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Entry tags:
FFVIII: Cypher
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Pairing: Seifer/Squall
Warnings: Angst
Rating: PG
Summary: Seifer is the criminal being taken in, and Squall is the Commander on high, personifying SeeD. For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
aheadonourway.
Squall's face is a mystery in the dark -- but it's him, leather and belts and fur and glare, all there and close enough to touch, and that's enough to cause a blockage in Seifer's throat and a lump in his chest and butterflies in his stomach. Squall -- his Squall -- even though he's there on business and not a word of this should be about love or caring or anything like that.
"Almasy," he says, softly, and Seifer wonders if his eyes are searching the dark for more detail -- for wounds and bruises and ripped and tattered clothes, as they always used to when he came back from training.
"Leonhart," he replies, caressing the word with his voice and in his mind, taking a step closer.
"Commander," Squall corrects him, emotionlessly, tonelessly, and somehow that one word shatters the imagined closeness of the dark. No, Squall isn't looking. Will never look again. The thought hurts. From sparring partners to friends to lovers to enemies to a SeeD commander taking a prisoner.
He could run.
But not from Squall.
"Commander, then," he says, half carelessly, and takes a step away, to put his back against the wall. A quick fumbling in his pocket finds the battered packet of cigarettes, the matches, and soon enough the bright spark illuminates his face, and Squall's. He doesn't look.
Once upon a time Squall would've said something more. Commented on the unhealthiness of it -- and damn it, Seifer hears that voice in his mind, the most Squall ever cared, a little scolding and warm, warm with emotion like Squall's voice so seldom was --
"Want one?" he asks, offering the box, and Squall shakes his head -- the Commander shakes his head.
Being a SeeD has transformed the boy he knew, he realises. Not such a boy anymore, more than a boy and less than a man, someone with blood on his hands so desensitised to it that he's probably stopped feeling guilty. Seifer never could get the hang of that. He still feels guilty -- he shows no sign of remorse, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel it. Oh, he feels it.
He feels it in the cold ache of the night, this night, and in standing next to a killer who doesn't care. Might as well call him a murderer. Not scared of killing -- not scared of dying. Probably not scared of anything anymore. A shell.
A SeeD.
It always made him feel sick the way they pretended at emotion. Xu's sighs when he'd fail, exasperated -- not on his behalf but because of the money going into his training, the waste of space and gunblade and magic that he was. Cid's was the warmest heart in the operation and he wasn't a SeeD, not really, didn't fight on those soul destroying missions or train people to go out and die or say you're going to go and fight a futile battle for money today directly to the kids who were going to go out and fight that battle for that money, and maybe die in the process and think it was just normal.
Squall had had a heart. Oh, it was guarded and cool and careful but he'd had one. And now he was lord on high Commander of them all and surely he had the coldest heart of all. He had to, considering that he was standing there looking at his former lover and he didn't have a word for him -- not one -- that wasn't strictly, purely business and SeeD.
"You're doing well for yourself, then," Seifer says, casually, contradicting his thoughts because all that shy hidden warmth in Squall is gone -- gone. It's a repression, not a growing, a backsliding not a progression.
"Well enough."
Seifer wants the games to end. The cold and aching games, not the warm games of rivalry mingled with love and the greatest respect in the world, games they used to play. He throws the cigarette down, crushes out the light and tries not to think of it as a metaphor, a prophecy.
It's midnight.
"So," he says, leaning back against the cold wall, tipping his head back to see the stars -- it might be the last time he can see the sky, after all. He even watched the sunset like some romantic idiot, like the romantic idiot he'd once been, before he went to find Squall and spent all night doing it.
Last stars. Last sunset. First midnight of oh so many.
He can feel the years creeping up on him already. Imprisonment. A bitter trial. Chains and handcuffs and hatred.
He's ready.
"So?"
"So it's time to get this over with. Arrest me. Take me back to Garden and have Rinny cast spells on me to make me spill my guts. Or Zell break a few of my fingers. Or Quistis flay my skin off. Your torture of choice."
"We don't torture."
We. Squall speaks for the whole of SeeD now, with their cold hearts behind him and before him and around him. The chill of metal rooms and gunblades and guns and swords, so many weapons and so much metal, all cold, not like the wooden practice swords when they were both human. And it's a low blow, we don't torture, as if he would when all's said and done.
He wouldn't. He was sorceress controlled -- that bitch -- sorceress crazy, living on dreams and blood and the feel of Hyperion thirsty for blood and leaping in his hand. He wouldn't torture. He wouldn't say such things, either. Cutting things said to hurt, yes. But he wouldn't remind someone of the darkest days of their life.
But there are darker days to come, more midnights in a cell, with no sky.
"Just get it over with," he says, wearily, to the SeeD who is not Squall, or Leonhart, a good friend or a good enemy, but now truly just a cypher. No influence, no value, just a coded stream of everything SeeD was.
Pairing: Seifer/Squall
Warnings: Angst
Rating: PG
Summary: Seifer is the criminal being taken in, and Squall is the Commander on high, personifying SeeD. For
aheadonourway.Squall's face is a mystery in the dark -- but it's him, leather and belts and fur and glare, all there and close enough to touch, and that's enough to cause a blockage in Seifer's throat and a lump in his chest and butterflies in his stomach. Squall -- his Squall -- even though he's there on business and not a word of this should be about love or caring or anything like that.
"Almasy," he says, softly, and Seifer wonders if his eyes are searching the dark for more detail -- for wounds and bruises and ripped and tattered clothes, as they always used to when he came back from training.
"Leonhart," he replies, caressing the word with his voice and in his mind, taking a step closer.
"Commander," Squall corrects him, emotionlessly, tonelessly, and somehow that one word shatters the imagined closeness of the dark. No, Squall isn't looking. Will never look again. The thought hurts. From sparring partners to friends to lovers to enemies to a SeeD commander taking a prisoner.
He could run.
But not from Squall.
"Commander, then," he says, half carelessly, and takes a step away, to put his back against the wall. A quick fumbling in his pocket finds the battered packet of cigarettes, the matches, and soon enough the bright spark illuminates his face, and Squall's. He doesn't look.
Once upon a time Squall would've said something more. Commented on the unhealthiness of it -- and damn it, Seifer hears that voice in his mind, the most Squall ever cared, a little scolding and warm, warm with emotion like Squall's voice so seldom was --
"Want one?" he asks, offering the box, and Squall shakes his head -- the Commander shakes his head.
Being a SeeD has transformed the boy he knew, he realises. Not such a boy anymore, more than a boy and less than a man, someone with blood on his hands so desensitised to it that he's probably stopped feeling guilty. Seifer never could get the hang of that. He still feels guilty -- he shows no sign of remorse, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel it. Oh, he feels it.
He feels it in the cold ache of the night, this night, and in standing next to a killer who doesn't care. Might as well call him a murderer. Not scared of killing -- not scared of dying. Probably not scared of anything anymore. A shell.
A SeeD.
It always made him feel sick the way they pretended at emotion. Xu's sighs when he'd fail, exasperated -- not on his behalf but because of the money going into his training, the waste of space and gunblade and magic that he was. Cid's was the warmest heart in the operation and he wasn't a SeeD, not really, didn't fight on those soul destroying missions or train people to go out and die or say you're going to go and fight a futile battle for money today directly to the kids who were going to go out and fight that battle for that money, and maybe die in the process and think it was just normal.
Squall had had a heart. Oh, it was guarded and cool and careful but he'd had one. And now he was lord on high Commander of them all and surely he had the coldest heart of all. He had to, considering that he was standing there looking at his former lover and he didn't have a word for him -- not one -- that wasn't strictly, purely business and SeeD.
"You're doing well for yourself, then," Seifer says, casually, contradicting his thoughts because all that shy hidden warmth in Squall is gone -- gone. It's a repression, not a growing, a backsliding not a progression.
"Well enough."
Seifer wants the games to end. The cold and aching games, not the warm games of rivalry mingled with love and the greatest respect in the world, games they used to play. He throws the cigarette down, crushes out the light and tries not to think of it as a metaphor, a prophecy.
It's midnight.
"So," he says, leaning back against the cold wall, tipping his head back to see the stars -- it might be the last time he can see the sky, after all. He even watched the sunset like some romantic idiot, like the romantic idiot he'd once been, before he went to find Squall and spent all night doing it.
Last stars. Last sunset. First midnight of oh so many.
He can feel the years creeping up on him already. Imprisonment. A bitter trial. Chains and handcuffs and hatred.
He's ready.
"So?"
"So it's time to get this over with. Arrest me. Take me back to Garden and have Rinny cast spells on me to make me spill my guts. Or Zell break a few of my fingers. Or Quistis flay my skin off. Your torture of choice."
"We don't torture."
We. Squall speaks for the whole of SeeD now, with their cold hearts behind him and before him and around him. The chill of metal rooms and gunblades and guns and swords, so many weapons and so much metal, all cold, not like the wooden practice swords when they were both human. And it's a low blow, we don't torture, as if he would when all's said and done.
He wouldn't. He was sorceress controlled -- that bitch -- sorceress crazy, living on dreams and blood and the feel of Hyperion thirsty for blood and leaping in his hand. He wouldn't torture. He wouldn't say such things, either. Cutting things said to hurt, yes. But he wouldn't remind someone of the darkest days of their life.
But there are darker days to come, more midnights in a cell, with no sky.
"Just get it over with," he says, wearily, to the SeeD who is not Squall, or Leonhart, a good friend or a good enemy, but now truly just a cypher. No influence, no value, just a coded stream of everything SeeD was.
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