Chapter 11
Hell to Pay
Squall was dizzy as he approached the Infirmary. There was a great noise in his head, voices that seemed to be trying to say something, and a sick moaning that hummed at the back of his mind.
The hundred scars on his hands and chest and all over his body burned as the memory of claws in flesh impaled him once more. He stopped in the short hall just outside the entrance to the Infirmary and gasped for air. Screams poured out of the door and sounded in his closed wounds. His ears were empty, the cries were not real—that is, they came from no human mouth. Instead, they came from a well of psychic pain that Squall could feel just inside the Infirmary. SeeDs, writhing, bleeding from holes the size of the black claws of the Scylla. All the soldiers that had met injury on the end of a Scylla arm were shouting without making a sound.
Just as he had had the Scylla in his mind since he first encountered one on the beach, Squall was sure that those SeeDs in the Infirmary could tell a tale of the monster’s thoughts. The idea flirted at the edge of his understanding. Something, something, connected them to the creature. It was one mind that all the Scylla were jacked into, some kind of hive mind. And somehow, in joining with the Scylla in the moment of the painful union when the creature had its tentacles inside its victim and was draining the very life from its prey, a deeper union was made—a blending of the minds. The monster dragged its victim into that group mind, just as it had done to Squall. There was a moment when the creature and the man joined, and then the connection was broken with his death. Squall had survived, though—and with him, the psychic grasp. He could sense the creature, its thoughts—and its victims, lying on cots in the Infirmary. He could feel their pain, their fear.
And he could feel their deaths.
Squall had that moment of understanding, of illumination, then he let it go and entered the Infirmary. There was a vague sense of the others, now, but it was not so strong. He was not concentrating on them, on their injuries—he was looking for only one man.
“Seifer,” Squall said in a low voice as he spotted the blond Captain on a cot at the end of a long row of SeeDs bleeding onto the linen sheets of their beds.
After the war, when Balamb Garden began to see more casualties at once than it had in all the years before, Squall had overseen architectural modifications to the Infirmary. Gone were the spacious private rooms with single beds and a view. The Infirmary was of a more practical design, now. The walls had been mostly knocked down. There was an isolation room for quarantines, and the supply closets, but otherwise the hospital was an open space. Curtains separated the beds usually, though they were all drawn back now. Equipment lined the walls: crash carts, shelving units containing bandages and other needful things, and drug lockups with commonly used medicine. Also, there was a metal box at every other station that was closed with a magic lock. Inside were cures and curagas, valuable magic meant only to be administered by experts. It was standard for a SeeD to carry a few of each with them on missions, but only in the hands of a specially trained doctor could these near-panaceas fulfill their great potential. Even then, not everything could be cured with a spell. Squall’s own wounds might be closed, but they still scarred. His body was a map of pain.
“Seifer,” Squall said again as he walked across the Infirmary to where his lover lay. Medics ran around him, some of them shouting, some quietly cursing. He looked to his left to where Dr. Grayne was waving a hand surrounded in green light over a SeeD. Squall looked at the soldier’s body and saw that his chest had been gored. Squall could see the kid’s ribs, for Hyne’s sake. Dr. Grayne looked desperate; he kept wiping his forehead with the back of one hand, not realizing that he was streaking blood across his face with each gesture.
“Hyne,” Squall whispered. He stopped at the foot of Seifer’s cot and looked down the line. Red, was his first impression. Red and blue. Blood and the SeeD uniform. Dr. Kadowaki happened to look up and catch Squall’s eye as she bent over a female SeeD with a pair of electric-shock paddles in her hands. Squall lifted an eyebrow and the doctor shook her head. Squall turned away.
“Seifer,” Squall said a third time, really looking at the prone man now. His uniform was open at the chest, revealing a mass of red, blistered flesh. Squall looked at his wrists and saw cuts—from when the Scylla occasionally landed a blow—and where his sleeve should’ve been on his left arm there was only bare skin, badly burnt. Squall remembered seeing Seifer slice a chunk out of the monster with his gunblade, and then the wide, fanning arc of blood that spurted from that wound onto Seifer’s arm. The blood, boiling hot like poisonous acid, had covered his forearm and blisters had raised themselves on his skin. Now, with Seifer right in front of him, Squall saw the same thing again. He saw the same wounds he had seen in his nightmare, he saw the same soldiers laying in beds down the row, he saw their wounds, and how their injuries fit with his vision.
That’s what it had been, Squall realized now. A vision, not a dream. That connection, that psychic union that had, like a leech, attached itself to Squall’s own thoughts, had dragged him over the miles and across Esthar to witness the attack at the monster’s side. No. Not at its side. In its mind. Squall could remember its pain—which had been his pain, as well—when Seifer landed a blow. Squall could remember looking around and seeing the SeeDs as glowing depositories of energy and life. He remembered how brightly Seifer had shone.
Squall wished he could see Seifer like that now; he wished he could just glance at the blond and assess him, see how alive he was, how hurt he was, and if he would be all right. Battle magic only went so far, hit points could only give cursory judgments.
Seifer’s eyes were closed and his breathing was labored. Squall frowned and called Seifer, but he still would not wake. Just an injury on the arm and weakness from a tough fight shouldn’t keep his lover down. Seifer was strong, stronger even than Squall. Now he would not wake, and Squall grew worried.
He examined Seifer more closely, looking for some wound which would explain Seifer’s unresponsiveness. He saw no holes, no punctures—not even any blood. What was it? What was wrong—?
Squall let his eyes roam over Seifer and then settle on his chest, and that was when he knew. What he had mistaken before for a mild, red burn was, on closer examination, a pocked and pitted mess. Squall held back the vomit that tried to creep up his throat. Squall had thought that Seifer’s uniform was merely open at the chest; now he saw that it was, in fact, burnt away. The whole front of the blue shirt was gone, charred away by the boiling blood of the Scylla. The edges of the material left were black.
“Hyne,” Squall said again, feeling stupid and unable to say anything else. Just that, Seifer and Hyne, summing up his thoughts: How bad is Seifer, will he live? And, Hyne, please, let Seifer live.
Seifer wheezed and then began to convulse. A gurgling noise issued from his throat and Squall realized Seifer was choking. He flew to Seifer’s side and knelt on the floor. He put his arm around Seifer’s back and propped him up. Once he wasn’t lying flat on his back anymore, Seifer’s breathing sounded like it was easing, but he was still shaking uncontrollable. Squall clenched his fists and looked back down the line of the wounded.
“Dr. Grayne! Dr. Grayne!”
The magically trained medical doctor looked over at Squall in surprise and held up his hand as if to physically stall Squall. Squall’s face tightened and he called the doctor again.
“Dr. Grayne, get over here! I need you!” Dr. Grayne looked over at Squall, who jerked his head back in a gesture of come here. “Seifer’s burns—”
“Headmaster,” Dr. Grayne said, shaking his fingers over his patient and dripping the last of the green light of the Cure magic onto the SeeD. He wiped his hands on his pants and stood, but did not approach. “I have already triaged the Captain. I’m afraid that there are more urgent cases here, and I must—”
Squall cut him off. “Well, either you triaged him wrong, or he’s gotten worse, because he’s shaking in my arms and he can’t breathe. Have you seen how badly his chest is burnt?”
Dr. Grayne finally walked over, though not as quickly as Squall would have liked. He pulled a short, compact stool out from under the bed and released a lever on the side that made the stool pop up as the metal legs folded under the seat unfurled. The stool popped up about a foot so it was the same height as the cot. Dr. Grayne sat on it and wheeled close to Seifer’s side.
Squall moved up and sat behind Seifer, keeping him propped up by resting his back against Squall’s chest. A loathsome, small part of Squall’s mind told him to lay Seifer down and leave, walk out of the Infirmary and wait for a report from the doctors. It told him that he was being too solicitous of Seifer, that it was too public here with all the student nurses and medics running around, and all the SeeDs stretched out around him. If he wanted to keep their affair a secret, this dark little voice said, then he had better put Seifer down and get the hell out of there.
Dr. Grayne leaned over Seifer and gently touched a patch of skin on Seifer’s chest. The unconscious Seifer uttered a moan and Squall resisted the urge to hold Seifer even closer. Dr. Grayne frowned and put the earpieces of his stethoscope into his ears and the metal disk to Seifer’s chest. Again, Seifer moaned, and again, Squall resisted putting his arms around Seifer and dropping his lips to his lover’s neck.
“He’s decompensating,” Dr. Grayne muttered. “Cora!” he called to one of the medics darting about, and a tall girl with black hair came over.
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Assist me, Cora. The box.”
Cora moved quickly to the supply closet against the wall and removed the metal safebox containing the Cures. She brought it to Dr. Grayne, who put one hand to the lock and muttered words that Squall could not make out. The lock popped open and Dr. Grayne opened the box. Green swirling light filled with silver and gold sparkles rolled like ocean waves inside the box. Squall was mesmerized, and he stared as Dr. Grayne dipped his hand into the light. His hand was surrounded with a cloud of green light when he brought his hand out. Cora closed the box and with a snap the lock closed once more.
“Hold him,” Dr. Grayne said, though Squall was not sure to whom. Cora removed another stool from the bed beside Seifer’s and sat. Then, she put her arms behind Seifer and held him at the angle that Squall had.
“You can let go, now,” she said to Squall, who, for a moment, hated her. Then, he relinquished his hold on Seifer and stood. Dr. Grayne absently pushed Squall away, and Squall moved to the foot of Seifer’s bed again to watch.
Dr. Grayne began waving his hand over Seifer’s chest, and the blond stiffened in Cora’s arms. His shaking grew in intensity and Squall bit his tongue to keep from calling out. The doctor and the medic worked without sign of worry, though. Dr. Grayne spread the light over Seifer’s chest like he would slide butter on a roll. The cloud of green mist hovered over his chest, and inside of the light, Squall could see some of the dark redness easing and a small patch over his breastbone grow smooth.
Too much concern for a Commander over his Captain. For a friend that was an enemy. For a man who you would have none know was your lover.
Squall backed away from Seifer’s bed.
Seifer was on Squall’s mind and even in his heart—but he could not be in his eyes. Not here, not now. Squall walked away from the bed, dragging his feet on the linoleum. He turned his back on Seifer and walked away.
Suddenly, Squall could not stand to be in the Infirmary. All around him his SeeDs were dying, bleeding, crying in his ears and in his mind. Squall thought he would choke on the smell of burnt flesh and blood and vomit that polluted the air. He had to go, and so he strode—long legs, long steps—out of the Infirmary, passing beds, noting that there were sheets drawn up over some of the soldiers that had still been crying in his mind when he entered the hospital.
A burst of cool air that came from a fan just above the door leading out rose the hair on the back of Squall’s neck and he felt goose pimples popping up on his arms beneath his own uniform. He had changed into it before leaving his office, thinking of duty and of the SeeDs he had sent out to die.
Now he walked across the atrium on the first floor, ignoring the salutes and salutations from students and teachers around him. He walked right to the elevator and got in. He hit the floor number without thinking, without wondering where he should go. He knew exactly where he needed to go, and who he needed to see.
He needed Rinoa.
Squall sickened himself, running to the arms of one lover to gain comfort for the fear he felt for the other. Never before had he played his two lovers so sly, and guilt flushed his cheeks red. In his reflection in the brass panels alternating with glass in the elevator he saw his expression, helpless and desperate. He cursed himself, his deceitfulness, his many weaknesses. Even so, he rode all the way down to the basement where the nursery was—and where Rinoa was.
When he got out of the elevator, he staggered and fell against a wall. Dammit, he couldn’t remember the last time he had slept. He looked around to assure himself that no one had seen, and then reached into his pocket for something he had stolen from the Infirmary.
It was a stim patch. You could chew on it to get a quick result, but it tasted horrid. The preferred way to use it was to put the patch on a pulse point where it would issue a stimulant into the skin and then into the bloodstream. Squall had lifted one from a table near the door as he had exited the hospital ward. Dr. Kadowaki disapproved of their use and normally kept them under lock and key, but in the confusion it had been easy to take one without being observed.
Squall put the stim patch on his wrist and then tugged the sleeve of his uniform over it. He wore the standard uniform, not the dress one with the colored designs on the shoulder and chest. This one was a long, dark blue, fitted jacket over thin-legged slacks, plain and functional. Squall liked this version of the SeeD uniform better than the showier style. This particular uniform also had longer sleeves than the other type; a fact for which Squall was now grateful. If Rinoa saw the stim patch, she would not be happy.
Down the hall and a few more turns, and Squall reached the nursery. The nursery was an old part of the Garden recently moved down to the basement from the second floor to give it more space. The name was misleading, as it was really more of a primary school for the youngest cadets. Balamb Garden accepted children as young as five, just as Squall and Seifer had come to Balamb at that age. The nursery was a kindergarten where those young SeeD trainees spent their first two or three years before they became full-fledged cadets studying in the main part of the school.
Rinoa spent a lot of time in the nursery when she was at Garden. The kindergarten staff was always grateful to have her. She had a calming effect on the children; they always sat peacefully by her when she read to them or told them stories of history and mythology. She was very good at turning complex subjects into interesting tales that the children could understand.
Squall had gone down to the nursery with Rinoa only once before. He had marveled at her way with children, but had been scared off. Children were not Squall’s strong point; he had trouble relating to them and found them to be a profound nuisance. It said a lot about the level of his distress that now he was actively seeking out the nursery just to gain personal access to his girlfriend.
As soon as he reached the open door of the nursery, he looked around with frantic eyes for Rinoa, but did not see her anywhere in the room. He turned to leave, but before he could take a step, a small hand curled around two of his fingers and tugged.
Squall looked down and found himself latched onto by a very young little girl. He crouched down so he could look her in the eyes.
“Do you know where Rinoa is? Miss Heartilly?”
The little girl stared dumbly at him and tugged on his fingers again.
Squall sighed and attempted to disentangle himself from the girl, but she held on tight.
“Could you please give me back my hand?” Squall asked in the politest voice he could muster, but to no avail. He was about to remove her hand from about his when one of the nursery workers spotted him and called out.
“Headmaster Leonhart! Look, children, it’s Headmaster Leonhart!” The woman sat in a chair in the center of the room, surrounded by a semi-circle of about ten children. When she called out to him, they all turned to face him.
“Hello, Headmaster Leonhart,” chorused the group of children.
“What a pleasant surprise for the children!” cried the overenthusiastic nursery worker. “You’ve come for a visit!”
Squall took a breath and opened his mouth to deny it, but then the little girl tugged on his hand again and he let the breath out in a sigh.
“Yes, I have.” Children were not his ideal companions in any situation, but Squall needed a distraction. He was going crazy worrying about Seifer and not knowing. A visit might be all right.
He allowed the girl to pull him into the room and she led him to a small chair made to fit children. Squall faked a smile and sat on the tiny chair. It was like sitting on a matchbox.
“Headmaster Leonhart,” said one boy of about nine, “did you come down here to see Miss Heartilly?”
Squall nodded at the boy, noting his blond hair and green eyes. Even the stubborn set of his chin reminded Squall of Seifer. “Yes, I did. Do you know where she is?”
“She’s not here,” said another little boy beside the first. He seemed to be the same age, though he was shorter and had dirty blond hair. “Tai overheard her say that some people had been hurt and that she was worried about you and that she was going to go look for you because you hadn’t slept and—”
“Chicken, shut up,” snapped the first boy, Tai. He glared at the other boy. “Don’t you know how to keep your mouth closed?”
“Tai, we don’t say ‘shut up,’” said the nursery worker. Squall could almost remember her name, it was on the tip of his tongue. She was a Private, and her name—it was something Centradi. Wara? Warana?
“I’m sorry, Private,” Squall said to the woman. “I don’t quite remember your name—”
“It’s Warla,” she said. She smiled and wiped her forehead. “I’m sorry, Headmaster, I’ve been here all morning. Do you think I could leave the children with you while I run to the cafeteria for some lunch?”
Squall’s mouth dropped open at the thought. The woman, Private Warla, was eager for a break, and took his prolonged silence for a nonargument. While he tried to phrase a polite refusal, Warla got up and, with a quick thank you, left the nursery.
Well, damn.
The stim was kicking in. Squall was lightheaded with the sudden rush of adrenaline. He put a hand to his forehead, then lowered it to find fifteen small faces staring at him.
Well, damn.
“So, uh. What do you normally do, anyway?”
A little girl chimed in, “Right now we usually get a story.”
“Yeah,” said the little boy that Tai had called “chicken”, “a story.”
“Yeah,” mimicked Tai in a whine, “a story.”
“Tai, shut up!” cried the other.
“Tai, shut up!”
“Headmaster Leonhart, make him stop!”
“Headmaster Leonhart, make him stop!”
Oh, Hyne, help me now.
“A story,” Squall said, cutting off the argument. “Fine, a story, that’s fine. I can do that.” Do I know any stories?
“One with a sorceress in it,” said a girl with short black hair.
“I know one,” said the sandy-haired boy, sticking his tongue out at Tai. “It’s a good one, too, about a man sorceress.”
“Sorcerer,” corrected Squall, rubbing a hand over his face. The stim was making him shaky and he rubbed his hands on his knees and gripped the fabric of his pants for a moment to fight it. “A man would be called a sorcerer.”
“But I thought there were only girl sorceresses,” said Tai, his small face scrunching up.
“There are,” said the boy he had labeled ‘Chicken.’
“How would you know?”
“I know!”
“Please,” Squall muttered, but he was ignored.
“But, if there are only girl sorceresses, then how come there’s a word for a man sorceress?”
Squall’s eyes popped open and he stared at the boy, Tai. That was a pretty fine distinction for a kid to make. This boy would make a very good SeeD.
The thought just popped into his head, and he cursed it as soon as he noticed it. Did he always have to think like that, Garden first?
“Well,” Squall said, looking at Tai. “There was a sorcerer once, a long time ago.”
All the children were quiet now, and they stared at Squall.
“Really?” asked one of the girls.
Squall sighed. I don’t get paid for this.
“Yes, really. Five hundred years ago, there was a man named Hyurai. He was fifty-four years old when a sorceress he knew died and passed her powers on to him. You’ve never heard this story before? I would think this would be one of the first things we would teach you here.” These kids were going to grow up and be taught to use magic and they didn’t even know the story of the Hyurai War? Squall was definitely going to have to see someone about this.
“Please go on,” said Chicken, and the others nodded agreement.
“Yeah, it sounds like a good story,” said Tai, and again the others nodded.
“Well,” Squall said, plotting out the story in his mind. “Well, Hyurai received the powers, but because he was a man,” Squall paused and cast about for a way to word it, “it…it didn’t work. Because men can’t handle the power, there’s something about women, the way their minds work, that are made to accept the power of a sorceress. Men just aren’t made that way. Hyurai took on the power, and he went mad.”
“Ooh, like he got really angry?” Chicken said.
“No, Chicken,” said Tai, shaking his head and scowling, “he went crazy.”
“Right, he went crazy,” said Squall. “See—you know what Guardian Forces are, right?” Please Hyne, let them know.
He got a chorus of “Yeah”s.
Thank Hyne. “Okay, see, sorceresses have the power to draw on Guardian Forces and their magic without doing harm to themselves. In fact, they have their own magic, they don’t even need a Guardian Force like I do, to do magic. So, when Hyurai got the
powers of a sorceress, he discovered this ability in him to summon GFs.
“He started by summoning all the loose GFs out there, but then that wasn’t enough for him. He began taking GFs from other people, calling to them from miles away and stealing them. He gathered hundreds of GFs, maybe more, maybe thousands. He—” Squall paused, not sure how much he should tell them about the evils done by a long-dead mad sorcerer. They were only children, after all. “He was, well, a very bad man. He decided to try and take over, and he used his powers to form an army of soldiers junctioned to fifty GFs at a time. They spread across the face of the earth and conquered—that is, beat—” Squall had to kid-ify his vocabulary, here, “all the armies on the planet.
“But there were still some people with GFs left, hiding from Hyurai and his armies. They rose up against him, and battled—um, fought—Hyurai and they killed him.”
“Yay!” Chicken whooped, hopping in his seat. “The good guys won?”
“Actually, they were all killed in the explosion created from the force of magic released when Hyurai died.”
All the children stared at Squall, some with their mouths hanging open, some looking like they were going to cry. Squall spoke quickly.
“But yes, the good guys won. Hyurai was gone and the GFs his army had were reclaimed and put back to right.”
“What about the ones Hyurai had?” asked Tai, “and the ones the good guys had?”
Squall nodded at him. “Exactly. Those GFs were lost, and remain so today. We have no idea how many Guardian Forces Hyurai himself had, we don’t even know what they were.”
“So they’re somewhere out there?” asked a girl with red hair and freckles. Her eyes grew wide. “All those GFs?”
Squall nodded and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, another voice interjected.
“The Hyurai War, Headmaster Leonhart?” Rinoa asked with a tight little smile. She came over to their circle and looked around at the faces of the children. “Trying to give us all nightmares?”
Squall looked up—from the Lilliputian chair supporting half of one butt cheek—and grimaced. “Well, they asked.”
“Children, why don’t you go over to the play area while I talk to Headmaster Leonhart?”
The kids all jumped up and went over to a colorful carpeted
area in the back of the nursery. They
took toys out of bins and yapped at each other, and Squall was sure he heard
someone yell, “I get to be Hyurai!” while someone else called, “I get to be the
head good guy!”
“Thanks for saving me,” Squall said, looking up at Rinoa again.
Rinoa laughed. “Squall, please stand up, I can’t talk to you when you’re sitting in that tiny chair, I can’t keep a straight face.”
Squall got up and took Rinoa over to the far side of the room from the children. “Are you okay?” he asked, noting the tight lines around her mouth and eyes.
“I was just in the Infirmary,” Rinoa said. “I heard about the Scylla.”
Squall grimaced. “I couldn’t tell you, you know that. I wanted to, but—”
“I know,” she said. “Garden law.”
Squall nodded, hating everything. “I’m sorry.”
She took his hand in hers. “I know.”
Squall matched her dark looks, frowning and stroking her palm with his thumb. “You…you were in the infirmary?”
Rinoa nodded, though she still looked unhappy. “Yes, I saw everything. I heard everything, too, from one of the injured cadets. Oh, Squall, it was horrible.”
“I know, I was there,” Squall said. “I left and came looking for you.”
“And that’s why you’re in the nursery,” she said, giving a pained smile. “I was wondering what could possibly have brought you down here.”
“I’d follow you anywhere,” he said, lifting her hand and kissing the palm.
“Even into Kiddie Land,” she said, her face easing at his touch. Then, her brow creased and she pressed her lips together as if she were holding back a cry. “Hyne, Squall, another Scylla.”
“More than that,” Squall said, looking over at the children and lowering his voice. “Probably much, much more.”
“Right, like in that rhyme you taught me.”
“If you find two or more
then beware what’s in store
For a hundred’s then likely
and the battle’s a war.”
Squall recited the second half of the poem for Rinoa with more passion in his voice than he had with Quistis.
“A hundred Scylla,” Rinoa whispered, as if she were unable to say it too loud. “I can’t even imagine.”
“Or don’t want to,” Squall said, turning her hand in his grasp and laying his other hand over them.
“No, I don’t want to, and—” Rinoa broke off and stared at his hand. Too late Squall remembered the stim patch on his left wrist. Rinoa grabbed his left hand and jerked back the sleeve of his uniform. The patch lay exposed for a moment, then Rinoa ripped it off his skin. It hurt like a band aid coming off, but Squall said nothing. He waited for Rinoa, who was visibly fighting her anger.
“Squall,” she began, but then a loud beeping issued from Squall’s wrist communicator. He sighed, not sure which he preferred, or which he dreaded more.
“Commander Leonhart,” he answered the page. Dr. Kadowaki’s face appeared on the view screen. She looked tired, and there was a smudge of blood on her forehead.
“Commander,” she said, “your help is requested here in the hospital ward.”
“What can I do, Doctor?”
The woman sighed and looked around her for a moment. “Captain Almasy has disappeared. He is too ill and is not ready for release, but in his delirium he wandered off and we are all too busy here to have noticed.”
Seifer.
“And what would you have me do, Doctor?” Squall asked, his voice calm and false.
Dr. Kadowaki looked exasperated. “Find him, Commander. And bring him back to the infirmary before he hurts himself worse. Over.” The view screen went dead.
“Rinoa,” Squall said, turning to face his girlfriend, but she shook her head and he was silenced.
“Go,” she said. “Find Seifer.”
Squall kissed the palm of her hand again, then let go of her and walked out of the nursery. Every step was painful as he left her behind.
Squall thought he knew where Seifer was. He thought about his own office and apartment, but neither place seemed right. Seifer was more of a homebody than he let on, and in a crisis—in pain—Squall thought that his blond lover would most likely return to Seifer’s apartment where he was most comfortable.
The apartment was small and cluttered, but not messy. His space was crowded with books of all sizes, books of tales about knights and wars and romantic epics. Squall could never help but to try and straighten up whenever he was in there, and Seifer would tease him before removing objects from his hand and taking him to bed, sometimes just to stop his tidying. The apartment annoyed Squall, disorderly and chaotic, just on the edge of clean.
When Squall entered Seifer’s apartment, he found it no longer on the edge. Books were strewn everywhere, one of the low book shelves were overturned, and Seifer lay on the floor with a book in his arms, panting and crying.
“Squall, I found it,” he said when he saw Squall. He held up the book, a large one with a white leather cover. “I found the book.”
Squall went over to Seifer and put his arms around him, gentle and careful to avoid the burn on his bare chest. The blond wore only a pair of cotton pants, familiar to Squall as infirmary issue. Squall brought Seifer to a sitting position and tapped on his communicator. He summoned help, calling for a stretcher and medics from the hospital ward. When they came, he would have to let go of Seifer, but until then he held on.
“That’s good, Seifer,” Squall said, stroking Seifer’s hair back from his sweat-covered forehead. “That’s good.”
“I found it.” Seifer smiled up at Squall and then slumped in his arms. “I found it, baby, I found it.”
“That’s good,” Squall whispered against Seifer’s hair, and he kissed him once, on the top of the head.
After he had sent the medics off back to the hospital ward, Squall headed for his own apartment. He couldn’t go back to the infirmary, he just couldn’t. The stim had worn off, and Squall was of a mind to sleep. He was so tired, he was just so tired.
A pleasant surprise greeted him there; Rinoa was waiting for him in the sitting room, stretched out on the couch with her eyes on the door.
Squall came in and then rushed to the floor beside the sofa. He knelt and put his head in Rinoa’s lap. He cried, and said, “Please, Rinoa, please. Please.”
“Okay,” she said, stroking his hair back and putting her other arm around him. “Okay, it’s okay.”
She took him to bed and lay him down on the mattress. He closed his eyes and let the tears fall back into his ears and hair. He felt her take off his shoes and then the mattress dipped as she lay down beside him. Her arms went around him and he held her close. The lights went off and they lay together and then Squall was finally able to go to sleep.
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