The Sins of Two Fathers | By : wickedorin Category: Final Fantasy VIII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 687 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
"The Sins of Two Fathers" and the general overall
concept of "The Sins of Two Fathers" is completely copyright Orin Drake
1999-2005, as are the characters Kyrie and Rodger and some more random
people that don't matter as much. The characters Seifer Almasy, Squall
Leonhart, Quistis Trepe, Ellone (Leonhart?), Laguna Loire and Rinoa "The
Great Big Bitch" Heartily (biased? me?) are copyright Squaresoft, as are
the terms SeeD, gunblade, Trabia Garden, Griever, and probably a lot of
other stuff I forgot to mention. Hell, if you played the game, you
know. Enough said. Oh yeah, and there are plenty of spoilers
everywhere for everything. That about covers it.
Background:
To be completely honest, I had no idea this was going to turn into a serious
story. I started writing is as a free-for-all squickfic yaoi fan
fantasy, but it got so out of my control that the characters are actually...
endearing. What have I done?! Ah well. Lesse, there's
a real obvious homosexual relationship, but they don't really do anything
in this chapter, so... oh, there's language. You know me, I like
my nasty language, so look out. Angst, I love putting angst everywhere.
That's about it for now. I will warn you, though, that FF characters
actually don't make up a lot of this story, especially not in the beginning.
I will make it up to you all some day. Enjoy.
The Sins of Two Fathers
Chapter 1
by Orin Drake
She pulled her hair from
the ponytail with one hand as she opened the front door with the other.
Too hot outside to practice her swordsmanship any longer. She needed
a break, a drink, maybe a shower. "Dad?" she called, pulling off
her sweat soaked gloves. "Father? Anyone home?"
"I'm home." Her father
called. "Just come into the kitchen when you're done."
What an odd order,
she thought. Maybe he was playing with the spices again and had concocted
something even more sadistic than his infamous chili. Maybe it was
super chili. What a life-threatening thought that was. He didn't
seem able to decide if he was a sadist or a masochist. Either way,
it was good chili.
She stepped into the kitchen
to see him sitting at the far end of the table, holding a cup between his
hands, staring at her. Something didn't seem quite right about that.
The corners of his mouth kept twitching like he was trying hard not to
smile through his stoic mask. Certainly thinking herself safe enough
(not that she'd ever done anything to warrant any sort of negative parental
behavior... in a while), she pulled out the chair on the other end and
sat across from him. "Yes?"
Seifer let the smile melt
into his face. "Guess."
Oh, the guessing games.
She never did guess correctly. Always a riddle and never an ability
to solve it. Well, ability she had plenty of. It was patience
she lacked. Severely. "We're getting a ruby dragon for a pet?"
Even his joking eyes held
a sense of extreme importance. "Oh, the hell with it." He reached
into his lap and pulled up a piece of very expensive looking paper.
"You made it into Garden!" he exclaimed proudly, holding up her acceptance
letter.
She was in awe. She?
Her? Made it into the academic program in the Garden of her choice?
Someone of her relatively short attention span had made it?
"Are you alright?" her father
joked.
She snapped out of it quickly.
"Yes, I think so. Wow." She kept staring at the paper for quite
some time, mesmerized. "Does Dad know yet?"
"He knew before I did."
Seifer admitted, relaxing back in the chair while looking the letter over
again. "They sent all the paperwork. All you have to do is
fill it out and send it back." He glanced at her over the paper as
he slid the small pile of forms onto the table and toward her.
She placed only her fingertips
on the documents at first, not entirely believing that they were real.
Garden had changed a great deal since her parents were in it. There
was the soldier academy, and then the academic studies alone, both branching
off into hundreds of divisions. Obviously, getting into the academic
program was a lot more difficult. Of course, perhaps having the president
of Esthar as her grandfather wasn't such a bad thing. She doubted
that such a fact had everything to do with her getting in, but it
wouldn't surprise her if Laguna had "suggested" some things. She
caught the pen Seifer tossed toward her without so much as looking up,
and began to write.
Smiling, her father got
up and walked over to her. She had good instinct. She paid
a hell of a lot more attention to it than he ever had. "Which one
are you applying to?" he asked over her shoulder.
"Trabia. So I don't
wander too far and cause any nervous breakdowns." She responded,
deadpan. "Um... what should I put down as my last name?"
"You better put Leonhart."
Seifer sighed unconsciously.
She could just feel
the guilt as though she'd tapped directly into it from his body.
It was thick in the air, and traveling fast. She wanted to write
Leonhart-Almasy, but it wouldn't fit in the spaces. Instead, as her
father walked away to make coffee, she placed Almasy as her middle name.
Kyrie Almasy Leonhart. Not much of a ring, but it would do.
None of the students would see her middle name anyway.
She scribbled away through
the seemingly endless questions and demands, seriously considering writing
just "yep", "nope", and "plenty". But that probably wouldn't be good
on permanent record. A check mark here, a circle there, a personal
question to be "forgotten", etc. After a few moments of silence,
she suddenly inquired, "Can you write, 'Doesn't play well with others'
in the parents or guardian comment space?"
Seifer chuckled, honestly
considering it. "Life would have been so much easier if someone had
done that for me."
She blinked. "That's
a no, then..."
His trademark grin caught
her attention. "I think you can handle yourself just fine, Ky."
She smirked at that, but
she was in agreement. Sure she could handle herself, but she didn't
really want to have to. As the scent of coffee grew stronger,
the forms became somewhat of a blur. They all seemed to be asking
the same questions and yet trying to trick her into giving different answers.
Whatever,
she assumed. They probably wouldn't even look.
At long last, the coveted
last page looked her in the eye and asked for her final signature.
She wouldn't back down to this blank space. She signed it there just
as she had filled it out in the beginning. Kyrie Almasy Leonhart.
And a nifty little swirly cross on the last "t", even.
She placed the pen on the
table and stared at the form, just thinking. Whether her last name
could truly be Leonhart or Almasy, she could not say. She knew the
powers of her past a little too well, and it plagued her. Not the
fact that she'd had two fathers. In fact, she rather liked it that
way. It prepared her. She was stronger and had far more instinct
than most females she knew. It was the insanity that had plagued
her parents and their lives, which they passed onto her. They hadn't
meant to, but they had done so regardless.
Her blood mother had been
a slight and quickly passing obsession of her dad's. He never talked
highly of her, but he must have loved her once. Her mother--certainly
not a term of affection--had used her pregnancy to keep Squall with her;
there at every beckoned call. Hell, she even used to call him her
knight. When they finally decided (rather violently), that it just
wasn't going to work out, Squall took his daughter away from her to raise
by himself. He said he worried about "that bitch" having her alone,
and what she may have grown into.
In the end, Squall always
really loved Seifer. Her mother had just been a pressure zone,
so to speak, to break tensions and take Squall's mind off of the troubles
of the world (and he certainly did deserve some still moments after saving
it). It had taken time and pain for her parents to realize a long
held and mutual affection, but they'd come around. A few more scars,
but nothing too serious. For some reason, Squall was always "Dad",
and Seifer was always "Father". It just worked that way. It
sounded right. Some of the kids at school had thought it was weird
and made fun of them, and her. So she beat the shit out of them.
She didn't make any lasting friendships. These days, she just didn't
bother trying.
She picked up the pen and
turned it through her fingers, thinking of her family history. If
her grandfather had put in a good word for her, she'd certainly
have to thank him. Personally, on the way there, preferably.
She kind of liked him in an insanely irreverent sort of way. He was
so damn different than what she was used to. He talked, a lot.
So, so much. So often. About anything. She found that
oddly comforting.
Squall talked a lot more
often than he used to, by the things she'd heard. But not usually
with
her. It was more to her, in short, uneven bursts of dinner
conversation. When Seifer had sensed that she was interested in battle
and philosophy around the age of 16 or so, he began to open up some real
and intelligent lines of communication. Only then would Squall actually
talk with her, as though Seifer were opening up some invisible floodgate
that Squall alone could never pass through. She supposed it all made
for a strange, interesting, and all around rather fucked up childhood.
Seifer had told her that Squall was a rather fucked up child himself, though.
As if that made her feel better. Every once in a while both parents
would surprise her with fantastically humorous exchanges about the past,
mostly about girlfriends. But it didn't happen often.
Come to think of it, Squall
still
didn't talk with her very often. He seemed to have flashes
of fatherly instinct rather than any sort of natural progression.
You see, the gunblade was her first love. She didn't have a lot of
muscle and couldn't hold either parents' gunblade at arm's length for a
long period of time (let alone handle the recoil), but she still loved
it and actually grew to be rather good. That's when Squall finally
began regarding her as a human being. After 18 fucking years, he'd
hugged her once (though it was a one-armed hug from behind, it still counted)
without Seifer having to initiate the reaction. Not that she was
bitter. At least, not much. It just didn't feel quite... normal.
Then, she'd never felt quite normal. It must have had to do with
her mother of long since past being "a little bothered" that she'd been
born with red eyes. Not the brown of Rinoa's, not the blue of Squall's,
but red. Red eyes that were truly crimson were relatively rare in
the world. They remained so for her life without fading, like some
sort of religious mark.
Thinking of her mother's
instant disapproval somewhat suddenly brought her to another thought.
All in all, she had very little female interaction in her life. There
was Aunt Quistis, but she wasn't able to leave her duties at Trabia Garden
much. She was always busy with this and that, paperwork and SeeD
training and ships; the list went on. It was nice to sit and have
an actual meal with her though. "You remind me so much of Squall..."
she'd say, then giggle. Maybe, Kyrie thought, it was because she
didn't talk much. She didn't have a lot of room for conversation.
She was carrying some pretty heavy baggage; the sins of two fathers.
Quistis was pretty good at getting her to speak up, though.
Then there was Aunt Ellone.
Elle was the one to instruct her in "feminine matters". Even these
days, she was never too busy to lend an ear regardless of how much work
she was doing in Esthar. But she was so... feminine. So very
"what's wrong honey?" and "do you want to talk over tea and cookies?"
She was nice. She was very, very nice. But she was just...
too feminine to allow Kyrie to talk freely. Quistis had a much wider
and more colorful curse vocabulary. And was never afraid to use it.
Elle's birds and bees speech was pretty long and involved. Quistis'
was, "Don't have sex or your parents will kill you both."
And then her thoughts made
a sharp and nearly unwelcome turn back to Squall. Must have been
the sound of Seifer pouring his coffee. Squall was a major coffee
drinker with the belief that caffeine got things done. Especially
coffee. She waited until her father had settled back at his place
on the opposite end of the table before she spoke up. "Why is Dad
acting so... distantly appreciative?" she tried to phrase her question
to make it make sense even to herself. She didn't know how to express
what she'd been pondering.
"Soft in his old age."
Seifer half smiled, tapping his fingernails lightly against the side of
his cup.
She was silent for a long
time. What she was thinking was hidden from even herself, until words
fell from her mouth that she hadn't planned. "You two fucked me up,
you know."
Seifer blinked. He
certainly hadn't expected that. While there was no accusation in
her voice, he felt cornered. "Come again?"
Even she was surprised by
those words. She hadn't meant to act like such a bitch. Just
to get some information. "Uh... nothing."
Seifer showed her one of
his patented glares for a fraction of a second. They were never cruel,
per se, but they took you down a peg or two sometimes.
She sighed. She didn't
want to explain this, not now. In a low murmur she added, "Sorry,
Father."
At that, he grinned.
He knew better. "No you aren't. Now tell me."
She took a moment to stare
at him, judging him like a good fighter would before a battle. There
was instinct (i.e., to lie), and then there was the overwhelming need to
express to him that she just wished Dad wasn't such an asshole all the
time. Which one? "You know..." she started slowly, "You two
were never fit for kids."
Her father laughed so hard
he had to push himself away from the table to prevent spilling hot coffee
everywhere. "I am aware." He chuckled. "It's because
we never really had parents."
She was still quite serious
through all of this, her chin in her hand, elbow on the table. "I
love you guys, you know that. But I still feel like the goat sent
into the desert with all your sins on his head."
A worried expression passed
over Seifer's face. "Oh." Her honesty was so blatant that it
stung. "It's a little late in your development to be bringing this
up, isn't it?"
Yeah, Father, that makes
me feel better. She sighed through bared teeth.
Seifer seemed to realize
what he'd just said and how it had sounded. "I'm sorry, I really
didn't mean that. Once an asshole, always an asshole."
She felt rather fed up at
that point with conflicting emotions. "Yeah, no kidding."
He just plain did not know
how to respond. His daughter was showing quite a few unwelcome signs
of himself. Ones that he had never planned to pass on to her.
"Was it that bad, childhood?"
She covered her face with
her hands for a moment, just breathing. As she slowly pulled her
fingers away, she shook her head. "No. It wasn't. It
was good. Holidays, birthdays... it was all good. But it was...
cold." She sighed, breaking the conversation. She couldn't
take this. She'd just been a complete prick to her father for no
good reason. She got up to swallow all of her previous conversation
and leave; to walk and clear her head.
Seifer got up quickly and
put a heavy hand on her shoulder, turning her around. She would be
leaving them soon. Very soon, to make her way out in that huge, unsafe
world. He didn't want to send her off with anger and ill feelings.
"Look, why don't I get Squall and we can... talk about this?" After
all of these years, Seifer still wasn't exactly the "talking type".
More so than Squall, yes, but not much.
Hell, the last time she'd
witnessed a conversation between the two of them... she realized that she
couldn't remember when that was. Months ago, maybe. "No, Father.
It's okay, really. I'm just... tired."
His voice was stern.
"You always use that excuse."
He caught her that time.
Giving in, she stated simply, "I think Dad's as comfortable around me as
he is with Laguna. And... that's fine."
A very sad, guilty expression
removed the stern one in her father's eyes. But she couldn't take
looking at him like that. She was completely ashamed of herself.
Of what she'd said, why she'd said it, of everything. She gently
lifted his hand from her shoulder and walked out to take a stroll in the
woods.
It was another thing she'd
inherited from them both. Running away. It was so much easier
than... anything else. Peace was always the opposite direction of
conflict, right? Somehow she just didn't feel that way when she was
walking. It felt more like she was pounding the shards of memories
that weren't even her own deeper into her flesh. Truly, she didn't
blame them for anything. They'd had hard lives, and had fought to
protect the whole goddamn world. Not many people could say that.
It was okay to have some deep seeded emotions, memories, demons.
But she did kind of wish that they weren't passed on to her.
She sighed deeply, snapping
a dead branch off of a tree as she passed. She didn't really
think Squall was an asshole. Not at heart. But he acted like
one sometimes. He never meant to, that much was clear, but sometimes
it built up inside of her. She never brought it up because the last
thing she ever wanted to do was cause guilt or pain for either of them.
But now, it was out there. Not just out there, but directed toward
the wrong person. It just felt awful.
Seifer sighed deeply, seeing
her go. He wondered why it was she thought Squall was the
asshole. Squall had always been the hero. The golden god.
It was he that had been the asshole. The Sorceress' Knight.
The plague unleashed upon the world to be hated, feared, and left behind.
He'd bonded more with Kyrie than Squall had, but that was because he was
around more often. Now that Squall's job consisted of mostly half
days and three day weekends attending to relatively boring and easily decided
Garden matters, he'd had the chance to bond with her a little.
It didn't really seem like that's what was happening, though. They
only seemed to murmur hellos in the hallways more often now.
Kyrie walked into her little
grove, where the very end trickle of a stream died off into the ground.
It was her safe spot. Her hidden place. While her parents knew
where it was, they never did disturb her there. She was very thankful
for that.
Water, trees, stones; they
had a way about them, didn't they? The sounds, the smells, the glistening
of a dying trickle of water over rounded stones and wildflowers... it just
had a way of calming. No problems would disappear or become spontaneously
solved, of course, but it was okay to just let it all go for a while.
She murmured a curse as
she realized she'd forgotten her sword. Her little place was the
perfect small but open area for practice. She didn't exactly feel
like playing with a sword, anyway. She just lay back against a stump
she remembered playing with stuffed animals and toy soldiers on, and closed
her eyes. Bliss in the darkness while the crows cawed and the sparrows
sang. All thought tended to just pour away with the water.
All was... bliss...
Until one of the crows must
have mistook her collar for a coin and nearly landed on her head.
Bliss tends to fade after a bird attack. Woken from her pleasurable
stupor of nothingness, she squinted and took note she'd been gone a little
over an hour. Unless the sun was moving a little fast. Which
she assumed, for obvious reasons, that it was not.
Back home, then. She'd
have to go back. They'd probably want her to tell everyone herself
that she made it into Garden. Then make plans to visit Laguna on
her way out, which was really her own idea. And most importantly,
they'd worry. There was no doubt Squall was home by now. She
did not want to cause either of them extra concern. A little
late on the draw, yes, but she could still make up for it.
Walking back toward the
house, she saw Squall standing by the door, still in his casual work clothes.
His "uniform"; plain black pants, plain white dress shirt. No tie.
Never a tie. He hated ties as much as she hated dresses.
This would not be fun, she knew. He had that look about him, one
she'd seen every so often when she'd said something that had been building
up inside. Not disappointment, and not shame, but sort of kindred
of each and a little bit more that she couldn't place. Whatever.
With a deep breath, she walked through the trees as naturally as she could
manage.
"Hey Kyrie." Squall
greeted without having to look up.
It was funny. On his
lips, her name was always so... strange. Like he spoke a different
language than everyone else. It felt as though he had a tie to her
that was at once unbroken and yet never actually fully structured in the
first place. That word, her name, felt out of reach on his breath.
This time, in particular. It was clear he and Seifer had talked.
More so clear was that he seemed quite unsure about talking to her at all.
"Hey Dad."
Uncomfortable silences had
passed between them every so often, but it was rare. It was more
often a tolerable silence. This one was short, but deathly.
Slowly, he put his hand in his pocket and brought something long and silver
from it.
What he held out for her
absolutely shocked her out of her being. Griever. His necklace.
The only possession he'd kept from his childhood. It seemed to hold
an almost religious significance to him. He never took it off except
to shower, and even then it was entombed in a small, locked wooden box
in their room. It seemed like it may well have been his most treasured
artifact of all.
She shook her head, feeling
she absolutely must decline. She couldn't accept something so...
heartfelt from him.. "Dad... I can't take this..."
Squall smiled. An
expression that both made him look 20 years younger, and was absolutely
unnatural. She never did remember seeing him smile. Not like
that. "Take it. Honestly."
She hadn't the chance to
decline again when he swept his hands around her neck and fastened Griever
around it. The chain was huge on her, the pendant hanging just above
the crotch of her jeans. She looked down at it, at how surprisingly
natural it seemed to look down on it there, then looked up in a mixture
of terror and confusion. "Are you dying, Dad?"
Squall smirked gently.
"Seifer told me... about earlier." He blushed just slightly, as though
a number of different thoughts had passed through his mind, none of them
funny. An almost embarrassed sincerity made itself painfully clear
in his voice. "I hope you'll visit often. So we can have something
to talk about."
"I didn't mean--" she began,
not wanting him to feel badly about anything she'd said. It's just
that it had been building up for so long...
He silenced her with a hug.
Not a stiff, uncomfortable one like usual. An embrace. A father-daughter
good-bye embrace. No, it was not completely natural, but it was closer
than any he'd ever given. More heartfelt. It was so weird.
But so goddamn welcome that she didn't dare address the weirdness.
"I'm not leaving until tomorrow,
Dad..." she whispered, not letting the hug break. The feeling of
being held was just... so nice. Especially by him. By her fricken'
dad who almost never showed affection in the "usual ways".
"I know." He said,
squeezing tightly before slowly letting her go. He instead held her
at arm's length, just looking at her. Where had the years gone?
Why did he waste them wallowing in his own past when he should have been
enjoying bringing up his own child? Seifer had had far more joy with
her than her own blood father had been able to. She was a lovely
young lady now, with strength and qualities that he'd never seen in Rinoa.
What more could he ask for?
"You're getting weird, Dad."
She murmured softly, trying to hold her emotions in. In truth, she
was elated that he knew she was alive. But there was an element of
fear in that. Fear almost that she'd scare him off and turn him cold
again.
He smiled once more, unable
to hold it back. "Yeah. Must be getting old."
"Ancient." She agreed,
just glad to talk with him.
A sudden flicker of understanding
overtook her intelligent eyes, and her mouth moved before her mind could
shut it up. "You just never wanted a daughter, did you?"
Squall paused, shocked.
Sometimes Kyrie had these bursts of insight, these times when the whole
universe seemed within her hand for just an instant. Sometimes she
could see right through his soul. In such times, he could only answer
with honesty. "No, I didn't. But I didn't want... anything."
He didn't want her to take that as saying he didn't want her, but
he expected she knew that well enough. She was never oblivious to
subtlety. It had been the subtle guilt and memories that had really
torn through her. Her dad, the hero. Her father, the villain.
And a world in between.
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