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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.
The first time Seifer left Squall's room on his own, once Kadowaki declared him of acceptable health, it quickly became clear that, while Squall and Rinoa might have forgiven him for his actions, no one else had. People had avoided him before, but he'd never suffered quite so many hostile glares, nor ever had a SeeD come up to him in the hallway and snarled, "You should be rotting in prison, traitor."
Replying, "I know," without any of the smugness he'd worn like a coat around himself for years had apparently shocked her speechless, because he was able to move on without any further commentary from her. A hollow victory.
Squall's little group of 'friends' were equally displeased to see him out and about, as evidenced by the cold glares Trepe and Kinneas turned on him any time they were in the same room, or the way the Chicken-Wuss would shadowbox with violent intent in his general direction any time he saw Seifer. Tilmitt was the only one who didn't look ready to murder him, her expression always taking on a sort of hesitant cast when she saw him, before she would turn away and walk away from him.
It shouldn't have hurt – he didn't like them – but it sort of did. Felt a little like he was being abandoned by them all over again. And he hated that weakness, took to haunting the training centre and the infirmary when Squall had other duties (if he was with Seifer, everyone kept a polite distance and didn't turn any hostile looks on Seifer where Squall might see, which was as entertaining as it was disgusting; if they hated him so much, he didn't see why they had to hide it), because then he didn't have to deal with any of them. And if Kadowaki thought he belonged in prison, she kept it to herself, seemed perfectly happy to have an extra pair of hands to order around.
He missed Raijin and Fujin a lot, though he wasn't certain they'd have been any more willing to accept him, after everything he'd put them through. Squall had told him, when he'd worked up the courage to ask, that they'd officially withdrawn from Garden and, as far as he was aware, had settled down in Balamb Town. Which meant they were plenty close enough for Seifer to borrow a car and visit them for a day – Squall had ensured he knew he was allowed to do so, that he had all the same rights he'd had as a cadet, though it was pretty clear to both of them that Seifer wouldn't be returning to classes – but Seifer didn't know if he'd be welcome, and didn't want to impose if he wasn't. So he stayed in Garden and ached.
It took a few days for him to realise that he wasn't the only person that most of Garden seemed to want gone; Rinoa – when Squall or their 'friends' weren't around – received just as many hostile looks as Seifer.
The first time Seifer saw a cadet walk up to the sorceress and make the Sign of Hyne at her, then hiss, "Begone, she-demon!" he saw red.
"Seifer, no!" Rinoa shouted, hands wrapping around his bicep tight enough that it almost hurt.
Seifer blinked, realised he was holding the cadet off the floor by the front of his shirt, and was a little disturbed to realise that he couldn't remember making the conscious choice to move. He forced himself to set the kid down, to ignore his wide, terrified eyes, and order, "Walk away."
The kid ran, which was close enough.
"You can't attack people," Rinoa hissed, her nails digging into the sleeve of his coat hard enough that he could feel the ache of pressure.
"Squall know they're doing that to you?" Seifer demanded, because he was going to beat the cold idiot around the head if he was ignoring his sorceress again.
Rinoa sighed and slumped slightly, and Seifer saw the same strain he felt every time he had to leave the comfortable security of Squall's room. "He's doing what he can," she said, sounding so close to defeat.
Seifer turned to sneer at the closest group of glaring cadets, making a show of reaching over his shoulder, towards Hyperion's handle.
The area around them cleared faster than Seifer could have drawn his trusty blade. Which was as pathetic as it was entertaining.
"Come on," he ordered, and ushered Rinoa to the training centre.
"Seriously?" Rinoa complained as they stepped into the hallway leading between the central hub and the training centre.
Seifer shrugged. "No one stops me from killing things that look at me sideways in here," he said by way of excuse.
She laughed, though, and pulled out her preferred projectile weapon. Which was ridiculously weak, from what he knew about it, but Seifer kept him comments to himself; it wasn't as though she'd grown up learning to fight for her life, and she had different abilities, now, though he didn't actually see her using them. (He tried very hard not to wonder if she was as terrified of her magic as he was, if maybe that wasn't the reason she didn't seem inclined to use it.)
Squall found them maybe forty minutes later, when they were in the middle of decimating a rather large group of grats. He didn't actually join them until all the grats were dead, clearly trusting that they could handle themselves – Seifer was fairly certain he'd have got involved if it was a t-rexaur, if only because ice was one of their weaknesses – but Seifer had spotted him early enough in the fight to know he was nearby if things went to shit and they needed an extra blade for some reason.
When Squall jumped down from his perch on one of the boulders uphill from them, Rinoa flipped her hair back, out of her face, and informed him, "You're such a lazy knight."
Squall made a show of rolling his eyes – slow and obvious in that way he did when he wanted to make sure someone saw it – and drily replied, "If you need my help against grats, my rushing to your aid is the least of our concerns."
Seifer snorted, because if grats were a problem, she really shouldn't be allowed on her own in Garden. Which, actually, he realised, might not be that untrue. Though not because she couldn't handle herself against the average cadet.
Squall sighed. "What happened?" he asked, and Seifer was fairly certain, based on the exhaustion in Squall's eyes, that he already had a pretty good idea.
Well, Seifer wasn't about to lie about things, so he replied, "Some little pissant made the Sign of Hyne at your sorceress and called her a she-demon. I took offence."
"Violently," Rinoa added, and Seifer couldn't read her tone, couldn't see her face to tell if she disapproved or not. (Not that he needed her approval.)
Squall pressed a hand to his forehead in that way he often did when he needed a minute to control his expression. (At least, that's what Seifer had always assumed it meant. It could have been a sign of an impending headache, though Seifer didn't know of any Squall had got medical attention for, and he never complained of headaches behind closed doors.)
And then Squall looked at Seifer, his expression far more obviously tired than Seifer was used to seeing in public, and he said, "Thank you."
"Did you just–?" Rinoa started, sounding like she was way more entertained than Seifer thought Squall opening up like that deserved.
But then Squall threw her an almost amused, but still tired, look, and Seifer realised there was a story there that he hadn't been privy to. Which hurt, a little, but he also knew he could get the whole thing out of Squall eventually. (Assuming Rinoa wasn't feeling talkative first.)
Still, Seifer had other concerns right then, so he shrugged the stories he'd missed away and said, "I know my presence is a problem, for obvious reasons, but Her Majesty here was on the side of the angels pretty much the entire time; what's Garden's issue with her?"
Squall's mouth twisted with disapproval, and Seifer honestly couldn't say if it was because of Seifer's continued insistence that his actions deserved a hefty punishment, the fact that Garden couldn't bring themselves to accept Rinoa with open arms, or a mix of the two.
Rinoa was the one who, shoulders drooping, said, "It doesn't matter whose side I was on, I'm a sorceress. And SeeD..."
"Was created to take out sorceresses that pose a threat to humanity," Seifer finished for her, "which you don't. Generally."
Squall snorted, clearly aware that Seifer had added that last just to be an asshole. Rinoa, too, looked more entertained than upset, and Seifer wondered when she'd cottoned on that he wasn't quite the heartless shit that he liked to play in public. (Also, when had she become someone who it was safe to not hide everything from? And did it have more to do with Seifer technically playing knight for her while Ultimecia was possessing her, or because Squall was her current knight? More importantly, why the fuck did he actually care about the why?)
"A sorceress is still a sorceress," Rinoa said after a moment, and she looked tired. Like maybe she knew a losing battle when she saw one.
(Seifer suspected he wasn't the only person who wanted to go back in time and destroy Adel before she could teach the world that sorceresses were dangerous. Not that she was the first, really, just the most memorable. And Seifer didn't think she should really count, since the story went that it was the death of her knight that had set her on her destructive spiral, and her refusal to accept a new one had left her to the madness of a sorceress' magic gone out of control. Not that his opinions meant anything to the fear their world had of another sorceress possessing that sort of power.)
"I will attempt to, again–" Squall started.
"You can't order people to play nice, Leonhart," Seifer interrupted, because he knew where Squall was going with that. "They'll figure out she doesn't want them all dead in their own time. Or, you know, they'll learn to trust you can handle her. Whichever."
Rinoa coughed and said, "About that," while Squall pressed a hand to his forehead again.
When Rinoa didn't immediately continue, and Squall seemed content to hide behind his hand, Seifer crossed his arms tight over his chest and demanded "What?"
"Someone started a rumour that I was lying about being Rinoa's knight," Squall said in that particular flat tone that Seifer knew meant he wanted to kill something. "Your little stunt in the infirmary, not to mention Rinoa's clear health now that you're up and about, has turned that rumour into fact."
Seifer blinked, attempting to work his head around that, before sighing and turning a tired stare on Squall.
Squall unwound enough to send him a grimace in response.
"So," he said, turning to Rinoa, "what you're saying is, you're a sorceress and they all think a war criminal – don't contradict me, Leonhart – is the one helping you manage your powers."
"Yes?" Rinoa replied, looking a little like she didn't know if she should laugh or cry at the whole mess. Which Seifer totally got.
Squall snorted.
Rinoa sighed and drooped slightly. "Trying to correct people just seems to make me less trustworthy, in their eyes, so I gave up. Hopefully everyone will just get used to me being here and calm down."
Seifer turned a flat stare on her, because he could pretty much guarantee that things weren't going to work out near so cleanly.
The roar of a t-rexaur had them all looking up and around. Rinoa was the closest, and she took a step back upon sighting it, which Seifer was nearly certain hadn't been intentional. But it was enough to have Squall racing forward to get between his sorceress and the monster, the ice of Shiva's summoning already chilling the air of the clearing.
Seifer stood back to watch, nearly certain he wouldn't actually have to get involved – he didn't – and taking the chance to sort through the thoughts that were niggling at the back of his head. Had been for a while, but he'd avoided looking too hard at them because he knew what Squall's response would be.
Once the t-rexaur was down for the count, Seifer said, "It may be time to leave Garden."
Rinoa turned a wide-eyed look on him, and Squall's flat, "You're not leaving, Seifer," was so very predictable.
Seifer made a show of rolling his eyes, then used his free hand to motion between all three of them. "I wasn't thinking to go alone."
Rinoa sighed, the sort of sound that made Seifer suspect she'd had this conversation – or one very like it – with Squall before, and it hadn't gone particularly well. But, then, she hadn't spent over a decade arguing with Squall about everything under the sun.
"I have duties–" Squall started, so very predictable.
"You have a job that was forced on you and which you hate," Seifer interrupted, before Squall could really get going. "The only reason to remain with SeeD is being sent on missions, which you can't do from behind a desk, and you're not going to trust anyone enough to take over for you in your absence, to be able to assign yourself a mission in an attempt to get away, and you know it."
Squall pressed his fingers to the centre of his forehead, which Seifer took as proof that he'd hit that nail on the head.
"Find some place with a wire connection or isn't too far from a rail station, and you can even keep in touch with those assholes you call friends."
"Seifer," Rinoa said, practically radiating disapproval.
"Don't bother," Squall muttered; it had taken him almost two weeks to get Seifer to agree to stop calling them traitors, which was at least half because Seifer was determined to be obstinate and refused to forgive them the way Squall seemed to have. (As far as he was concerned, there was no forgiving them. And them wanting nothing to do with him was actually sort of proving his point. Though he was fairly certain that Squall would disagree.)
Seifer rolled his eyes. "Look, Rinoa's near-about miserable here, I'm ready to kill a cadet or six, and you're liable to have a mutiny on your hands if something doesn't change. So why not skip the bloodshed, just this once, and take the easy road out?"
Squall turned one of his more stubborn stares on Seifer, who responded by looking at Rinoa.
He'd expected her to make her own case, maybe point out that she wasn't the only one of the two of them who was miserable, but all she did was say, "Squall, please," in a quiet, broken sort of voice.
Seifer was fairly certain that even Squall's icy edges were no defence against that plea, so he wasn't surprised when Squall slumped, some of his masks peeling away to show how worn he looked. "Where would we even go?" he asked in a voice that sounded too young, too raw.
(Seifer had to fight the very real urge to hurry over and pull him into a hug.)
"I was thinking Timber?" Rinoa suggested; somehow, Seifer wasn't surprised. "And if Seifer's coming with, then you can't complain that you won't be enough to keep me safe away from Garden."
That sounded like an argument from a previous iteration of this debate. And, for all that being around Rinoa still creeped him out on some level, and a part of him would never think he deserved to stay with Squall, Seifer knew he'd do his damnedest to help keep their resident sorceress safe, if only for Squall's sake.
Anyway, "No one in Timber's likely to attack me on sight," Seifer offered, because it was true; as Ultimecia's right hand, he'd stepped on a lot of toes while looking for Ellone, not to mention the fact that most Galbadians would probably hate him for his part in Deling's murder. But Ultimecia had been focussed on coastal towns, and most of the people living in Timber would be glad Deling was dead, so he'd probably be, if not welcomed with open arms, at least tolerated better than most anywhere else.
"Fair point," Rinoa said, clearly delighted at having support for her preferred move to Timber.
Squall looked between them a few times, mouth turned down in such a way, Seifer was fairly certain he'd given up fighting them. He finally said, "Whatever," and turned away.
"Squall," Rinoa said, a note of warning in her voice that was just dangerous enough to have Seifer fighting the urge to run away.
"I can't just up and leave," Squall informed her in a bland tone. "There's paperwork involved."
"You don't want SeeD coming after us because we dragged him off without a word of warning," Seifer pointed out, because he didn't doubt for one minute that someone would jump to that conclusion first thing. And he wouldn't put it past the lot Squall called 'friends' to step out of the way of the mob and let Squall and Seifer handle them.
"Oh, right. I didn't even think about that," Rinoa admitted, sounding just a bit ashamed.
Squall let out that annoying little non-committal noise of acknowledgement that he always used in public – Seifer was half convinced Squall did it because he knew it got on Seifer's nerves – then walked away.
Seifer and Rinoa stayed in the Training Centre for a little over an hour, after that. They made for the cafeteria after, both hungry, and it wasn't until they'd sat down at a table together, that it occurred to Seifer: "This is not going to help those rumours."
"What, us eating together like we're friends?" Rinoa guessed, before sighing and shrugging. "Probably not, but if we're leaving soon, I don't see why it matters."
"It doesn't, I'm just pointing it out."
Rinoa shot him a look that seemed way too fond, to Seifer, and his sneer in response was reflex, but accurate enough that he didn't feel the need to take it back. She laughed, quiet but no less amused, and Seifer was a little insulted that she apparently didn't take him seriously any more.
"So," he asked, partially as punishment, partially because he was maybe a little curious, "do you want to bang Leonhart?"
She choked on a mouthful of food, and Seifer patted himself on the back for winning that mini round. "How does he put up with you?" she asked once she'd recovered.
Seifer was pretty sure that was meant as a joke, on her part, but his responding, "I have no idea," came out a little too honest for comfort.
She sighed and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "He's pretty," she said, and Seifer snorted, because that was certainly true enough, "and you know I like pretty things."
"Really?" Seifer had to say, voice heavy with sarcasm. "No, I had no idea."
Her unnecessarily obvious eyeroll looked way too much like Squall's, and Seifer grimaced a bit at the show that she was adopting his mannerisms, while she said, "I would totally sleep with him if it was on offer. But he made it clear that he was spoken for. And I already know you don't share well."
"You mean I don't share at all," Seifer couldn't resist correcting, although he'd mostly resigned himself to sharing Squall with Rinoa, at least to the point that she needed a knight to help her keep her powers in check.
She laughed, clearly amused, and Seifer sneered at her again.
"Rinoa?" Trepe said, as she stopped next to their table with Xu and a couple of other younger SeeD that Seifer knew she'd been on good terms with while she was an instructor. "What are you doing with him?" And then she threw Seifer a particularly poisonous glare.
Seifer smirked and leant back in his chair in response, acting like he was having the time of his life, because he refused to be hurt by yet another show that Squall's 'friends' would prefer him dead.
"Seifer's my friend," Rinoa said, a hard edge to her voice that made Seifer's hair stand on end.
"Quistis, come on," one of the SeeDs said, casting Rinoa a disgusted look. "Leave the sorceress and her knight."
"Almasy is not Rinoa's knight!" Trepe snapped, turning on the SeeD who'd spoken.
The SeeD did not look convinced.
"A-plus delivery, Instructor," Seifer said. He made a show of clapping his hands together a couple of times while Trepe turned back to glare at him, ignoring Rinoa kicking him under the table, then he stopped and said, "Oh, wait, that's right. Ex-instructor." And then he flashed her a sharp smile.
Trepe's tray was halfway to the floor, her hand on her whip and murder in her eyes, when Rinoa shouted, "Stop it!"
A mostly invisible wave of magic slammed down between Seifer and Trepe, knocking her back a couple of steps and shoving his chair back at least an inch. It let up almost as soon as it had appeared, but it was enough to knock the breath out of Seifer, and land Trepe on her ass, he saw when he glanced that way, which suited him fine.
And then he saw people around them reaching for their weapons and jumped out of his seat, drawing Hyperion as he stepped around the table to get between Rinoa and as many people as he could; he might not be her knight, but damned if he was going to face Squall if she died because he stayed out of things. He met the blade of the closest SeeD with his own, then kicked out, shoving him back into the two SeeDs coming up behind him. "We're leaving!" he snapped to Rinoa.
"Stop it!" Trepe ordered, grabbing one SeeD by the shoulder to stop her, and snapping her whip at a few cadets looking like they wanted to take a potshot at their resident sorceress. And then, unexpectedly, she looked at Seifer and snapped, "Get her out!"
Rinoa was already standing, and she didn't fight Seifer when he ushered her out of the cafeteria, leaving it for Trepe to deal with the fallout.
They ended up in Squall's office on the top floor, and he listened to everything with a blank expression, then sighed and rubbed at his forehead. "Hopefully no one will fight me about my leaving, now," he muttered.
Given that most of Garden seemed to think Seifer was Rinoa's knight, not Squall, he wasn't certain how well that would work out. But it seemed to be enough for someone – or else everyone realised that they would either deal with Seifer and Rinoa, or lose Squall, and decided on the latter – because Squall had his severance pay within two days, and no one tried to stop them as they left Garden. (Thought Squall's 'friends' did come to see them off; they avoided Seifer, and Seifer politely kept his sneers to himself.)
Timber, when they got there, pretty much welcomed them all with a massive party. Which may or may not have had something to do with the Galbadian soldier who had recognised Seifer as they were getting off the train, called for the backup of every soldier in Timber, and then proceeded to attempt an attack. Which failed, because Squall was an overprotective idiot, Rinoa wasn't much better, and Seifer was tired of holding himself back from killing idiots with a death wish.
Seifer was not privy to the next part – had pretty much grabbed Squall and gone to their room as soon as they had one, before one of the two of them could get claustrophobic because of all the people and ended up killing someone – but rumour had it that Rinoa had video-called her father, informed him that Timber was a free state, and hung up on his disbelieving stuttering. Much to the unending glee of pretty much everyone in attendance.
The next group of Galbadian soldiers were met at the city gates by an armed crowd, with Rinoa leading the pack. Seifer and Squall had been insistent that they remain with her, and Rinoa had huffed and rolled her eyes, but agreed, and the Timber natives had kindly held to that, giving both of them ample space to swing their gunblades or summon GFs, if necessary.
"Timber is no longer under Galbadian rule," Rinoa informed the commanding officer of the soldiers.
"Sweetheart," the man said, with the sort of sickening-sweet smile that left Seifer hoping their resident sorceress blew him up in a show of power, "you can't just go around declaring territories to belong to themselves. Timber belongs to Galbadia, as it has for almost a decade, now."
"Territories change, and your president is dead," Rinoa informed him, earning a resounding roar from the resistance army at their back. "So is your sorceress, given I inherited her powers."
And then, in a rather impressive display, Rinoa grew massive white wings, sending a cloud of feathers out over the Timber natives.
The look Squall shot Seifer was a rather obvious, 'Did you know she could do that?'
Seifer shrugged; he hadn't known, no, but he knew a sorceress' wings were the physical representation of her power, so he'd sort of assumed she had a pair. He'd also assumed they would be impressive, though he'd honestly expected them to look a lot more terrifying. Leave it to Rinoa to turn Ultimecia's terrifying powers into something far more benevolent, at least on the outside.
The soldiers were fairly clearly unwilling to take on Ultimecia's successor, and judging by the looks some of them were sending at Seifer, Galbadia would be joining Balamb Garden in assuming he was her knight.
Well, fine. Fuck them all. So long as Squall was willing to keep him around and remained Rinoa's knight, Seifer supposed he could live with playing knight-adjacent and letting the world think he was the one to watch out for; that suited his and Squall's personalities far more, anyway.
Within a week, Rinoa had been named president of Timber, which was once again a free state, and Seifer and Squall ended up in charge of building Timber's army back up and leading them.
Eventually, Seifer would figure out that even he deserved redemption, and he and Squall both would learn to let more than each other in (though Seifer would never actually get on with Trepe or Dincht, and only really tolerated Kinneas and Tilmitt because they seemed willing to try).
And, one day, Rinoa would find someone who loved her in spite of what she was, and who was strong enough to bear the burden of being her knight. And Seifer and Squall would celebrate by travelling the world for a couple years, before returning to Timber, which had long since become the place they called home.
A/N: Happy New Year! Here's hoping 2018 is a great year (and magically involves an HD version of this game XD).
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