Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodcross Key: Arc 2: Reversals ❯ Part 9 ( Chapter 9 )

*****Part 9:

        The barrage of questions seemed endless.

        "So how'd you beat the Sorceress?" Barely.

        "How many GF's did you need to summon?" More than he would have liked.

        "Which GF's did you summon?" Did that really matter?

        "How long did it take?" Too long.

        "What's the most difficult creature you ever fought?" Seifer. For reasons deeper than he'd ever say. Maybe deeper than he even knew.

        "Can I see your gunblade?" He heard that often enough he was beginning to wonder if it was some sort of pick-up line.

        "Can you show us how you defeated the Sorceress' Knight?"

        That got his attention where he had mostly brushed off the other questions. He stared at the underclassman who had spoken, a small girl with wide green eyes gazing at him in naked adoration.

        Another student, tall and dark-haired, added with a smug grin, "Yeah. We heard you kicked his ass real good. More than once!"

        The crowd rumbled, murmurs of "the loser' and "bastard" and "... he deserved..." still audible over their enthusiasm. Squall's storm blue eyes narrowed as they darted over the crowd. Gods, he hoped Seifer wasn't around to hear. The last thing Seifer needed was more guilt and shame to pile on the mountain of self-loathing he already tormented himself with. Add to that the torture, and violation, and ... and...

        "Enough!" Squall roared, quaking hands clenching in a creak of leather at his sides. "As long as you are students of Garden you will show respect to your fellow students. You don't have to like them, you don't have to be their friend, but you will treat them civilly."

        With that said, the exhibition lecture was over. He was through standing on the auditorium's stage dealing with a crowd of ungrateful students. Students with no fucking clue how much Seifer had suffered and sacrificed just to be among them. Fuck them! If those sniveling bastards were what Garden had to work with, no wonder SeeD was a small, elite force. The could go to hell for all he cared.

        He stormed off the stage, his eyes daring anyone to as much as breathe in his direction. Frozen in breathless silence, none did.

*******

        "Squall!" Quistis called, hurrying from the Library entrance behind him.

        He turned and waited, his face set-stone still except for narrowing eyes.

        "Squall, have you seen Seifer?"

        The stone began to crumble. "No. Why?"

        "He wasn't in class today. I've been looking for him to see if he was alright, but I can't find him anywhere."

        "Where have you looked?" Squall's heart began thumping loudly in his ears as it pound against his constricting chest. Seifer wouldn't miss class deliberately. Not with how determined he looked yesterday. What if...

        "Everywhere. I was about to check his room again."

        The hands hanging at Squall's sides trembled. Seifer hadn't been in his room last night either, or at least hadn't answered the door.

        "No one's seen him leave. Actually, no one's seen him at all, not since yesterday evening in... the cafeteria."

        He had to be dreaming again, and the whole thing was just a nightmare. A horrible nightmare. Not real at all. Seifer couldn't be gone. He had just gotten him back.

        "I'll look for him. You've checked the Training Center?" he said with his signature calm, but not one bit of it did he feel.

        "Yes! Twice."

        Squall nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. "I'll look. Thanks."

        "But," Quistis paused, watching him. "...aren't you supposed to meet Rinoa for lunch?"

        Rinoa, Rinoa, Rinoa. To hell with Rinoa. She could wait. Sure, he should care more about how she felt. Care more about her. After all, he was her boyfriend. But he'd known Seifer longer. Seifer was a part of him, part of who he was, almost like they were opposite sides of the same being. The sun to his gloom. Fire to his ice. To lose Seifer was to lose himself. If Rinoa loved him, she would understand.

        "I said, `I'll look`. She knows my duties as headmaster come before my duties to her."

        Quistis looked at him strangely, then tilted her head in that irritating way which meant she thought she knew something. "I see."

        Squall thought he caught a glimpse of a smirk on her lips. What did she believe she had discovered about him? It wasn't like he had been obvious about how he truly felt. Feelings safely hidden inside as they always had been. Well mostly. And what was it about everyone lately? Smirks everywhere but on the one he wanted it to be most.

        "Whatever..."

*******

        Squall stood before Seifer's door. With a shaky breath, he knocked.

        "Seifer. You in there?" he called. Squall glanced irritably to either side of the hallway.

        He felt like an idiot; Well, if Seifer wasn't inside, he felt like an idiot, yelling through the door to an empty room. Yet, there was no where else left to look; he had searched everywhere and not one sign of Seifer. No one had seen him, desperation prompting him to even ask. Hell if he was in the mood to talk to anyone after the day he'd been having. But, for Seifer...

        "Seifer. It's Squall." He banged on the door. "Open up."

        Nothing. The fear he had been able to keep to a low hum throughout his search rumbled over the awkwardness of talking to an empty room, rising to a thunder of pure panic.

        "Seifer!"

        Still nothing.

        Squall's fingers flew across the keypad of the electronic lock beside the door, entering the headmaster's override code. He didn't know which possibility was worse: finding Seifer in his room, or not finding him. Both brought unwelcome images to his frantic mind.

        The door whispered open and Squall stepped into near darkness. Aside from the pale white band, broken by his shadow, cast upon the floor from the corridor, a faint bluish glow across the room offered the only semblance of light: sunlight fighting through thick, dark curtains. Probably velvet, like...

        "Seifer?" Squall stood several steps inside the room, his blue-gray shadow shifting with him. The light from the hall vanished with a breezy click and he strained his eyes to see into the blue-blackness of the room's depths.

        After a few moments his vision adjusted, dark shapes of varying gray melting from what had been a veil of blue-tinged blackness. Leave it to Seifer to have the one room in Garden with a switch not by the door. Using the vague value-map of shadows, he wandered further into the room, fumbling for a lamp and successfully avoiding stubbing a toe. Not that he would have felt it through his thick boots if he hadn`t.

        "Seifer?" A faint rustling of cloth was his only reply. Squall sighed. Just his clothes. Damn. He was ten times a fool for skulking about in Seifer's empty room. He had to be losing his mind: paranoia, outward emotionalism, nervousness, guilt, the dreams...

        The dreams. Best not to think about them. Particularly not while creeping around. And not while in tight leather. Not only would it be embarrassing, if someone saw him, but very uncomfortable. Heated, thickening skin straining against slick leather and the zipper of his pants...

        Squall froze. Leather. Leather pants. Although they had tightened slightly at trying not to think about his dreams, his faintly aroused state was furthest from his mind. Leather pants. Leather. Leather creaked. Even squeaked. But leather did not `rustle'.

        "Seifer?" Squall called, louder than before, and voice shaking.

        A weak groan answered him.

        Mindless of any obstacles hidden in the gray, he stumbled towards the bluish glow of the window, his heart hammering in his chest. With a hand trembling from adrenaline, he flung aside the curtain, bombarding the room in bright sunlight. His arm shot up to shield his eyes from the glare. As he turned back towards the room, his squinted gaze fell on Seifer's bed. And he forgot to breathe.

        Seifer rose slightly from the tight curl of his body to lean on an elbow, his other arm darting to cover his face from the sun. Rumpled and sleepy, dark clothes hanging loosely on him like wrinkled shadows, he still shone like a god, golden and silver and beautiful. Even under the white haze of the sudden light.

        "Squall?" The tremor in Seifer's drowsy voice mirrored the tremor in his hand and the heaviness of his breath.

        "Yeah." Squall took a tentative step toward the bed. "You okay?"

        With a nervous flinch, Seifer edged himself backward, into the weak shadows near the wall, the simple gray blanket spread over his bed bunching around his body.

        "What... what are you doing here?" Seifer asked, a whisper of dispassionate fear and anger.

        Squall sighed, his mind a confusing jumble of all he felt and thought and wanted. Nothing made sense. But none of it mattered. Only Seifer. Seifer stared at him, with his gorgeous aqua eyes sparkling, almost glowing in the sunlight. Yet, it was a beauty pale, dimmed by desolation, despair, fear,... death. Death of Seifer's passionate soul. Well, he did know one thing he wanted; he wanted to break down and cry, he wanted Seifer back. The real Seifer: all fire, and passion, and arrogance, and sarcastic humor, and impulse, and strength, and ...

        "You missed class," Squall finally muttered.

        Seifer glanced lazily at his bedside clock: 12:42 in glowing red. His eyes sunk to the floor, blank and listless.

        "Oh."

        "You okay?"

        Seifer dropped his arm to his lap, his hands clawing the hem of his shirt. He gave a slow nod.

        "Well, uh...you know if you need more time..."

        "I'm fine," Seifer mumbled. "Just overslept."

        Overslept? It was nearly one o'clock. Either Seifer had stayed awake too late last night, or he needed far more sleep and time to recover than he thought. Squall unconsciously let his gaze wander to the spot on the floor Seifer seemed to find so uninterestingly interesting. Two vials of pills lay near his nightstand like they had rolled there.

        ...Or a third possibility: Seifer had help oversleeping. He bent down to pick them up.

        "What are these?" Squall asked as he examined the labels. Kadowaki's signature was on both. Relieved, he let out the breath he hadn't realized he had held. The white ones were for pain, one to be taken no more than three times a day. The red were sleeping pills, also a dosage of one, to be taken right before sleeping. He grunted, as he set both vials on the nightstand with a sudden rattle.

        Squall turned back to Seifer who watched him silently.

        "I assume you're taking the proper dosage." It was a question but not a question.

        Seifer just continued to stare.

        "Well, I think it may be best if you wait a few days before actually starting classes."

        That got a reaction, slight though it was. Seifer's eyes narrowed and his pink lips frowned.

        "I... I'm fine. I..." Seifer said desperately.

        "Maybe. But if one sleeping pill has you so knocked out you miss your classes then you need more rest."

        "But..."

        Squall lifted his hand to silence him. "That's an order."

        "You can't. I..."

        Squall approached the bed, resisting the urge to drop onto it and gather Seifer in his arms. To hold him, to comfort him, to...

        "Seifer," he said softly. "You've waited this long, what's a few more days?"

        At the pained look that flashed in Seifer's eyes he wanted to kick himself. What had he said? ... Oh!... Oh, shit!

        "I didn't mean it like that. I just... I... oh, nevermind." Sighing, Squall ran a hand through his hair. "Listen, since you slept the morning away, how about we get some lunch?"

        "I'd rather not."

        "Brooding isn't going to get you starting classes any sooner."

        Seifer rolled over, curling up facing the wall, and ignored him.

        Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Squall's fingers twitched to reach out in comfort, to touch Seifer's warm skin, his golden hair, his cheek, his lips... But he did nothing. Just stared at his hands clutching his knees. "Seifer, I... I... I want to help you."

        "Then go away."

        "That won't solve anything."

        "It worked for you," Seifer said distantly, pain flickering in his dead eyes as they peered over his shoulder at Squall.
 
        Squall's mouth went dry. "No. It didn't. I..." He stood and paced to the middle of the room, biting his lip, wanting to say so much but not finding the words. So he found other words. Words that said nothing and yet everything if one looked deep enough. Looked past the cold and the assumed apathy to see what he wasn't saying, what he couldn't say.

        "Seifer, I...I... look, I can't have injured students moping about making themselves worse. What ...what would Cid think? So... I'm going to do what I can to see that doesn't happen. Besides, the way I see it, if you don't eat, the Doc won't be happy, and who knows what she'll come up with to make sure you do. This way, you don't have to find out. Well?"

        He turned, arms folded across his chest, his storm blue eyes daring Seifer to say 'no'.

    "Fine," Seifer groaned. "Whatever. You win."

    "Good. I'll be right back."
 

(End Part 9)