Shades of Gray

At first, all he registered was the cold. It had seeped beneath his skin, burrowed into his very /bones/; he shivered lightly and tried to sit up, braced a hand against the wall and shoved himself up onto his elbows. He forced his eyes open, blurred gaze trained on a far corner of the room. /Where the hell am I?/

Answers seemed few and far between until the noise began outside -- muffled voices, an order barked from one to another and the door opened with a low hiss, filtered light spilling in from wherever /out there/ was. A figure stood prone in the doorway, and Squall lifted his head despite the protest of every muscle in his neck and shoulders. Slate mirrored jade, and for a moment his head spun. /You're supposed to be dead./

" .. Seifer?"

"None other. Who were you expecting, Leonhart? Your own personal savior?" The blond stepped fully inside and the door slid shut behind him; his mouth curled into a sneer, and it seemed as though the greasy spray of cheap flourescence made that subtle expression even more sinister. "Sorry to disappoint you, but my grace has been exhausted. It's condemnation from here on out."

The brunet shook his head as though to clear it. /You're supposed to be dead,/ his mind echoed again, like a record stuck on repeat. And then he remembered the parade -- /Irvine. The shot. Too many people, too little time. Edea./ "You're not dead," he mumbled stupidly, and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger in an attempt to focus. /No, you're .. hers now, aren't you? Her knight?/

"Keen observation," the other replied with a dry laugh. "I thought we went over this. Or did I rough you up a little too much? Knock a couple of screws loose in that pretty little head of yours?" He laughed again, cold and cruel.

"Where am I?" He tried not to notice as another shiver trembled along his spine at the sound of the other's voice, not unlike it had been before, but somehow more .. hollow. Like there was something missing.

Seifer shrugged. "Doesn't matter, does it?" He shifted a bit closer, green eyes poring over the curve of Squall's body as he pulled himself upright. "S'not like there's anyone to hear you scream."

"Is that what you were planning?" He managed a laugh of his own despite how rough the inside of his throat felt, the sound itself emerging muffled and broken. That .. had sounded more like the Seifer he knew -- confident and unjustifiably smug, a paragon of self-assurance. "I seem to have misplaced my gunblade .. if you can find it for me, I'll be glad to return the favor."

/It's always been like this, hasn't it? You blow smoke, I call your bluff?/

/If one thing with you stays constant, I suppose it could be worse./

The sneer returned to the blond's mouth as he dragged the other to his knees on the narrow bed, aligning their bodies from chest to hip in one fluid movement that he hadn't been anticipating. "Not quite what I was thinking. Can I take a rain check?"

/Consistency is lost on you. Consistency doesn't even exist in your vocabulary, does it?/

The brunet remained silent even as strong hands roamed his body, ghosts of familiar touches that had been shared before -- /before, when was that?/ -- and he responded in kind, leaning up to brush his lips over the point where the other's pulse beat at the side of his throat, strangely slow and erratic. He listened to the sound of shallow breaths, confined within the shell of someone he once thought he knew well, and thought for a moment that he should at least /try/ to maintain a sense of decency. /This isn't you. I know you, and this .. this is a shadow. An echo./ A feedback loop stuck in an endless circuit of artificial lights and sounds.

It wasn't real, but Hyne help him, he knew he'd never be this close to him again.

/Breathe./ Why did such a simple, involuntary action suddenly seem so foreign to him?

His body reacted without his consent, arching sharply beneath every touch, every press of a warm mouth against cooled skin, every scrape of blunt nails over faded scars. The one at his hip had been the most recent, still pink and slightly raised, deep enough that a simple Cure spell hadn't been enough to mend it completely. He remembered.

/“Seifer, what the hell? You did that on purpose!”

“Did what?” There was a smirk spread over his mouth, sweet and almost patronizing.

“The belt. You aimed directly for the belt.”

The blond shrugged. “Those fucking things get on my nerves. I'm gonna sneak into your room while you sleep and burn 'em.”

“I need them. They keep my pants up.”

“You need .. three belts .. to keep your skin-tight leather pants on your skinny ass?”/

They'd never been formal. They'd never been friends, at least in their own minds. It had always been something more.

In the aftermath, he lay curled on his side, trying not to register the hollow point in his chest as the other slipped away and mumbled something to a faceless figure just outside the door.

“He's not talking. We're gonna have to do this the hard way.”

~_~

Something had shifted in the back of Seifer's mind. Something that had been replaced by a mindless need to prove himself -- and even as he stared up at the brunet's form draped in chains, the fringe of his hair hiding cobalt eyes that stared right back at him with an unfathomable expression that rested somewhere between betrayal and hatred, he took some twisted pleasure in flipping the switch and watching his jaw clench as the electricity surged through him.

It was the only weakness he'd shown. He didn't speak, he didn't break.

The blond growled and stilled the current, paced back and forth in languid strides, jaw set in a firm line. “You can play dumb all you want, Leonhart. I can do this all day.” The silence was almost deafening, and when he looked up again, he could have sworn he heard a whispered sob./ I don't know who you are anymore./

Squall's chin was tucked against his collarbone, the fall of his hair obscuring his face even more -- the only movement was that of the abbreviated rise and fall of his chest, shallow breaths taken in and catching on an accusation that lacked conviction./ Just let me die./

That something shifted again, and he flipped the switch against a feeling of /this is wrong. This isn't you./

It was for /her/, after all. The rest was irrelevant.