Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Lightning. ❯ Chapter, The Forty-Ninth: In Which There is Pain. ( Chapter 49 )

Kitty: Because that always goes with pleasure...? -thinks- Hmm...

Eoko: Or we're evil and like to tug our readers in every direction possible? It's called suspense! I think...

Kitty: Or torture...

Eoko: That too.

Kitty: But suspence is a much nicer word! -beams innocently-

Eoko: -beams as well-

Kitty: On to the fic!

Chapter, The Forty-Ninth: In Which There is Pain.

Irvine would admit to being a little miffed that yet again Zell had spent a day on a mission without him, but at least this time it didn’t involve Seifer. He really needed to go to Squall and flat out demand a mission with Zell… Then again, the way Squall had been acting lately, there was probably no chance of him getting it.

His eyes fell on Exeter and their trained gaze nagged that he hadn’t been looking after her properly. Lightning and Zell had taken up all his time when he wasn’t on missions, and really, it was stupid to let the weapon his life depended upon get dangerously uncared for. He swung his legs off the bed and went to get his gun, settling at his desk and taking her to pieces with practiced ease. He opened a drawer and set to cleaning the pieces, sinking into the work.

When his doorbell chimed, he glanced up, putting the piece he was currently working on aside and going to answer it. There was no one around, but a nondescript Garden-issue envelope lay at his feet with his name typed across the front. He arched a brow and a little smirk tugged at his lips. What was Zell up to?

He forced himself to finish cleaning Exeter and put the gun back together before he opened the envelope. There was a video memory chip inside and he cocked his head, glancing habitually around before he pushed it into his television. What he expected to see and what he did see were two astronomically different things and he would swear black and blue he heard his heart break.

“Zell…” he whispered, and his voice sounded lonely in the emptiness of his room.

That something had been off since they got back from Trabia had been a dim awareness, but this… this brought it all into sharp focus. He loved Zell, with everything he was, and here was that man, that perfect, sweet, loving man in Seifer Almasy’s arms kissing Seifer Almasy’s lips.

“Oh… Hyne…”

Squall was right.

- - - - - - -

Joy, love, guilt, pain, confusion, love, pleasure, horror, love, terror, love…

Oh, what had he done? He’d done the right thing. Seifer’s gentle smile, his touch, the way they made love, all that said he’d done the right thing, but Zell knew there were rules. You weren’t supposed to love two people. Worse, you weren’t supposed to cheat on someone you loved.

Was he cheating on Seifer when he made love to Irvine? No. Yes. He didn’t know anymore. Was he cheating on Irvine when Seifer made love to him? Yes. That answer was simple. Seifer knew about Irvine, he knew what Zell felt, knew the sharpshooter was there and always would be. Irvine… Irvine didn’t know. He thought he was the only one, and for a while, he had been. It had been so perfect, and Irvine was so damn perfect, and he still was and he always would be and how could Zell not love him? But Seifer was all that as well, and Zell didn’t know how he could feel so passionately for two such different men.

And what now? He couldn’t deny Seifer, not anymore. It wouldn’t be fair. Neither could he leave Irvine – Hyne, wouldn’t that break the sharpshooter’s heart? Seifer deserved to be loved, after everything he’d gone through, but that didn’t make Irvine any less deserving, and hadn’t he been through hell as well? Zell still didn’t know what had happened to Irvine after Ma Dincht had come and taken him, but he did know that it must have been terribly lonely for the sharpshooter when he realised the people he’d grown up with just didn’t remember him.

All this, however, was a background to the utter satisfaction, the joy he felt at having been with Seifer. He couldn’t keep the spring out of his step as he headed for Irvine’s room, smelling clean and fresh after showering at Seifer’s – with Seifer. He would have to face the confusion and the decision he didn’t want to make eventually, but for now, for a little while, surely he could just enjoy them both… Just for a little while.

He was surprised at the semi-darkness that confronted him when he entered Irvine’s room. He would have expected the sharpshooter to be up by now, planning a day with Lightning, or a trip to Balamb, or just waiting for Zell to come so they could make love – didn’t they spend days doing that a lot… He squinted in an effort to see.

Irvine lay on his back on his bed in near darkness, bands of light that filtered in through the blinds splayed across his form. He'd managed to calm down, but only through great concentration and remaining perfectly still in this position, arm flung over closed eyes. He felt almost meditative, breathing deep and slow, but the question that was his "mantra" hurt with every heart-beat.

Why? Why? Why? And what do I do now?

"Hey, baby. You in here?"

He swallowed, and hated that he wanted the fighter to come settle over him, just like always, kiss him hello and touch his hair like he was all that mattered. Evidently, he wasn't.

"Yeah," was the terse reply.

If Zell had been a truer fairy, as in one with wings, his ears may have twitched at that tone. Instead he just registered it with one brow cocked. He entered the room, letting the door slide shut behind him and moved towards the bed, where the sharpshooter's voice had come from.

"You okay, Irvine? Are you sick?"

"To my stomach, Zell," he replied in an almost-whisper, slowly fisting the hand that belonged to the arm across his eyes.

The martial artist wasted no more time in making his way over to Irvine and sitting himself down on the edge of the mattress.

"Was it something you ate?" he asked, sincerely worried and going right into Mama Dincht mode, hand sliding onto the lean stomach to move in calming circles.

He flinched at the touch, desperately torn between hate and love and need and horror. He was letting the moment go on too long, but Zell was... Zell was... Hyne help me...

"Somethin' I saw," he said finally through clenched teeth.

"What could you have seen that would make you sick, baby? You're a trained mercenary." Zell chuckled and stroked the cowboy's stomach softly, warm smile on his lips.

Why did he have to be so… Zell?! And call him ‘baby’ in that tone that made him just want to hide in the fighter’s arms and never let the world touch him?

"Don't touch me!" he snapped suddenly, moving like lightning to pull away and sit up. His eyes burned with unshed tears and he didn't understand why it was just so damn hard to hate the man. He should hate him. He should.

"Irvine!" Zell exclaimed, startled. "Irvine, what's wrong?" He tried to catch Irvine's eyes but it was hard in the dark and the cowboy was trying not to look at him.

"You tell me! Did I do somethin' wrong? Is it because... 'cause I don't... didn't... d-don't know enough?" He lifted a hand to rub furiously at his eyes, refusing point blank to cry.

"What are you talking about, Irvine?" the martial artist asked, his voice caught between a worried cry and a startled whisper. His heart clenched and his gut tightened. His body knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.

"I saw... I saw..." He couldn't say it. Voicing it would make it real, make the pain that much more difficult to bear. But he had to do it, he knew he had to. "Seifer! I saw you! I saw you Zell and you... You said you loved me..." The last was a choked whisper, dwindling off into a sob that he tried to keep back.

A gentle hand shot out to cup around Irvine's jaw, turning his face towards him.

"Irvine, I do love you. Please, please don't doubt that. I…" He shook his head and looked back into sky blue eyes. "And you aren't inexperienced, not anymore. That's not the reason..."

"I said don't touch me!" Irvine tried to growl, but it came out almost pleading. He couldn't do what he had to do if Zell touched him. He pushed the hand away. "I should... I should've known the whole... the whole damn thing were just... just..." He gestured helplessly. "The same old thing. You and Seifer... just fuckin' with me."

"No, no, Irvine. No, no, no," Zell pleaded with his eyes, his body as much as with his voice. "No, Irvine. I can't talk for him. He probably even thinks he is, and is enjoying that. But I... I'm not fucking with you. I love you. I'm an idiot, and a selfish fool, but I love you as truly as any person can love another." (1)

"If you love me then what... why..." He shook his head, gritting his teeth. "No, I don't want to know. I... I don't want to hear anythin' about... about him. Just stop talkin'... stop... lyin', stop..." bein' the man I love... "…jerkin' me around! Go away!"

"Irvine," Zell pleaded again. "Please... I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I'll try to tell you why. I won't lie... just don't make me leave. Please, please, please don't make me leave."

"I don't want to know! It... it were pretty damn clear! It..." The pictures flashed across his mind and another sob came. Zell and Seifer, Seifer and Zell. Hungry, needy, passionate. "You don't love me, you love... you love... S... you love him!"

"Yes, I love him!" Zell admitted. This was no time to lie, not anymore. "But that doesn't mean I don't love you. I do! I love you so much. I love you both." He reached out to take Irvine's hands in his own, but the cowboy gave a terribly derisive half-laugh, half-sob and pulled his hands away.

"Just go, Zell. Go back to him. It's where you really want to be," he said bitterly.

"No, no, no! I want to be with you! I want to be with you right now, Irvine. Please!" he almost wailed, throwing himself down upon Irvine's legs and burying his face in the sharpshooter's lap. "Irvine! Listen to me. Dear Hyne, listen! I love you! I was stupid, I did something wrong, something dishonest and hurtful and I can't take it back. I can't take it back, and I can’t take back my love for either of you!"

"Please, Zell," Irvine whimpered, crying now, as he forced himself to pull away. "Just go. I don't... I don't want you here!"

"Irvine..." Zell begged. "No... please, Irvine... don't... I'll crawl after you, I'll sleep on the floor, I'll lick your cowboy boots and kiss your feet every hour of the day and every hour of the night. Don't make me go!" he cried, voice cracking half way through his last sentence.

Irvine looked away, clutching at the sheets, and his voice was a harsh whisper.

"Tell me you don't love him. Tell me you don't want him. Tell me you haven't touched him. Tell me you haven't... haven't... slept with him..."

Oh, Hyne, Hyne, Hyne... Please not the last. Please.

Zell buried his face deeper and clutched at the sheets hard. He choked back a gasp of emotionally overwhelming pain and shook his head ever so slightly.

"...I... can't.... I... yesterday... was his birthday... Irvine..." His heart was at its breaking point. He felt like he would die, felt like he should at this point.

"You... you even..." Irvine scrambled off the bed, burying his face in his hands. Then a steely calm fell over him with the suddenness of all self-preservation instincts. If you pretend it don’t hurt, it won’t. It was a lie, and a desperate one, but it was all he had left anymore. "Get. Out."

Zell wanted to cover his ears, fight back his senses. He hadn't heard that. He hadn't... He slipped off the bed and hit the floor with a feeble thud. "Irvine..." The fighter managed to get to his feet and stagger towards the door. It all hurt so much... Everything hurt… He looked back at his tall, beautiful lover. "Irvine..."

Irvine wasn't looking at him, but was staring out the window, tears pooling in his eyes, hands fisted at his sides and body rigid. The part of him that begged him to give in to that pleading beat against his desperate need to just not care, and he ignored it, but he couldn't hold back a single tear which rolled down his cheek, shining gold in the half-light.

"Go away. I don't want to see you. Ever again. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to touch you. I hate you."

Zell broke. Right there and then his heart broke, his will broke, his hope broke. As soon as he was out the door, and that evil shining metal cut him away from his lover he collapsed. Collapsed to the ground and against the door and did not move. He just crumbled and cried, burying his face in his arms and only just able to hold back feral, primitive wails of utter agony and loss.

Irvine was in much the same state, collapsing face-down on the bed, clutching at the sheets and sobbing into the pillows.

"I don't hate you..." he whimpered through the tears. "Come back..." and he only managed to keep it to a whisper through sheer force of will.

It dawned on him, then, that the only other time he’d told Zell he hated him was when he thought he’d lost Rubedo. This time, there would be no fixing it. He had lost Zell.

- - - - - - -

The next four days passed Irvine in a blur. Zell was there every day, three times a day, for a half hour – at nine thirty in the morning, at twelve noon, and at five in the evening, begging, sobbing, knocking, pleading. He would retreat to the back of his room, but that was little escape.

Other people came and went, he ignored them. He refused all his missions, and only ate and slept and showered because Selphie’s assertion that it was pathetic not to from back when the Seifer-and-Zell saga had been at its worst – or so he thought – still bugged him.

Finally, he could take no more, and he knew he had to get away, because every one of those half-hour slots Zell spent as his door killed him. He had nowhere to go, but he went anyway, and the irony of where he ended up was only lost on him because he was so raw with pain.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, to bother you, but I… I just… I got nowhere else to go and I had… to get away and… I’ll understand if you, like, want me to go, ‘cause I know he’s… but I… I…”

And despite the fact that there was no way she could possibly know what was going on or what he wanted from those garbled words, she smiled gently at him and pulled him into a warm, soft hug.

“Now, haven’t I told you to call me Ma?”

The tears Irvine thought he’d run out of came again and she lead him inside, kicking the door shut and taking him through to gently sit him down on the couch. She guided his head into her lap and took his hat off, stroking his hair and making soothing sounds while he cried, and cried, and cried into the warm baking smell of her apron.

When his sobs had faded to hiccups and sniffles, she offered him a hankee that smelt of lavender and he thankfully blew his nose and sat up.

“I’m sorry…” he whispered, but Ma only smiled and went to make tea, giving him time to collect himself. When she came back with not only tea, but chocolate biscuits, Irvine thought he could well have kissed her.

“So,” she said conversationally. “What did he do now?”

It didn’t take Irvine long to tell her – four words were really enough.

“He slept with Seifer.”

She looked sympathetic and touched his cheek, her blue eyes unreadable. It struck Irvine how like Zell’s they were, even though she wasn’t his real mother. But then, he thought, she was more of a real mother than some real mothers he’d heard of.

“They’ve really put you through some terrible things, haven’t they dear?” she said softly, and pulled him into another hug.

“I… he’s your son and I… I can, like, leave if you’d rather…” he said hesitantly, hand fisted in his lap.

“Nonsense. You stay here as long as you need. I won’t tell him.”

“Thank you, Ma’a- Ma.”

“My pleasure. It’ll be nice to have you around.” She stood up, taking the hankee, which he’d been twisting in his fingers and giving him a fresh one. She was suddenly all business. “Now! Did you think to bring any clothes, or just rush off?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but she was already bustling off.

“I didn’t think so. Well, that’s alright. There’s plenty of tall people living in Balamb. We’ll find you something. Now, go and have a nice long bath, and when you get out, I’ll have dinner ready and some clean clothes for you.”

Irvine found himself unable to do much but obey, and she soon heard the water running.

Ma Dincht knew her boy, and knew without a shadow of a doubt how much he loved the future son-in-law who was currently in her bathroom – she’d spent enough hours on the phone listening to Zell tell her how many different ways Irvine was perfect to know that. But she also knew that the same boy had told her earlier in his life that he loved Seifer, and since they had become friends, she had been expecting it to develop.

Irvine’s arrival on the scene had surprised her very much. She had been so certain both Seifer and Zell would instinctively stay away from attachments to other men, remaining faithful to the deep love that lay between them, even if they weren’t conscious of it. But Zell had seemed so happy with Irvine, she guessed she’d been wrong and the “love” he had proclaimed to feel for Seifer back then had been puppy-love.

Apparently not, and now it had all come crashing down around Zell’s ears, and she had his broken-hearted lover to prove it. She hoped Seifer was looking after Zell. She hoped she could look after Irvine. And she hoped that somehow, someway, Zell would make everything right again.

- - - - - - -

“You sonofabitch!”

Crack.

“Ow! Fuck!”

Selphie with her nunchaku in her hands was scary at the best of times, Selphie in a towering rage with her nunchaku in her hands was even scarier, and she had not pulled the blow that fell across Squall’s thighs. He would swear the bruises would be livid.

“How could you do that? How?!” she screamed, but this time he manage to duck Strange Vision as it came flailing for his head.

“Selphie!” he snarled, glaring at her.

“Oh no. You don’t get to be angry, you shit head. Do you care who you hurt? Do you care at all?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, so calm it only served to piss her off even more.

“Irvine. I’m talking about Irvine. And Zell. Remember them?! They’re supposed to be your friends, not a piece of arse and the obstruction keeping you from that piece of arse!”

Squall stared at her like he didn’t know what she was talking about, but she knew how to read him, and it wasn’t so much that he didn’t know what she was talking about, but that he couldn’t work out how she’d discovered what he’d done. It hadn’t been that difficult. Once she’d broken into Irvine’s room to find out why the hell Zell was wandering aimlessly around looking like his dog died, discovered the sharpshooter not there anymore and also discovered the video chip, it had been elementary. The only people who could have gotten that footage were Squall, Cid, Edea and one or two really high-ranked SeeD, that being herself and Quistis. But she certainly hadn’t, Quistis had been on a mission for the last week and Cid and Edea had no motive.

Squall, however. Well, Squall she’d seen drooling over Irvine at the Halloween ball. Well… not drooling, because Squall couldn’t really ever be said to have drooled, but certainly admiring the sharpshooter’s smesky – stupid journals – sexy arse.

“What I do is none of your business.”

Oooh, he really pissed her off.

“Of course it is! When you go around breaking up my friends’ relationships, it is!”

Now Squall actually seemed pissed off and he stood, hands flat on the desk, and hair falling into storm-cloud blue eyes. Hmm… he was kind of sexy, really… Anasha would have killed her for that. Anasha was so unbelievably awesome… Uh, back to the point, Selphie.

“Listen, Zell fucked it up for himself, when he tried to have his cake and eat it too. No one can have two lovers and expect nothing to go wrong!”

“Zell can! Or… or he could have, if you hadn’t… if you…”

He stared at her like she was stupid.

“No, he couldn’t! That isn’t how it works.”

“You didn’t give him a chance to try, to get things straight in his head, and work out a way to make it right. You just shoved the evidence under Irvine’s nose and never mind that it shattered him, that it shattered Zell, and that Seifer’s in a foul mood because Zell’s in a foul mood! Just as long as you get your piece of cowboy booty, huh?”

“Selphie, get out of my office,” Squall demanded coldly, and she knew she’d hit a nerve. She also knew that, despite what people thought of Seifer, Squall was the more dangerous of the two. After everything he’d been through, the very idea of physically hurting someone actually repulsed the blond gunbladist. What he’d done while enamoured of Her had made him shy away from inflicting that sort of pain. Of course, he was still willing to being a bastard verbally, but that was it. Squall, on the other hand, she didn’t think would hesitate to cut her head off.

Oh well, there were always Phoenix Downs.

“Why, so you can stop having to be morally responsible for fucking up everyone’s life but your own pathetic little existence? Maybe if you didn’t hibernate twenty-four seven in here, you could have had Irvine before Zell ever realised just how gorgeous he is.”

Squall lunged at Selphie, Lionheart in hand, but she was faster and danced out of the way, flicking Strange Vision expertly up and under, catching and sending the gunblade flying.

“Fuck you, Squall. I hope no one ever talks to you again!” And with that, she stormed out, tears in her eyes and a need to see her lover in her breast.

Squall threw a pen after her with enough force that when it hit the wall with freakish positioning, the nib lodged there.

He had as much right as anyone did to Irvine, and why shouldn’t he get a chance? They were always telling him he needed to be more open, more willing to feel, and now that he had, he got snarled at for it!

Well, what did it matter? Irvine was free game again now…

- - - - - - -

(1) Yep, we RP’d this scene together, and a line like this one is usually the sort of thing that makes Irvine melt and give in to whatever Zell wants. Believe me when I tell you it was nearly damn impossible to have Irvine refuse to forgive Zell when we played this scene out.

Eoko: I’m really amazing. I can’t help it. We actually HAD a Zell “cheats” on Irvine with Seifer episode in our RP, and well, Zell won, as usual.