Of the Lion and the Knight

OF THE LION AND THE KNIGHT
By Kali

Disclaimer: Characters of FFVIII property of Square Enix; I don't own them, but I do own the plot of this fic, not that I'm making any profit whatsoever from this story, yadda yadda yadda.

Edit: [Now beta-ed.] A few revisions and edits here and there.

Warning: This chapter is rated M for sexual suggestion and language.

A/N: Story is set just after the events of the game, and the initial chapter(s) are from Squall’s POV - Squall angst alert! Starts off in the present but then goes into flashbacks and eventual lemon – I’m working up to that - exploring the nature of Seifer and Squall's developing relationship. This basically picks up where the game left off, telling the rest of the story of the 'time loop' that our characters found themselves in at the beginning of it.

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Prolog


It’s funny how things turn out… you can’t help but laugh. Or cry sometimes.

…Did I say cry? Things sure have changed.

And you can never go back, can you…?

I know that’s what I thought as I lay there, weeping silently in his arms, for the first time I can remember, still trying to bring it all down to this bed and this time… still trying to reason how I could possibly have engineered it. So many doubts, so many fears… even now, after my unspoken confession, came back in the mute darkness to haunt me. Like the nightmares...

You can never go back, can you…?

“No.”

His voice close to my ear, heavy with fatigue, barely a whisper, was still certain as stone, undeniable as the breath that rose and fell in my chest. I had mouthed the words aloud to myself in the night, and he had not been asleep. I recalled the smooth muscular arm, still draped over my bare side, the heat of another body so close, so treacherously close. True, there would be no going back. Not from this.

What will I do now?

What will I tell them?

My heart ached as much with the guilt of our act as it did with the need of it… and I couldn’t stay it. Guilt… or was it only the pain of being torn between so many centres? What would I tell them when they discovered the dire truth… that he was the only one that could tame me, could fill me, could chase away my fears, if only for a short time…?

That you are the only one who ever understood me…

Wouldn’t they be surprised? Shocked? I wondered who would laugh and who would frown. With only a sigh of affirmation, I tucked a hand beneath my chin, closing tired eyes… willing sleep to come. I was spent, both physically and mentally – and the rhythm of his sated, even breathing was infectious… the warmth of his presence stupefying. I could still barely believe it had happened at all, that not long ago we’d thrashed and writhed helplessly in the throes of a starved lust, a fast finally broken - and I’d been practically begging for it. Gasping his name. Pleading while he shone shades of cruelty and tenderness upon me in every colour. Wanting. Needing.

I still didn’t know why.

…Is there ever a real reason?

Afterwards I’d broke down and cried, and the tears’d just kept on bleeding from me. The reason, I don’t know - maybe because I was content and starving and fearless and terrified all at once. Or maybe because - for the first time - I was so honest, it hurt. Hurt more and with more weight than any cold blade between my eyes.

I needed him; I’d always needed him. The one I could never tame, could never please... and I was always too frozen up to even contemplate the possibility.

He’d known that all along, he said, and then laughed at me – a laugh that felt at first like a stab, but soon gave way to a kind of numb relief. Of course he’d known… perhaps enjoyed the idea that if he hadn’t kept up that spiteful tack to me in the past, he could’ve had me any time he wanted. He laughed at me for fooling myself, for running away, cutting every lifeline, burning every bridge… and most of all for thinking I’d be happy in the end with the first person to have shown me any kindness and desire – Rinoa. Oh yeah, he’d found that amusing.

Rinoa…

Rinoa needed so much, demanded so much… wanted so much to be protected, loved, coddled - things I barely felt capable of giving or even knew how to give. Things I needed myself, but that no-one could offer me. After all, I was the leader, the commander; I was the strong one… Squall, who doesn’t need anybody or anything. It was a lie – now that my apathy was blown away, I found myself without defence, fundamentally weak; wanting someone else to take the helm, someone else to worry… someone to run to who could keep my fears at bay. Someone stronger and more clear-headed than me, with the means to soothe my uncertainties, or just yank me out of them.

Rinoa… I think I would always fall short of her previous experience. I never had Seifer’s fire, Seifer’s pluck. I was too sensible, too grave… little things could set me off, or get me down so easily. Frankly, I wasn’t ready for the gravity of her need.

“You’re stupid, you know that?” he’d said bluntly, an incredulous smile cracking across his face as he’d lay above me, pressing me down. I’d only met his eyes defiantly, demanding an explanation. “You just keep lying to yourself, don’t you? Even now, with me. For once in your life be honest with yourself, just this little fucking one time, all right?”

Be honest, for once. Stop fucking fooling yourself, Leonhart. All the very things I’d wanted him to say, and finally, there wasn’t a damned thing I could do or say to shrug them off.

My perpetual silence irritated him, just as it always had. “Hyne! What do you want? Do you want this?”

Seifer… he’d done a lot of things, most of them none too noble, but at least he’d never lied to himself. I guess that’s what kept him going, knowing that no matter what, he’d always been… himself. It acquitted him, ultimately - and he knew it. His guiltless kiss set me afire, and the end began.

…I couldn’t help it; he was there like a light in the dark, I was like a moth in need of it. I’d fought the feeling for so long, his challenge threw me; and he knew I would accept it. He knew I would submit. Hell, I knew I'd be powerless if ever it had come to this.

I’d always wanted him. But I was afraid, afraid of that power over me. Afraid of his predatory nature. He would use me and discard me – that was what I feared - he would give and then take away. Take everything away, along with my wounded trust.

I guess that night, love wasn’t just blind… it was crippled.

I was so tired of keeping up the wall, so tired – this time I’d forgotten to bar the only door in it; the door for which he seemingly had a master key; but by then it was already too late… I’d let him in. In itself, it was an agony, a violation of my nature and every fibre, but how I’d wanted it – and hadn’t cared if he’d raked my body and chewed up my soul to grind underfoot for bitterness’ pleasure, to vanquish me in the only way he now could, if he’d wanted… but only he.

I think, in part, he wanted to. But if I were a lion and he a knight, I came crawling to him… and he lay down his sword for me. We met at last on even ground, and left our pride behind. At first he kissed me roughly, punished me, his desire filled with the old fire and anger… and at first I fought him back. But in the end, I only wanted to submit, to give myself over to the greater strength I never had, the one that kept him the victor even in defeat. Nothing could subdue that spirit, that fought everything so savagely he could barely contain it… till I surrendered everything… and then, surprised, he too, became mine.

Such a precious unbearable pain.

Between pain past and the fear of future’s pain… when pain you’re in, at least you need not fear it.

…What a great philosophy. Great and stupid, I thought.

My eyes were starting to fall under heavy lids, thoughts running away on trains all their own. Keeping up the wall was tiring, but… when it finally crashes down all around you, it feels like some unearthly hand has reached into your throat and stolen your breath, your very strength, stripped every guard away… and it’s terrifying. You want it, you need it - because alone, you can never be free - but still… there’s nothing quite so frightening, so disarming, so painful in all the world -

- the Truth.

He never hated you. You never disgusted him. It was just his way… he knew no other, just like you knew no other…

Without our walls, we now knew it, plain to see as it was. We were, in fact, not opposites – but very near the same.

…What will become of you? And of me?

The nightmares... are they just dreams like you said?

Oh, Hyne... please let them just be dreams.

In a gathering sleep-haze, I felt movement beside me; then, fingers gently tangling in my hair, soft strokes that forced my eyes closed with an animal happiness for the comfort of a pleasant touch or a trusted kindness. Yes, bizarrely, I was now made to trust him… with everything… with my body, my mind, my darkest dream.

“Stop fucking thinking.”

I managed a lopsided grin at his murmured command, on the verge of slumber myself. He can work miracles with those fingers, a stray thread of tangled thought settled on me like gossamer… and it was true enough, as I’d so recently discovered, as well as break and brutalise. Now though, to the tune of the cicadas, they only numbed my fading qualms into a speechless carousel, where the cause for all tears was forgotten.

* * * * *

I was back; back in Balamb under a sun that felt like it was burning through my eyelids as I squinted down at our boots on the familiar wind-blasted blue brickwork road. Gulls cried and squabbled overhead, and a few people were out here and there, ambling by in that unhurried, half-sleepy way the rustic do. Even now, it was hardly any different… same old fishing town of my adolescence, same people… Ma Dincht at her door, drying her hands on her apron and waving. It all felt so timeless, save for the few nods of recognition we now got as a reminder anything had happened at all, but I was glad: glad it hadn’t been touched or transformed, the only real part of our pasts that now remained unchanged, intact.

Zell patted my shoulder, shuddering me out of a trance-like mood that'd blanketed my senses since we'd disembarked from B-Garden that morning.

“Hey, I’ll leave you to zone out… I’m gonna go see Ma. Come over later?”

“Sure thing.”

I grinned; and I could tell everyone still thought my smile 'precious', and a little amusing – it was a rare sight until recently – but seemed happier to see it than not, and Zell was no exception. Since it was just he and I this time - I'd tagged along for the break - he took a liberty and slapped me across the back.

“S’good to see you smiling more, man.”

And there it went again - amusement spreading over his face like a recalcitrant sea-surge, threatening to overwhelm his efforts to remain dignified against the old frosty look of annoyance I exchanged. Zell thought it was particularly precious, my smile; not that there was any malice in that, of course... he just thought it 'strange' he said, in place of my usual impassive mask. That was Zell, though... sometimes he'd just double-up in a belly-laugh on account of how 'weird' it was, and I'd have to sit it out; this time I noticed the joke still hadn't got old and rolled eyes at him, and then he was laughing and gone, and I was alone and following my feet along the main street down to the harbour, wondering how long my smile would stay and how few strides it took to reach the harbour now that I was older, felt so much older…

We all used to fish there in our early teens. Never caught anything, though…

Well, I didn’t, anyway. Never was much interested in fishing.

I felt a nudge at my leg, and looked down to see a brown, scruffy-looking mutt occupied with trying to sniff my boot in mid-walk. The Galbadian soldiers’ sniffer-dog, it seemed… abandoned from the looks of it, fur matted and dirty, throwing himself under my feet so that he nearly laid me out in a trip. Stopping, dazedly, to kneel down and pet him, I wondered how he’d been left behind, how he’d gotten along in the last few weeks. He didn’t look too thin, at least, and appeared to enjoy swimming, as piece of straggly russet sea-weed hooked into his collar told.

“Someone’s been feeding you, anyway,” I nodded, stroking the clammy back and wincing as he snaked in and out of my legs excitedly. “You’re a mess, though.”

He didn’t worship me for long. A few seconds later, a faint splash down at the jetty caused him to go shooting off like a rocket in that direction, and I straightened up, drinking a deep breath of the cool, salty air I never knew I’d missed so much. Here, I was just myself… just a lone man trekking down to the water’s edge, not a leader or a SeeD, or a commander or a hero.

Hyne, how I needed some time to just be myself.

Rinoa hadn’t come along, and I admit, that was a relief – she’d been pining over a lot since her father took up the vacant Presidency, before deciding to visit him with Watts and Zone in tow. But our relationship - if that’s what it was - had begun to weigh me down as much as it lifted me up, adding to the weight of being everyone’s Chief. I knew I wasn’t cut out for it; didn’t know how long I could keep up the pretence that I was, either… finding every chance I got to be alone, I took, knowing each moment I did, I sank more and more gratefully into solitude. It was only Rinoa’s need, and the rest of my friends – after all we’d been through - that kept me from handing Garden command over to some other… not that I hadn’t been giving the idea an unhealthy amount of thought.

A lion must lead the pride, but…

If I were a lion, I still felt like very much like a cub. When would I grow, grow strong enough to play this part handed to me without trepidation, I wondered. Without uncertainty? Though my gaze sought the sky, painfully bright and crystal blue, I knew deep-down Hyne would not tell.

…He never does.

Still, I had plenty to be thankful for. As usual, guilt for the fact caused a constriction in throat and heat in the eyes, and I could only lower them, to find my sights settle on a solitary figure at the jetty, hunched over and now plagued as he was by the over-excited sniffer-dog. It took several moments for scattered thoughts to gather as I stood, blinking stupidly at him, not twenty yards away with his back to me.

“Get outta here, you. Scram.”

He was probably the last person on earth I’d expected to see there and then, and fishing of all things. I felt a prickle of shock, halted as though I'd been hung there in the sobering air; the last time I’d seen him, he’d been the crazed, ragged commander of the entire Galbadian force, and worse – and we hadn’t even known if he’d survived. But it was him, no less… few people now could ever mistake that irritated snarl and trenchcoat – ‘specially not me.

Seifer’s… come here?

I guess it made sense, though. Of all the places in the world to go if you wanted to disappear, Balamb was one of the best. No doubt Seifer Almasy was shunned and hated in many places after galvanizing what was practically a second Sorceress War, and with the invasions made at his instruction... and had evidently fled to a place where he knew no-one would bother looking twice at you, or care if you whiled your days away staring out to sea… where you could have no name at all, if that’s what you wanted. And where he, too, probably nursed better memories...

It was strange seeing him without his posse, doing something so un-Seifer, like… I… well, I almost laughed. Apparently he’d caught a fish, and the dog was clambering and slobbering all over him to the point where he was compelled to give up the catch and throw it away to get the deranged cur off him.

“Damn mutt,” I heard him grumble as he dusted off his tattered coat, reeling in the line with resignation.

It was then he caught me standing there.

There was a faint flicker of surprise in his tanned face, some unfathomable emotion or sentiment, but one he buried abruptly - by promptly turning his back on me. It’d seemed that for a moment, a thousand thoughts and words had flitted through his head with the possibility of being said, none of which satisfied; that it’d taken only a moment to decide there was nothing to say… and nothing at all. Not even a petty insult.

So… that’s it?

Can’t say I blamed him; I had no words myself. But I was glad to see to him alive, in a curious way, looking so well - after all, he’d been possessed, obsessed. Out of his mind. Stir-fucking-crazy.

Well it’s not like I ever gave up on him. He could always take care of himself pretty well. If I’d ever thought he’d was dead, it’d only been with half a mind.

Well that was true enough. He’d never have wanted anyone to worry about him, as if it implied he wasn't competent; never did like much attachment, short of open-mouthed admiration or attention for notoriety, as I'd more than once pointed out. Not that this was what I'd anticipated either... complete disregard. That wasn't much like him: no smart-assed comment, no sneer, not even an eye-roll. And at me, of all possible people. Wasn't that my line? something in me recalled, with faint astonishment.

Ignoring me, I thought, … ignoring me in exactly the same way as I’d ignored everyone else, not so very long ago.

Well, I suppose that’s normal for 'us'… normal is good enough…

Still, I felt there a wrench of sadness… something about the way it had all come about that left us there together, after everything, without even a means of acknowledging one another. Something about the way two boys raised well together could still fall prey to reticence and denial... something pitiless about our Fate that glossed us over, our pains, our sufferings, all meaningless, all silent.

What else was I expecting, anyway?

"A little more than a complete brush-off?" part of me nagged. Didn’t the fact we’d grown up together count for something? The fact we’d trained and learned and fought and squabbled, and each other’s presence was a much a part of our pasts as anything else? But then, of course… Seifer probably remembered nothing about the orphanage. Neither had I, till Irvine jogged our memories that day – and reminded me we were all practically family. And does family just turn its back on you, even in the wake of something terrible? It just seemed such a... waste. Wounded pride is one thing, but…

Well, if I’d ever had a family, I’d know. But since I didn’t…

Perhaps I should make it how I’d want it to be.

I had to stop and wonder at myself then. How much I’d changed to even care. Or was it rather… to admit that I cared…?

I supposed I would do the same if I were him. Words can only say so much. And now that I looked at him, I saw myself again – turning my back on the world and everything in it, to escape the pain of having to care. Guess I’d been a monumental asshole back then, just as bad as he'd ever been. I’d known it, too, but not caring had been what kept me doing it... and doing it had kept me failing to care. It meant that whatever anyone thought was redundant, whatever they said would slide off. It was a wall, a shelter... a cell.

...But I'd needed it then.

“You gonna stand there and bore a hole in my back?”

I blinked reflexively at the foreign question, finding I was frowning and my vision had been swimming in the flapping tails of his coat all the while, mesmerised in the white - or now, as it was, a faded gray. Seifer was eyeing me intently, a look of half-amusement threatening to grab his half-intrigued face, the scar almost invisble in his bizarre, sun-kissed expression.

For some reason, I was smiling again.

“For what do I owe the pleasure of your smile, Ice Princess?” he grunted, a little put out, just as everyone was lately when I’d smiled, for no reason at all, at some for the first time. I could get used to seeing reactions like this – the effect was often hilarious to see, and for some reason, right now, on this face, it threatened a laughterstorm.

Ah, there’s an old insult... a Seifer Special, I noted, oddly satisfied rather than angry. He’s not a doppelganger after all.

I only shrugged, moved slowly to stand at the jetty a few feet away, detecting a bluff of irritation to my left, but that fell away a few moments later; he rolled his eyes and began collapsing the rod, but didn’t express any further interest in my presence. The silence was one of truce, it seemed.

After a pause, I added casually: “You got better.”

Yeah, that’s right… Seifer was always just as bad as me at fishing. No, worse. He'd got so pissed one time he just threw the rod into the sea and walked off. Hadn't even been his rod.

He snorted, glanced away toward the sniffer-dog, still chewing away happily on the remains of the catch. “I swear that dog is baiting me.”

“Fujin and Raiin?” I ventured, fixing my attention on a fading pinpoint glimmer at the azure-on-cerulean horizon… B-Garden, on its way to Galbadia, the gold and silver-tinted hull shining like a beacon in the blue.

“…Around.”

Some things never change.

So everyone’s safe… hard to believe, really.

“So what’s Mr. Big-Shot Leader’s business in Balamb?” he asked nonchalantly, in his most obvious ‘bored voice’.

I paused, pondering the question fully as much for myself as for adequate answer, gauging his tones for the usual sarcasm, of which there was less than a generous helping. I speculated. I supposed it was a vacation, but secretly it was more than that… it was time out. Therapy. Escape.

“Needed some time alone,” I offered, sniffing the air, taking in the sea, the faint hint of diesel from the station and the scent of dog and raw fish on the tiles. It was the closest I’d felt to the safe past in what seemed a long while; and guessed it might've been the same for him. “And… Zell came to see his mother.”

“Yeah, Chicken’s mother’s sick,” he replied, matter-of-factly, the words spilling with little emotion, but not flippantly either. I looked at him as he carried on disconnecting the rod, laying down the parts and the reel nearby, the wind playing with the few stray golden hairs that fell over his downcast vision. “He should see her.”

I wondered if Zell knew.

“How sick?”

“Sick sick,” he affirmed, still not giving me the luxury of a glance to measure his sincerity - though I knew he was serious. He was always serious. “Good timing on your part.”

I frowned, about to ask more - but he was already getting up and gathering his things to walk away. “Have fun,” he said simply, with no venom at all, and turned away.

I stood in silence.

Well, that didn’t go quite as I anticipated, I thought, in semi-stunned reflection. No “what the fuck are you doing here, Pee Bee?” or “Come to harass me too?” Just disinterestedly civil… as civil as he could be without crossing the line into concern. Hyne, I knew that one well enough to spot it anywhere - it was how I’d survived this long. He doesn’t want to care. He doesn’t want any more problems.

So he just tells me Zell’s mother is sick and walks away…? Was he just being helpful? Awkward? Was he just throwing it into the mix for some high ground? Something to force me away? None of my guesses seemed to hit any plausible marks.

I looked back to the tall figure receding, something so melancholy, so poignant about it, and something poised in my throat, but… whatever it was I’ll never know. At the time, I didn’t know the feeling for what it was; but it was enough to make me call his name out, and enough to make him stop and turn, to look back at me expectantly.

“…What?”

“What are you gonna do now?”

Where did that come from? I wondered, beside myself – or at least the part of me that had said it. And it didn’t stay quiet either. “This isn’t you… thought you were always doing something 'big'?”

Hyne, what am I saying…?

“The hell concern is it of yours what I’m doing, Leonhart?” he answered stiffly, cocking his head. There it was: the old Seifer, the Seifer I knew best. Not Seifer the knight or Seifer the nobody… but Seifer of Garden. Seifer of “Seifer kicked Squall’s ass this morning.” Seifer of my memories.

“It is my concern,” my voice kept on, seemingly of its own accord. “I’m Garden’s leader now, and I’m concerned about everyone, you know?”

“What, you’re looking out for me?” he scoffed, predictably. “Save it, Mr. Leader. We’re not part of Garden now.” And he carried on away up the pier, apparently intent on keeping as much distance between us as possible.

What am I trying to say?

And… why? But when I know what he's going to come out with, I feel...

“Seifer!”

To this day I don’t know what compelled me to walk after and put myself stubbornly in front of him, or where I got the audacity. It’s not like I was afraid of him, or what he might've said (or yelled)… at least not when we’d been fighting. In fighting I was focused, I was within my shell and unreachable. But now, standing there, blinking, with that 6’2” impatient bulk in front of me, wondering what it was that I wanted to say... I almost quailed and gave up. I’d never tried to stop him like this before, get in his way... hell, I’d never really tried to talk properly with him before. This time his chiselled features spoke genuine annoyance, a familiar enough countenance.

“Get outta my face.”

“You’ll always be a part of Garden. Even if you’re not there.”

...What? Taken aback at my own words - that seemed to have conjured themselves from nowhere - I was knocked even further off-balance by a surprisingly swift and acid reply.

“I can’t go back, Squall,” he countered, evenly, resolute... a note of submerged anger in there too. “You can never go back... so just fuck off forward.”

That stupid pride of his again - and part of me felt he didn’t mean it; was holding something back... could see it in those fractious jade-green eyes - along with confusion. I suppose it was strange, me suddenly planting myself there and expecting… suggesting...

Well… what did I want from him? Friendship? To be all buddy-buddy all of a sudden, as Zell had put it? To have him come back? To forgive and forget? His glance betrayed undertones of the old aggression, something stirring not far beneath a tranquil but brittle surface... bleeding pride, and shame, and resentment at the mention of something I suddenly realised he could never have back, but wanted - desperately, perhaps. A chance to start over, a wish to have done things differently... he didn't want his position now any more than I wanted mine.

“What, you have something for me?” he began, noticing my undisguised scrutiny. “Well why didn’t you just say so?”

Typical Seifer response to something I was serious about.

I tried to remain... composed, firm. On whatever it was I'd been trying to voice. I was beginning to feel sorry I'd followed.

Well it's my fault... sensitive subject, and I've gone and stuck my foot right in it. As usual...

“Does it always have to be like this?” I sighed, looking to the ground. “It’s just me and you here now, you don’t have to blank me out.”

“And you didn’t come bug me for some kind of apology,” he mused, sarcastically.

“Like I’d even dream about getting one out of you.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know… can’t we just -”

But he’d already skirted me and continued ambling up toward the hotel.

Did he not even want me near him?

“Hynedamnit, Seifer… will you -”

Just listen to me? Hear me out?

But then, exactly what did I have so urgently to say, I considered. So far, nothing of what I really felt had found its way well into words. Did I want him to return to Garden? Not exactly… wasn’t even sure if that was possible, given the general feeling toward him there. Had I wanted to say I thought he was still one of us…? That a part of me actually missed him? Hyne, he’d probably piss himself laughing at that one.

Or was it just that I was clinging to a past long gone, like he said? A past I could never have back, no matter how much I might miss it…

Or that I thought he should know… about the things we’d forgotten…? Wasn’t that important? Hadn’t it been important to all of us to know?

There was a lot he didn't know, after all. About everything. And there was more I wanted to know, too.

Fine. Tell him. Then you can shut up and leave, I settled mentally, addressing the sudden, inexplicable desire in me to secure conversation. He won’t give a rat's ass anyway. I suppose I should just tell him I'm sorry for dragging it up. Leave on a good note, or something like.

I’d watched him disappear into the smaller side-door of the Balamb hotel, outside which he’d tossed his blue bucket, rod and bait-box with little ceremony. It didn’t seem so strange he’d taken up living there… or at least, that’s what I guessed. I wondered how the owner would’ve reacted to me sauntering in after him, especially after the silly brawl with Fujin and Raijin a couple of weeks back - that’d probably cost him more than a few fish in repairs.

…Well, whatever.

There was time to kill, and I wasn’t going to let him off that easily. Or myself, for that matter.

Things sure have changed.

Something in me has changed.

...Drastically.

*

TBC…

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A/N: Whoa, Squall really does go off on some wild tangents in my brain. Hopefully though he’ll get back round to the smut… I have a feeling it’ll be cruel, dirty and eventually WAFF... I have much planned for them!