Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Lightning. ❯ Chapter, the Thirty-Second: In Which Seifer Plays Squall ( Chapter 32 )

Kitty: Oh! I know what happens. Really, it just gets worse...

Eoko: At this point, how can it not get worse? Everything gets worse before it gets better.

Kitty: What if it doesn't get better?!

Eoko: Then we should hightail it outta here before the readers get wind!

Kitty: -giggles- Good point! But... I like this fic too much to run away from it! Irvine's so KAWAII!

Irvine: -glare-

Eoko: Looks like Irvine totally agrees too.

Kitty: Who cares? I'm the 50% author of this and the 100% author of everything he does in RP!

Eoko: Except that one time we all like, switched people that one night, after we'd accidentally got the fonts mixed up, and then I think you came into the convo all "What the fuck?"

Kitty: Oh... yeah... -sigh- Good times.

Eoko: -snorts- Shall we let the readers read?

Kitty: What a good idea. Review you bums!

Eoko: Kitty, don't insult the readers.

Kitty: Oh... -looks sheepish and giggles- Sorry, readers! You aren't bums. Hope you enjoy the chapter!

Chapter, the Thirty-Second: In Which Seifer Plays Squall

“He what?!” Anasha screeched, forcing even Selphie to cover her ears. Maybe it wasn’t a better idea to tell her in the cafeteria.

“Shhh!” Selphie raised a finger to her lips to make her point even clearer.

Anasha stared at the shorter girl. “But… but… but…”

“Breathe!”

She gulped down a breath then breathed deeply a few times. “Are you telling me that Seifer Almasy is in love with Zell Dincht who is already with Irvine Kinneas?!” Thankfully she had lowered her voice.

“Well… except I don’t know if he’s in love with him, yea, that’s about it.”

“But he’d kill Irvine to get him out of the way!” Anasha whispered angrily across the table.

“He would not kill him, Anasha. He might wish he was dead and he might get him into dangerous situations, but he’d never kill him. He’d get kicked out of Garden, go to prison, and then no Zell at all.”

“Irvy could still get hurt though. Selphie! I’m worried.”

“I know, so am I. I just hope that he won’t do anything. As long as Zell knows the two are together, he’ll expect Seifer to watch out for him. If he gets hurt, Zell’d go ballistic on him.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said shifting a little in her seat. “Should we tell the others?” she asked, referring to the Cadets.

“I don’t think so. They’re protective of Irvine already, and they do make sure Seifer stays away. I don’t think getting them even more involved will help any more. I mean, even Zell has no idea.”

“Zell doesn’t know!?” Anasha yelled again. Selphie leapt halfway over the table to slap a hand over the redhead’s mouth, eyes darting around the room. That would be the worst, and most likely time for one, Zell Dincht, to have entered the room and caught a part of their conversation. Thankfully, lady luck was favoring the girls and Zell was nowhere to be seen.

“No,” the brunette hissed. “He doesn’t and we’re definitely not going to tell him.” She slowly lowered her hand, hoping the girl would stop making such sudden outbursts.

“Why?” she asked, utterly perplexed. Shouldn’t Zell know his best friend probably wanted to screw him into the carpet? At least so he could make it clear he wasn’t interested?

“Well…” Selphie trailed off.

- - -

Seifer strode through the doors and into Cid’s office. He gave a customary half-smile to the man behind the desk before turning off to the side, heading for Xu/Squall’s office.

He knew the commander would be in there now. Hell, he was in there even when it wasn’t his scheduled hours. The guy just would rather deal with papers than people.

Seifer knocked open the doors, causing Cid to cringe slightly. Squall on the other hand didn’t even look up from his work. Besides, there was only one arseho-person in all of Garden that came into the office like that.

“Hello, Seifer,” Squall said down to his papers.

“Commander.” Seifer gave a nod, crossing his arms loosely across his chest and waiting until the broody brunet looked up at him.

After several minutes Squall put the latest report aside and looked up at Mr. Arrogant himself, folding his hands on the desk top. “What is it?”

“About that ‘what SeeDs do and don’t we want to work with’ thing-“

“I told everyone already. Make a written report and submit it to Tamitha Rapture.”

“Well maybe there’s a part of it I don’t want Tamitha to know. Maybe one of the Garden’s commanders could just mention they did or didn’t want me working with certain people.”

Squall sighed. “And why do you need a commander to do that for you?” Seifer was being an idiot, stubborn and wasn’t making much sense.

“Shut up, Leonhart. What I’m about to tell you can never leave this room. I’m going to give you a little present and you better damn well appreciate it.” As he spoke he walked over to the desk until he stood right in front of it. He spread his palms over the dark wood of its surface and grinned that Almasy grin.

Squall cocked a brow. Seifer still wasn’t making any sense, but he was sounding a bit more interesting. “I’m all ears… I think.”

Seifer’s grin turned into a little smirk before it fell from his face. This was no joyous matter. He was moments away from giving his sole rival the single biggest upper hand ever. But, it would be worth it.

“You know as well as everyone else here that I am not a model SeeD when it comes to leadership and taking orders.”

Squall snorted. That was the understatement of the century.

The blond eyed him then continued. “So, my gift is telling you how to control me; how to make me stop my actions on a dime without backtalk or a second thought; how to make me, Seifer Almasy, obey.”

The younger gunbladist stared, openly surprised for once. That was definitely not what he had expected. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Neither did I, but it is. I bet you want to know how now, don’t you?”

“Well, that was the point on your speech, wasn’t it?”

Smartarse, Seifer thought. “If you’re going to keep up that kind of attitude, maybe I won’t tell you.”

“You’re the one that wanted to tell me in the first place, Seifer!”

The gunbladist snickers mentally. Mr. Iceberg lost his cool. “Fine. There’s just two words you have to know; Zell Dincht.” He leaned back, away from the desk as Squall stared at him.

Finally Squall wrapped his brain around what had just been said well enough to form some reply. “Zell? Zell is who can control you? And you don’t even talk back or give what he says a second thought?”

The blond saw the mirth in Squall’s eyes and knew he was a sliver away from actually smiling, or even laughing. “Well, not right away. If he says stop, I stop. It’s really not that difficult to understand, Leonhart.”

Squall looked up at Seifer with a little half-smirk. “I see. So, you want me to put you on missions under Zell.”

Well, in the missionary position over Zell actually, but sure, that works too. “The missions would go smoother if you knew I’d be “good”.”

“You realise, I’m sure, that Zell goes on the higher-class missions. But, I suppose he’d like the extra work.”

“I can handle the higher-class missions, Squall.”

“Maybe in fighting skill, but what about tactics and diplomacy, as well as a handful of other necessary skills?”

“Okay, so I’m a little rusty in those.”

Squall smirked. A little rusty, ha. That was a laugh. “Still… I think I will mention it to Miss Rapture. Keeping you in line, especially on your first dozen or so missions is important.”

“So does that mean you’ll be sending Zell on little baby missions to keep an eye on me?”

“Probably. He’ll like that. He hasn’t been getting any for a while.”

“He was teaching a hand-to-hand class, you idiot.” Squall so didn’t pay enough attention to some things, like instructors and classes. They were Xu’s departments, but still, Zell was his friend, sort of…ish.

“Was he? Huh.”

Seifer shook his head. “Well, the SeeDs I don’t want to work with can go into my report to Rapture. You better not forget to tell her about sending me out with Zell.”

“I already wrote it down, Seifer. See?” Squall lifted the piece of paper to show the tall blond standing before his desk.

“Good- Hey! Does that say you don’t want to work with me under that?” Seifer asked as Squall lowered the paper back to the desktop.

Squall just smirked. Seifer gave him a look, then whirled around, trench coat billowing out behind him as he stormed through the doors, through Cid’s office and out into the elevator.

He grinned as he leaned against the back wall. It was pretty much a guarantee that Squall would go for putting the blonds together for missions, but putting Zell on little piddly missions was a bonus. Those would take him away from Irvine and let Seifer get closer and closer to taking back what was rightfully his.

Well, all that was left to do was write his little report on who he would like to work with, and the longer part including who he didn’t. He’d work with Selphie, Zell was a sure thing. Was there anyone else who would even want to work with him? Nope? Good.

Seifer really didn’t care about a lot of the SeeD members, but he was not going to work with Squall, Quistis or Irvine Kinneas.

- - -

“What are you writing, Irviiine?” Zell asked as he bounced on the cowboy’s bed, “Can I seeeee?”

“It’s my SeeD team members report,” Irvine replied, shielding the page from Zell’s view.

“Am I on it?” The blond didn’t have about four Dr. Perkys. No, not him.

“Of course. I want to spend as much time with you as I can.” Irvine smiled to himself. “Even if my life doesn’t revolve around you.”

Zell snorted and hopped off the bed, coming up behind Irvine and wrapping his arms around the cowboy’s neck, trying to sneak a peek at the report at the same time.

The auburn-haired man flipped the paper over as soon as Zell’s strong arms curled around his frame. “What you tryin’ to see there, Dincht?”

“Nothin’,” Zell murmured as he turned his lips to the cowboy’s neck and started trailing butterfly kisses up and down his skin.

Irvine tilted his head to the side, smoothing his hand out over the back of his paper. He knew what Zell wanted to see. He wanted to know if Seifer’s name was under the “I don’t want to work with this prick” section of the report. But it was. In fact, the name had just finished being scrawled before the page had to be flipped.

Sure, he’d try to get along with Seifer, but so far that wasn’t happening, and Seifer was not trying to get along with him either. In fact, he had just exchanged taunting for incredible lewd comments and gestures. And that apology! That wasn’t an apology at all! Even if Zell didn’t see it, Irvine knew the arrogant prick wasn’t going to change his attitude toward him anytime soon, and he wasn’t going to put up with it if he didn’t have to.

Besides, if things did change he could submit another report, or withdraw that part of his. It wasn’t a hard thing to do. He knew Selphie, Zell, Quistis, Squall, Nida, and a lot of the others were adding his name to their list of allies. And why not? A sorcerer-killing-ace of a sharpshooter? Who wouldn’t want to have the enemy that was just about to bite their head off killed by their teammate who was standing a hundred meters away? Serves the idiot right for running that far ahead alone.

“Irvine?” Zell asked quietly when Irvine hadn’t moaned in the last few seconds.

“Hm? Sorry, just thinkin’.” He smiled as the blonde’s eyebrows furrowed.

“You shouldn’t be able to think when I’m doing that to your neck. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.” His sapphire eyes glinted in that mischievous Dincht way and Irvine had to lift his hands to the fighter’s muscled chest to hold him back.

“Come on, Zell. The faster I get this done, the faster you can molest me.”

Zell’s head dropped a little and he pouted at the seated cowboy. “Can’t I just molest you now and you could write your report later?” he whined rather cutely.

“If you wouldn’t want to molest me later as well, I’d, like, agree with you. Why don’t you go bug Seifer or Selphie or someone? I can have his done within the hour if you would stop distractin’ me.” Irvine tilted his head to the side, smiling up at his boyfriend.

Zell was caught between looking pleased with himself for being so able to distract the cowboy and looking hurt for being shooed away. “But Irvy…”

“You buts, Zell,” he gave a little wink. “Now get out and let me finish this.” Another soft smile. “I’ll see you later, alright?”

“Fine,” the blond said, leaning in to place a soft kiss on the cowboy’s lips before heading out of his room. “You had better be done within the hour, or there’ll be blood, baby. Not sure whose, probably a Grat’s, but there’ll be- hey!” Zell yelped as something can flying at him. He caught it and looked at the smirking man at the desk. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”

One final blown kiss to his lovely cowboy and Zell was finally out of the door and treading down the halls.