-Wuss all hurried forward to check on her and she put on a tired smile for them, then waved away the hand Chicken-Wuss held down to her.
"Time Compression is ending," Ellone said.
Squall, Seifer realised, something terrible climbing his throat. If Squall didn't make it back, Seifer'd– He'd–
Okay, he didn't actually know what he would do, but it would probably involve a lot of screaming and blood. Whether the latter would be just his, or his and the people in front of him, would depend on their reaction times and whether or not they'd left Squall behind.
"Where is he?" Kinneas asked, arms crossed tight over his chest. Like he was trying to hold himself together at the thought that Squall was gone. Like he had any right to feel that way.
"Squall?" Trepe realised, looking around. Her expression turned distinctly panicked and she looked back down at Rinoa. "Rinoa, can you–?"
But Rinoa was already shaking her head, looking shattered in a way that Seifer had never seen Caraway's darling look before. "I couldn't sense him. When everything fell apart, I sensed each of you. But Squall..."
"Is he–?" Chicken-Wuss started before cutting himself off and curling his hands into fists.
"No," Tilmitt whispered, covering her mouth with both hands and looking like she was about to cry.
Seifer totally got that urge, and he was just gearing up to do something stupid and probably suicidal, when a quiet, familiar voice said, "I'm here," from behind him.
Seifer twisted to see and, indeed, Squall was standing there, looking battered, but somehow less of a mess than the rest of them. (Seifer suspected that had something to do with his preference for leather, which Seifer had made plenty of dirty jokes about, but he knew Squall had settled on because of its durability. Seifer's own waistcoat was a polyethylene composite that he'd paid some serious gil for; Rinoa had actually been the one to introduce him to the seller, though he doubted she realised he'd used her to buy restricted body armour.)
"Squall!" most of the others called, sounding relieved. None of them tried to trample Seifer to get to him, though, and he suspected that had more to do with the giant harpoon, then anything to do with Seifer himself. (Honestly, if not for the harpoon, he'd have expected them to trample him in the hopes of killing him. He'd deserve it.)
Squall nodded to them, his expression the same flat one he always wore in public. "Rinoa?" he asked, just enough concern in his voice to make Seifer's stomach churn with something that felt a lot like jealousy. (Not that he had any right to such emotions, not about this; if Squall had found someone else, good for him. He deserved to be happy.)
"I'm okay," Rinoa promised, though she didn't really sound it, exhaustion making it sound like every word had to be forced out through sheer force of will.
Squall nodded once, then he looked down, at Seifer.
Behind him, someone let out a noise that sounded disgusted, and Seifer looked away, to the side, couldn't bring himself to meet Squall's eyes. Which, he didn't doubt, would say a lot about how defeated he was, that he wouldn't defend himself if Squall wanted to finish things right then and there.
Except Squall didn't unsheathe his fancy, shining gunblade. Instead, he crouched down in front of Seifer, tilting his head to the side in a manner that was familiar to Seifer, but was so outside of his usual public manner, Seifer wasn't surprised when someone made a confused noise from behind him. "Do you know me?" Squall asked, quiet in a way that was meant to stay just between them.
"Do I– What?" Seifer rasped, frowning at Squall in confusion, because what did that even mean? Of course he knew Squall, how could he not? They'd been together their whole lives.
Squall's blink was slow and unhurried, despite the whispers from the peanut gallery behind Seifer, all of whom sounded as confused as Seifer felt. "Ah," Squall said after a moment, and his eyes – which had been distant and cold since D-District – warmed with something too close to fondness for it to possibly be aimed at Seifer. "There you are."
And then Squall sort of pitched forward, his whole body going lax.
"Squall!" Seifer heard himself shout, even as he reached out and caught him before he could knock his head against the crystalline floor. And Seifer was probably the last person Squall wanted touching him, but he was the closest to him, so it was his own fault. And then, because he could – and, damn him, he wanted nothing more than to hug Squall one last time – Seifer shifted so he could sort of drag Squall into his lap.
Squall's quiet grunt was familiar, and Seifer was reaching for Squall's potions pouch before he could think better of taking such liberties. (His own supplies had been confiscated by the men who had remained behind with Ellone.) When he came up empty, though, he twisted to glare over his shoulder at their audience, about half of whom looked more than a little hostile, and snapped, "Potion. Now."
To her credit, Tilmitt moved first, checking first her own pouch, then turning to Rinoa, who was probably the only one who didn't look like she wanted to wring Seifer's neck. "Rinoa?"
Rinoa gave a tired nod and held up her flowery little bag, which Tilmitt took with a too-cheerful, "Thanks!" then hurried over to Seifer's side. "Squally?" she called, even as she reached into Rinoa's bag and started pulling out medicine jars.
"Fine," Squall said in a voice that was trying to be even, and maybe even managed to sound that way to everyone else. But Seifer had known Squall – had sparred with him and fought monsters in the Training Centre beside him – for far too long to miss the undertone of pain in the word. Too, Squall hadn't tried to pull away yet, and that suggested he couldn't.
"Liar," Seifer said in his best unimpressed voice.
Squall huffed but, notably, didn't try arguing with him about that. Which was as good as admitting that he wasn't fine.
Tilmitt made a show of looking between two potions – ridiculously strong, both of them, and Seifer much preferred to think that was just because Rinoa hadn't had anything weaker, than because Tilmitt honestly thought Squall needed it – glanced behind Seifer at someone, then held one of the potions out to him. "Here."
Seifer blinked at her, thrown. Did she seriously trust him to give Squall the potion? Did she seriously think Squall would actually accept it from him?
Tilmitt huffed, but it was Rinoa who said, "Seifer." And there was...something in her voice. Some well of meaning that Seifer was probably meant to have understood, but didn't.
Still, Tilmitt apparently wasn't going to try giving Squall his medicine, and he wasn't getting any better without it, so Seifer snatched it from her and shifted so he could get the damn thing open without spilling it everywhere. "C'mon, Ice Princess," he muttered, the endearment slipping from him before he could stop himself. He stiffened, expecting...he wasn't certain what, honestly. Something far worse than the flat stare Squall usually turned on him when he used it in public. (Certainly worse than the amused huff and eye roll he usually got in private.)
What he got was Squall relaxing against him, the same way he used to do after days he found particularly stressful. Which usually involved having to give a public presentation, or working with a group of their peers.
Seifer's conditioned reaction was, of course, to drop everything and hug Squall tight – the latter as much a way to ensure he didn't fall over and knock his head on something, as a form of comfort – and while he didn't drop the potion – Squall needed it, dammit – he still wrapped his arms around Squall as best he could and held him tight. And it was–
His breath caught, choked him, and he knew what was coming, but he couldn't managed to swallow back the sob, any more than he could squeeze his eyes shut and keep the tears hidden away.
He hated crying, hated crying in public even more. But he couldn't stop; like poison from a bite bug's sting, once the needle had punctured it, it just poured out until there was nothing left. Until you were left raw and aching and sagging in all the wrong places.
Squall, though, he must not have actually been hurt that bad, because he'd straightened and pulled Seifer into one of his familiar chilly hugs, fingers threaded through Seifer's hair in the way he only did when it was either ungelled, or Seifer's own need won out over how much Squall hated touching stiff hair.
Even with his crying as an excuse, Seifer knew he needed to pull away – Squall's inexplicable touchiness aside, Seifer didn't deserve the comfort of his touch – but he couldn't bring himself to actually move, instead closing his eyes and giving in to the familiar chill that surrounded Squall, letting it lull him to sleep.
There was a reason he needed to wake up. But he was comfortable wrapped in the familiar chill of his lover, fingers threading through his hair in that distracted way that Squall always did when he'd woken far too early, but couldn't escape Seifer, so resigned himself to rereading one of the dogeared books he kept stacked next to the bed for just such an event. It didn't happen often – classes, training, and the Disciplinary Committee meant they rarely had such lazy mornings – and so they were some of Seifer's most treasured moments. The sort that he would wrap around himself to forget–
What was he supposed to be forgetting, again?
Squall's quiet, familiar laugh had Seifer peeking one eye open to look up at him, wondering which book he was reading – Seifer could usually guess the part he was at without even needing to see how many pages he'd got through – but Squall wasn't reading, was looking down at Seifer with fond eyes bisected by a scar that Seifer had given him.
They hadn't had the chance to sleep together after that incident, too busy with the exam and the fall-out.
The dream should have fallen away in that moment – Seifer should have woken against whatever freezing wall he'd collapsed against for the brief rest his accursed sorceress allowed him when he couldn't go any further – but it didn't.
"You're safe," Squall promised, fingers leaving Seifer's hair and brushing along his cheek. No gloves, because he never wore them in their room. Neither of them did, let it be symbolic of taking off the masks they wore around everyone else. "You're home, Seifer."
No.
No.
Squall would never forgive him. Could never forgive him. Everything he'd done–
This was a lie.
"Get out," he rasped, shoving at her, trying to ignore how realistic her confused expression looked on Squall's stolen face. "Get out of my head. Get out of him."
"Seif–"
"Get out!" he screamed, pushing as hard as he could.
She didn't move. She'd always moved when he'd done that, had shifted form and sneered down at him from where she was suddenly standing, because no way a sorceress would end up on the floor before anyone, let alone her pathetic little boy of a knight.
"I'm not her," she said, her stolen voice quiet and full of grief. "Seifer–"
"Please," he whispered, didn't – couldn't – care that it came out weak and broken; she already knew who he was. "Not him. Please not–"
She leant down, too swift for him to react, and lips that were chilled and chapped pressed against his.
She'd kissed him before, just once, and it had been so wrong that he'd punched her and managed to rip himself out of whatever hold she'd had on him, wake himself up. But this wasn't–
"Squall?" he gasped against lips that couldn't be fake, were too familiar.
"Yes." Those eyes couldn't be fake, either; she had never managed to look quite so concerned before. Oh, she could put on a worried frown and pitch her voice, but, once he knew to look for it, Seifer had always seen the lie in Matron's eyes.
Except, if this was Squall–
"You can't be here," he whispered. Pleaded.
The familiar confused crinkling of his brow was broken by the line of the scar Seifer had given him, and Seifer felt like he might be sick. The confusion cleared after a moment and cool fingers pressed lightly against his cheek. "Ultimecia's dead, Seifer," Squall said. Promised.
Seifer shuddered, couldn't say if it was from hearing her name out loud – he'd known her name, on some level, for far too long, but saying it had been forbidden in front of others – or that absolute promise that he was free at last.
"You're home," Squall insisted, and he was...beautiful. Everything Seifer couldn't have.
"I tortured you," he said. Forced it out past the shattered remains of everything that had once been between them. "I–"
"You did nothing," Squall snarled, and there was such rage in the lines of his face, in the tone of his voice. Utterly unfamiliar, because Seifer had never seen Squall so angry. Had never, not once, heard him sound like he wanted to reach through someone's chest and rip their heart out. Squall had always been too level-headed for that, had only ever looked coldly determined.
Over the past months, every time they'd crossed blades, he'd never seen such rage in Squall. So why was he–?
Squall closed his eyes and sucked in a breath that shuddered his whole body. And when he looked down at Seifer again, he was so obviously struggling with one of his masks, like he had to wear it to keep himself together, but he remembered their promise, that they would never hide themselves from each other.
Seifer felt sick.
"You hesitated," Squall said, something not-quite-right about his voice. He clenched his jaw, swallowed, and shook his head. "I saw. It wasn't–"
Seifer got it. He did. There was an easy way out in front of him, a chance to have Squall back, forever, everything forgiven. They could forget the past few months and pretend nothing had ever happened, that there weren't months of war and seas of blood between them. They could pretend Seifer had never thrown Squall against an electric fence and flipped the switch, that he hadn't fired missiles at a building full of innocent children.
Seifer swallowed down bile, made himself meet Squall's eyes when he said, "It was me."
"No!" Squall shouted. And then he was out of their bed and pacing, one hand fisted in his hair, and Seifer had never seen him like this. "I saw. You hesitated. And then that–that– the guard. He came in and said–"
Seifer knew what he'd said. The missiles were ready. Seifer's own little plan, crafted because–!
...because why? Why had he ever thought that firing missiles on Garden was a good idea?
Why had he thought that torturing Squall–?
Pain lanced through his head, and Seifer was vaguely aware of someone shouting his name, but all he could focus on was–
Grabbing Matron's extended arm, screaming, screaming, screaming–
SQUALL
{Your love or your home}
...he couldn't...
{Now you will lose both}
–he had lost everything.
He didn't need to open his eyes to know where he was; the Balamb Garden infirmary would never change, not really, and the scent of potions and bleach was always enough to tell him exactly where he was.
He felt sort of floaty and apathetic, like nothing mattered. Even though he knew – some distant, screaming part of him – that things should matter. That a specific person should matter.
But that wasn't the case, so he decided to just go back to sleep.
"Seifer?" Someone said. His name.
"Rinoa," he rasped, aware that he recognised the voice. He was a little surprised at how raw his voice sounded, but that didn't matter any more than anything else.
"Squall asked me to watch you while he slept."
Squall? Should that name mean something to him?
Flashes of memory: A small, familiar smile that no one else ever saw; the control panel of the Lunatic Pandora; cold hands brushing along his skin; missile codes; the gleam of life over crossed blades; an electric fence with a body slumped against it.
Bile climbed his throat, and he missed – as desperately as a missing limb – the apathy that had covered him like a blanket.
"Squall is–" He stopped, not sure what he wanted to know.
"Sleeping. Finally," Rinoa said, and something in the way she'd said the last implied that it had been a fight to make him retire. Which, well, Seifer could have told her that Squall would only sleep on his own time, never on anyone else's. "We should talk, you and me," she added.
Seifer scoffed to hide the way his stomach churned at the thought of why she'd want to talk to him of all people. Especially without Squall around. "About how much you want to bang him?" he demanded, mouth twisted into a snarl because he knew that would change the shape of his words, hide how much the thought made him alternately sick and ready to lash out.
(He didn't have the right, had given it up the moment he'd followed a sorceress who looked almost-familiar through a wall.)
Rinoa sighed. "How unnecessarily crude," she said, and Seifer finally opened his eyes to glare at her. She looked...tired. Worn through and too thin, like something was eating away at her from inside. "No," she said as she met his eyes, "Ultimecia."
Ice bled into his veins and he couldn't stop from tensing, from clenching his hand around a gunblade that he didn't have. "What about her?" he demanded, and his voice was too sharp, too tight, too telling.
She refolded her hands in her lap, prim and proper and careful in a way that twigged at Seifer's attention, but whatever tells she had were too subtle for him, especially when he was trying to hold himself in close, give nothing away; he'd always been far better at reading Squall than anyone else. "She was in my head, too," Rinoa said, quiet and perfectly even.
"Congratulations," Seifer bit out.
And then he connected Ultimecia with Rinoa's appearance and he couldn't stop from shifting away, hugging the far side of the narrow hospital bed.
Rinoa laughed, and it sounded as shattered as parts of Seifer felt. "We're both anathema," she said, and she was smiling, but Seifer thought he could see her slowly falling to pieces in front of him.
She'd left them both broken, that wicked sorceress of children's nightmares.
"Who's your knight?" Seifer had to ask, because Ultimecia hadn't needed a hand to manage her magic, but she also hadn't had it all dumped on her in the middle of a war (he assumed) and suffered a coma, possession, and time travel in the month following getting her magic. And if that same ugly magic was making Rinoa – who'd always been so alive and bright, for all her naïveté – look like she was slowly dying, she needed help.
Her smile didn't so much as twitch, but Seifer thought it maybe took on a slightly bitter edge when she said, "Squall."
Of course, he should have guessed. It wasn't like Squall lacked in willpower or inner strength, so why did Rinoa look so shitty? Did Squall just not know how to help her? (Unlikely; they'd grown up together, and Seifer had never hidden his interest in becoming a sorceress' knight.) Or did he just not care? (Impossible; Squall wasn't the sort to ignore a problem that was his alone to take care of. Unless...)
Rinoa shifted, leaning forward a bit, and her smile fell to something far too serious for the young woman he'd once known. "She knew, you know," she told him. "The lengths you'd go to to keep him safe? She knew."
Ultimecia, Seifer realised after a moment that felt too long. Rinoa was saying that Ultimecia had known how much Squall meant to him. Which, duh. "So?" he demanded, hated how tight his voice came out. He tried to stretch back out over his bed, look a little less tense and defensive, but looking at her was enough to remind him that Ultimecia's magic was right there. Was wearing her to pieces.
And Squall, for some reason only he knew, was doing less than nothing to help her shoulder the burden.
"Reviving Adel and giving me to her?" Rinoa said, voice just shy of too careful, but Seifer still tensed, still had to swallow down the taste of bile and look away. Because yeah, okay, he'd only dragged Rinoa away to try and keep Squall away, to protect him from Adel. Because Ultimecia might have been willing to stop shy of killing Squall for the opportunity to hold him over Seifer's head, but the monster that destroyed their childhoods would not play by those same rules.
"Killing children?" Rinoa said, her tone gentle, but her words striking as painfully as the snap of Trepe's whip.
(Garden or Squall? It hadn't been a hard choice.)
"Torturing–"
"Stop," Seifer whispered. Wanted to shout it, to reach out and shake her–
(Alive or hating him? Still not a hard choice, not until he'd heard Squall's voice crack in the middle of a scream, shattering the resolve he'd built up to stand against any pleading looks, any whispered instances of his name.
He would probably die uncertain if that warden interrupting them had saved or damned him.)
"But," Rinoa said, quiet but firm, "you both, I think, underestimated him."
Who? Squall? How had he underestimated him? He'd underestimated the other assholes, hadn't thought they'd have found a way to get themselves and Squall free without help. And he certainly hadn't expected that they'd manage to blow up the missile base, or move Garden just in the nick of time. (Though he was willing to give that last one to Squall; Fujin and Raijin had said that the rumours had him being the one to get Garden moving.)
"Fighting Edea, going to Esthar, going through time to face Ultimecia..." Rinoa took a deep breath, then her hand snapped out, too fast for Seifer to judge, and wrapped iron-tight around his wrist. When he met her eyes, there was something steely in her gaze, something that reminded him so very much of Squall at his most serious, it was chilling. "Everything he did was to save you. From her."
"What?" Seifer blinked, thrown. Why would Squall have thought he'd needed saving? He hadn't.
(He had.)
"You are his entire world, Seifer," she hissed, and he could hear echoes of the nightmare sorceress in the edge to her voice, a little too close to mad on power, and it terrified him. "You need to sort yourself out, do you hear me? Because you're not the only one who needs him."
"I don't–" Seifer choked on the denial, because as much as he didn't deserve Squall's forgiveness, a wretched, disgusting part of himself craved it. Wanted to cling to him with the same hands that had wielded Hyperion with the intent to seriously wound, wanted to kiss him with the same lips that had taunted him, had threatened to destroy the only home they'd ever had.
"He's not going to give you a choice. Asshole." And then she let him go and slumped back in the chair next to his bed, looking like the effort had drained the last of her reserves. "Save your crisis for a different month."
Seifer wasn't having a crisis, fuck, he just...didn't deserve to still be alive. To be walking free in Garden. To have Squall making him his priority for anything other than turning his own actions back on him.
And yet.
(Squall always had been the better of the two of them.)
He forced himself to focus on Rinoa, because she definitely looked like she was having a crisis. And he... She scared him, on a soul-deep level, because he'd spent too much time with the woman who'd once wielded her magic, had been dragged back from the brink of death by Ultimecia in Rinoa's body, been made to leave Squall behind while he left to rain hell down on Esthar.
But, too, he hadn't...minded her, during their brief friendship before things went to hell, and she clearly meant something to Squall, or he'd never have agreed to be her knight, would have suggested she look to one of the others.
He didn't know how he knew it, but he knew that he could reach out, could take the hand she'd just been holding him with – tried to pretend he hadn't hesitated, that his stomach wasn't churning with something that felt too close to terror – and sort of...push some of his own energy into her.
She straightened, her cheeks already filling in and making her look a little more human, and she shook his hold away, her eyes gone wide. "What did you do?" she demanded, and her magic churned around them, pushing against Seifer one moment, then pulling hard away the next.
Rinoa might not be Ultimecia, but she definitely had her cruel magic.
Seifer let himself sink back against the infirmary bed and closed his eyes. "Squall's job," he rasped.
"You idiot!" Rinoa shouted, but she didn't really sound angry.
Well, Seifer honestly didn't care if she was, was already falling back into the comforting abyss of unconsciousness.
When he woke the next time, there was a hand wrapped around his wrist, too-cold fingers pressed to his pulse, and he wasn't surprised when Squall said, "You realise that stunt almost killed you," before Seifer opened his eyes or allowed himself to show any other overt signs of being awake. Feeling for his pulse was a trick Squall had picked up years ago, after Seifer made one too many comments about his habit of watching him sleep.
"You realise," he replied in his raspy voice, without opening his eyes, "that your sorceress could have lost control of her magic and killed everyone in Balamb."
Squall, tellingly, didn't have a response for that.
Seifer sighed, then turned his head to face Squall and opened his eyes to shoot him his best flat look. "It's not like you to get distracted from your duties, Leonhart."
Squall's face did that amusing little all-over twitch that happened when he struggled with keeping his public face on in response to something Seifer'd said.
(Seifer wondered, while trying to ignore his stomach's churning, if Squall did that around anyone else, now.)
But then Squall straightened, squaring his shoulders, and squeezed Seifer's wrist tight enough that Seifer honestly feared he might break it, then said, "You're one of my duties."
"How sweet," Seifer returned in his best unimpressed tone. "My knees have gone weak and everything."
Squall huffed and slumped back into his chair, his hand loosening around Seifer's wrist. "Don't be an ass."
Seifer rolled his eyes and forewent his usual rejoinder in favour of saying, "Don't put a war criminal above your sorceress again. Sir Leonhart."
"You're not a–!"
"Squall," Seifer interrupted, because he did no one any favours by lying about that; what Squall and Rinoa thought about Seifer's involvement was one thing, but he doubted anyone else with even the vaguest idea about events were willing to wear such rosy glasses. Seifer, himself, knew his crimes, and coercion was a defence for wimps.
Squall's face went tight all over, and Seifer knew what expression he'd be wearing if they were behind closed doors. "You've been exonerated."
"Really," Seifer returned with a flat stare.
"Really," Squall shot back, his particular brand of icy fire in his eyes. "I'm the commander of SeeD."
Seifer blinked a few times, uncertain he'd understood him right. But, no, that was definitely smugness in the barely perceptible tilt of Squall's lips, and there was absolutely a victorious spark in his eyes. "Squall," Seifer said, letting his eyes fall closed, "you shouldn't abuse your title that way."
Squall's hand tightened on his wrist again. "I'll use it any way I please," he hissed, the words the closest to a snarl that Seifer had heard from him outside of their bedroom in...years.
Seifer opened his eyes to stare at Squall, tried to read him despite all of his masks being up. And it wasn't easy, but he knew Squall – knew all of his tells – and Rinoa had unknowingly filled in a massive blank during her visit: "Everything he did was to save you."
Unlike becoming Rinoa's knight, he hadn't made the choice to become the commander of SeeD. Most likely, it had been forced on him without him having a choice in the matter, and when the title wasn't done away with after the crisis was handled, he'd decided to be as petty and childish as most people didn't realise he could be, and used it for his own personal gain. Which, in this case, had been clearing Seifer's name. And probably Matron's, knowing Squall.
(Honestly, Seifer had wondered why he'd taken a position that was so high-profile, given his usual reticence when it came to sharing any part of himself with people. Other than Seifer. But he'd ended up assuming Squall had done it because he knew he was the only one who could have hoped to predict Seifer. And that he'd probably wanted to be able to force people to save killing Seifer for himself. Not that Squall had apparently ever wanted Seifer dead. Idiot.)
Well, fine. So Seifer was exonerated of all of his crimes. (To Garden, at least; how much stock the rest of the world would put in the word of a teenaged mercenary was anyone's guess.) "If I'm in the clear, then you can focus on your sorceress," he informed Squall, because he wasn't going to let that go.
"I am not going to leave you to run away to Galbadia in search of punishment," Squall said, voice flat and unimpressed.
Seifer huffed and closed his eyes. "I'm not that much a glutton for punishment," he muttered, though the possibility had certainly occurred to him. Still, if Squall really had chased through time for Ultimecia on Seifer's behalf, he'd never make it off Balamb. Might not even make it out of Garden before someone grabbed him.
Squall scoffed, because he clearly knew Seifer too well.
Kadowaki interrupted them, then, and she berated Squall for not coming to get her, even as she checked Seifer over. Squall, unsurprisingly, didn't react to her commentary – Seifer had watched this particular byplay a few too many times; Squall had always been both the worst patient and the worst visitor – and Seifer suffered her checks with his best annoyed glower and a few of the huffs he saved for overbearing teachers and doctors.
Kadowaki was used to both of them, and it didn't take her long to check Seifer over. "You're on bedrest for another day," she informed him, before turning to glare at Squall. "If I send him back with you, will you let him rest?" Because she'd known they were together practically from day one; hickeys were hard to hide from the doctor who had practically raised you and saw you on a regular basis because the rest of the adults around you let you carry weapons around everywhere. To her credit, she'd never so much as joked about sharing their secret with anyone else, which was probably the only reason Seifer and Squall had continued pretending to be nothing more than rivals in public.
Squall's emotionless stare didn't so much as twitch. "I have no intention in disrupting his rest for anything other than food."
Seifer's stomach, of course, chose that moment to let out a loud rumble.
Seifer didn't need to look to know amusement would be flashing through Squall's eyes – there and gone too fast to catch, unless you were watching for it – and Kadowaki's own loud snort made her amusement clear. Seifer crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at her in response, if only because it was expected.
Kadowaki shook her head at Seifer, then turned back to Squall. "Food isn't a bad plan, but you'll have to grab it to go." Squall shrugged and nodded; that was pretty obvious with Seifer on bedrest. "And your friends?"
Seifer had about half a minute to wonder at that question – and the faint tensing of the skin around Squall's eyes, which suggested Kadowaki had stumbled on an uncomfortable topic – before Squall deadpanned, "Rinoa's distracting them."
Seifer managed to hold his tongue until he'd been released from the infirmary, Squall walking close to his side, prepared to lend a hand if Seifer needed help, but both of them aware he would only reach out for such if he was truly desperate.
Once out in the busy hub of Garden, Seifer couldn't keep from saying, "I guess the traitors aren't as forgiving as you and the princess."
The look Squall sent him was close enough to his usual flat stare to fool any passers-by, but Seifer saw the signs of anger in the ice of his gaze and the slight downward turn of his mouth. "That's the word you're going with," he said in that familiar flat tone that gave nothing away.
"They left first," Seifer replied in his own flat tone.
Squall's stride faltered just enough that Seifer, walking next to him, noticed, but no one else probably would have. He didn't speak again until they were back in their room – Squall's SeeD quarters; he'd apparently taken the time to collect and move over all of Seifer's belongings from both of their cadet rooms, and Seifer tried to ignore the way that made something inside him crow in victory – and he'd closed the door. Then, he turned to Seifer, his expression twisted with confusion and hurt. "You can't, honestly, hold them getting adopted against them," he said quietly.
Seifer crossed his arms over his chest, because he didn't know what else to do with them, and tried to remember how to make his expression relax into something that didn't feel like a mask. (It had been so long since he'd been safe to show who he was; the conversation in the infirmary had been so much easier.) "I can, and I do," he snapped. "So did you, once."
"When I was a child," Squall snapped, everything about his stance warning he was rapidly approaching angry, and Seifer no longer had a different room to retreat to.
Seifer, though, had been clinging to his own anger with their childhood companions to get him through the past few months, and he didn't care enough about his own recovering health to back off. Instead, he stepped forward and straightened, using the ten or so centimetres he had on Squall to his advantage. "In case you've forgotten, Squally, their little betrayal broke you."
Squall flinched and looked away; he hadn't forgotten, then, he'd just been trying to play happy family for some reason Seifer didn't want to understand.
"We all had a choice, Squall," Seifer said, needing to drive his point home. "They picked parents over us. Over the family they already had. And then they forgot about us."
"Irvine didn't," Squall muttered.
Seifer scoffed. "Good for him."
Squall took a deep breath, seemed to shrink a little bit more, and Seifer felt something in his chest give a lurch, because that could never be a good sign. "I don't...think I ever had a choice."
Seifer blinked a few times, trying to decipher that, and eventually settled on asking, "What does that mean?"
Squall blew out a hard breath, setting his bangs dancing, and peeked up at Seifer, something wretched ruining his expression. "After Ultimecia. I was late."
"Noticed that," Seifer returned, hated how the words came out raspy.
(It was Squall. He was allowed to be broken in front of him.)
Squall looked down at his feet, the closest to an apology for worrying him that Seifer expected he'd ever get, and explained, "I got...side-tracked. At the orphanage. Fifteen or so years ago." Seifer felt like Shiva had run her hand down his back, even as Squall looked up at him, his own eyes tormented. "I told Matron to create Garden and SeeD," he whispered. "I told her she made us to fight sorceresses. Even though I knew– I'd just watched Ultimecia give her her powers. And I–"
Seifer yanked him into a hug, squeezing his eyes shut against the quiet sobs that Squall must have been holding in for... Hyne, how long had it been since he'd made it back to their time? Seifer'd slept through far too much of it, had been so concerned with his own crimes, he'd missed that Squall had been struggling with his own regret over actions he couldn't take back.
Squall had told Matron to create her own doom, essentially. And she must have realised who he was – or else memories of Adel meant she was aware of how utterly dangerous sorceresses could be, and damn her own potential fate – because Seifer didn't think she'd have been quite so willing to follow a stranger's directives, else.
Though, Squall'd said he didn't have a choice about being adopted, so Matron had probably recognised him as an adult. Had made sure he went straight to Garden. Which meant Seifer had been the only one of the two of them who'd had the choice to stay. Would Squall have stayed if he'd had a choice? Would he have left Seifer, same as the others?
Seifer tightened his arms around Squall, forced his brain away from that track, because he wasn't sure he could handle the heartache it would leave him with. Instead, he tried to find some way to make it better, to ease Squall's guilt.
But he'd come up with nothing by the time Squall stepped back, rubbing tiredly at wet eyes. "I know there's nothing for it," he said, and he sounded so defeated, Seifer wanted to scream. "You can't change your past."
Seifer didn't really have a response for that – honestly, most people didn't get the chance to go playing in time – so he settled on grabbing Squall's arm and dragging him over towards the bed. "Lie down with me," he ordered.
Squall's mouth quirked, just a little, like he didn't have the energy for a full-on smile.
(Seifer wanted to kill something.)
Still, Squall let himself be tugged into the bed with Seifer, both of them settling too-easily into their familiar positions, the chill of Squall's body curling against Seifer's back, freezing arms wrapped tight around his chest.
"You don't have Ifrit, do you?" Squall murmured after a moment, probably because Seifer had started shivering.
"No," Seifer said, didn't try explaining how Ultimecia had taken away his junctions first thing, insistent that a real knight didn't need outside help to protect his sorceress. (In retrospect, Seifer wondered if that hadn't been a way to help solidify his attachment to Matron. Whether or not she'd anticipated it affecting his interactions with the men and women he'd grown up with, he couldn't say.)
"Do you want him back?"
Seifer considered that for a moment. Junctioning Ifrit made it a lot easier to share space with Squall, and he did sort of miss the fire demon's particular brand of unimpressed commentary. But, too, did he really want to chance forgetting things again? His childhood, his relationship with Squall, the terrible things he'd done over the past few months...
He shivered again, as Squall breathed out against his cheek, and admitted, at least to himself, that being able to share a bed with Squall was far more important to him than his memories, and Hyne knew Squall would never unjunction Shiva, not with his abandonment issues. So he nodded and said, "Yeah."
Squall kissed his shoulder, then shifted and pulled away from Seifer's back. There came the sound of a drawer opening, some shuffling of stuff, then the drawer closing. And then Squall was back, holding forward a red crystal in one hand.
Collecting Ifrit was a requirement, Seifer knew, the same as they'd been required to train with Shiva or Quezacotl for most of their childhood. Seifer had unjunctioned Shiva shortly after getting her, and he suspected Squall had done the same with Ifrit. And then he'd saved the fire demon away as a 'just in case', because sometimes it helped to have a back-up GF or two that hadn't been junctioned.
Seifer accepted the crystal and let it sink into his skin. This version of Ifrit was far weaker than the one he'd put so much time and effort into training, but he clearly knew Seifer, because he almost immediately started bitching about how Seifer'd unjunctioned and left him.
Seifer smiled, even though Ifrit's complaining wasn't really funny, and relaxed back into Squall's hold. "Thanks," he murmured, Ifrit's warmth easing away the constant chill of Squall pressed up against his back.
Squall didn't respond for a long moment, but then he said, "I missed you."
Seifer's heart ached, and he reached up and pressed his hands to the arms across his chest, holding them there. "Yeah," he croaked, couldn't come up with anything better. Couldn't find the courage to voice what he was pretty sure Squall had already figured out: Seifer had given up on having Squall back months ago.
.
