Mind Games

“This is it, I suppose,” Seifer said, looking somewhat unenthusiastically up at the rather small and cheap-looking hotel just across the street. Zell, standing to the side and a ways behind him, keeping the same almost offensive distance he had been maintaining since they exited the train, made a scoffing sound.


“Don’t tell me you were expecting the Ritz,” he said mockingly.

“No, but...” Seifer shrugged; he didn’t know what he had been expecting, but somehow this slummy little place sitting on the fault line between the business and shopping districts seemed decidedly anticlimactic. Something a little more... well, glamorous would have been nice. Not that it probably mattered - Seifer had a feeling that Zell wouldn’t be any more receptive to his advances had they been in the penthouse suite at the Galbadia Grand Hotel, as opposed to this shabby and drab little place. He was certainly going to have his work cut out for him, winning Zell over; their little altercation on the train had set him back quite a ways more than he had anticipated. Zell hadn’t returned after storming out of the train car until just as they arrived, and then only to dash inside long enough to snatch up his luggage and escape before Seifer could even begin to think about trying something. He had carefully kept the same steady distance between Seifer and himself as they walked to the hotel, and even now was standing so far away you’d have thought he was expecting Seifer to pounce on him at any moment. It was a bit funny, after he got over the slight insult that this seemed to be.

Seifer hadn’t planned what had happened on the train, but he didn’t regret it. Looking back over the encounter, he was mostly surprised, in fact, by Zell’s having instigated it as he did; he hadn’t expected the other man to just come out with it so bluntly like that, demanding to know if Seifer was in love with him. And how the hell was he supposed to answer a question like that? Lying would take all the fun out of the fight, but telling Zell the truth was out of the question. Pissing around with him until he was so angry he forgot what he originally intended to ask was the only way to deal with Zell. The fist fight and the short-but-oh-so-sweet makeout session were just bonuses, as far as Seifer was concerned.

Now there was something he couldn’t dwell on enough. Kissing Zell had been a completely spontaneous action - spontaneity not being something he was often prone to - but there was just something irresistibly charming about Zell when he was spitting mad that only made Seifer want to see just how far he could push him. Either that, or I’m secretly a masochist, Seifer mused to himself, considering how all his encounters with Zell tended to end with a fist in his gut. Still, the reaction he’d gotten out of the other man was well worth suffering a bruised rib or two - and there was something else to ponder, as well; any failure on Zell’s part to fight back against Seifer was always suspicious, and not only had there been a very conspicuous lack of fight, but he was quite certain that Zell had been really getting into the kiss just before they were intruded upon, and Seifer had to wonder what could - what would - have happened had they not been interrupted. The possibilities were positively giddying.

The question was, how was he going to get back in Zell’s good graces again, and quickly if possible? Seifer was more determined than ever now to have him, though when he thought about it, he wasn’t entirely sure why he felt so compelled to make Zell succumb to him. But he wasn’t one to go against instinct, and there was something about the martial artist, something Seifer couldn’t quite put his finger on, that just made him want to dominate - in more than one sense of the word. His reactions were so idiosyncratic that it was almost a shame not to try and provoke them; at least that’s what Seifer kept reminding of himself, although every once in a while a feeling not unlike fondness nagged at the back of his mind when he thought of Zell.

He had to admit that it was very hard to actually dislike Zell, even if it it was not quite easy to get along with him. True, he was loud and boisterous almost to the point of being infantile sometimes, but his zeal for life was admirable. And he never really knew when to shut up, but considering that the only people Seifer ever had anything that could resemble a conversation with on a regular basis were Fuujin and Raijin (and when they were abroad, he could sometimes go for days without conversing with another person), Zell’s talkativeness was, more often that Seifer would have owned, welcome. He was endlessly amusing in all his actions, and Seifer couldn’t deny that he wasn’t exactly unpleasant to look at, either. Not that he’d say he was attracted to Zell, not particularly, but all the same he wasn’t opposed to an attraction.

I’m making excuses to like him, Seifer realized suddenly as he thought. That couldn’t be right.

“You coming or what?” Zell shouted to him, skirting wide around him and trotting across the street to the hotel. Seifer almost laughed at himself, grabbing his luggage and following after the other man, for his momentary lapse into girlishness - what did it matter if he did or didn’t like Zell? He was determined to have him, and that was the end of it; whether or not he loved, liked, or could even tolerate Zell was all beside the point.

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Zell was murmuring, presumably to himself as there was no one else around, as Seifer entered the hotel lobby. It was, admittedly, better on the inside than the exterior of the building suggested - bare, but tidy and clean, managing to look as though they were going for a minimalist look instead of simply being too cheap to furnish the place properly with things that would probably just get stolen by drunk guests anyway. It was surprisingly nicer than he had expected. Zell, turning around and startling slightly as he noticed that Seifer was right behind him, added, “Er... we’re meeting up with Caraway at one, and then I think there’s actually a party tonight, so we probably shouldn’t waste any time. I’ll go get us checked in and you can wait right here.”

“Would you relax a little?” Seifer replied, perhaps a bit sharply, for Zell looked very taken aback. Scoffing, he went on, “for fuck’s sake, it’s not like I’m going to attack you as soon as you turn your back. Have a little faith in people.”

Zell paused for a moment, thinking this over as he looked Seifer over with a decidedly stony eye, and he said, “are you being serious or are you just fucking with me again?”

“Of course I’m serious,” Seifer answered, putting on his most earnest expression in attempt to appear completely sincere, which he by no means was. Zell seemed to be willing to believe this, because he visibly relaxed after a moment; Seifer thought he could almost see the gears turning in Zell’s head as he worked up to accepting what Seifer had said, and the moment where his defenses dropped was almost manifest. After all I’ve fucked him about, he’s still too trusting by half, Seifer thought to himself - would the boy never learn? - but he couldn’t help adding, with just a touch of a smirk on his face, “I’d at least wait until we’re in private.”

The change in Zell’s demeanor was instantaneous; his guard snapped right back up, and he spun around abruptly, probably not accidentally swinging the heavy end of his duffel bag into Seifer’s side and nearly sending the gunblader flying with the force of it. “Oops, sorry,” he said coolly, clearly very not sorry. “Watch where you’re standing there. I’ll go check in.”

Seifer chuckled to himself, clutching his side as Zell stomped away in an adorable show of pique. Looked like he was back to square one, but it was worth the look on Zell’s face, every time. It just never got old. Grinning, and still wincing just a bit, he took a minute to collect himself and then hobbled over to the front desk to join Zell.

“Here, there’s a key for you and one for me,” Zell turned from the counter, holding out a plastic card folded in a white paper envelope. “The room’s 131. Don’t forget it. Luckily it’s just on the first floor-”

“What, one room?” Seifer interrupted, frowning. Zell looked distinctly unhappy, and he gave a forlorn sort of sigh.

“Well, what d’you expect, everywhere’s completely booked. There’s a million people in town right now,” he said darkly, scribbling out what might have been a signature on a sheet of paper and then pushing it back toward the young woman behind the desk. “I’d say we’re just lucky we made the reservations beforehand, and that SeeDs get privileges, else we’d be completely shit out of luck.”

“It is our nicest lower-level suite, you know,” the clerk chimed in with the nervous air of a desperate salesperson, although Seifer thought she looked as though she wanted to add, “not that that’s saying much,” but she didn’t go on. Zell, at mention of the word “suite”, shot a frosty and menacing glare Seifer’s way, wiping the grin right off the other man’s face.

“You even think the word ‘honeymoon’ and I’ll gullet you,” Zell snarled mutinously.

“Wasn’t going to,” Seifer replied with a flash of a smile, “but it’s nice to know what’s on your mind, Dincht.”

Zell blinked, and then promptly turned a vivid shade of red Seifer had rarely seen him achieve, a reaction that very blatantly said that he had hit pretty near the truth, though he had been half-joking with the comment. Seifer had to wonder if Zell wasn’t doing it on purpose, setting Seifer up to zing him so often - was it even possible for someone to be so easy? - just to screw with him; but he discounted the theory on the basis that Zell was simply not that calculating - he probably didn’t even realize how open and revealing of himself he usually was with his reactions to Seifer’s taunts, reactions which were only getting more and more amusing as he fell further into the trap Seifer was seductively luring him toward. Or something along those lines. Seifer found he was doing less planning and more playing it by ear than he had been early on, but his objective hadn’t changed; one way or another, he was going to get Zell to succumb to him.

He hopped swiftly to the side as Zell sprung forward suddenly, his fist occupying the space where Seifer’s abdomen had been just moments ago. “Ha,” he said triumphantly, smirking down at Zell, who was red to the ears and looked a little more than furious - but Seifer’s victory was short-lived as Zell’s other fist came to a painful halt squarely in his chest, and he was thrown backward into the counter behind him. The receptionist uttered a quiet scream, and Zell looked down, marginally calmer and infuriatingly smug, as Seifer fought to catch his breath, clutching the ledge for support. He hadn’t been quite prepared for that.

“See what being an arsehole gets you!” Zell huffed before turning on his heel and striding magnificently off toward the stairs in a way that was disturbingly reminiscent of the frequent tantrums Seifer had suffered through when he dated a certain young sorceress a few years back. Somehow, Zell made petulance seem a lot more endearing than Rinoa ever did, but Seifer chalked that up to the greater dislike for the latter than he felt for the former; Zell at the worst of times was still quite tolerable, but Rinoa had been simply too flighty to handle at any time.

A strange notion suddenly struck upon Seifer. Did I just compare Zell to my ex-girlfriend? he mused to himself, slightly surprised at this turn of his own thoughts.

“Are you alright?” the girl behind the counter asked timidly, and Seifer heard for the first time a soft Trabian lilt to her voice. She was staring worriedly down at him with big hazel eyes, and he was reminded unpleasantly of another Trabian he knew.

“Quite fine, thanks,” he replied, standing up and straightening his jacket. “Don’t worry, just a lover’s spat,” he added with a roguish grin, and the girl looked confused for a moment before going pink. She uttered a quiet “oh,” and didn’t seem to know what else to say. Seifer had to bite back his laughter - as long as he continued to be surrounded by fools, life was just grand.


He caught up with Zell, who had evidently gotten a bit lost in the hallways, just outside the door to their room. “Oh, so you made it then?” he said coldly, giving Seifer a disdainful glance as he approached. At least he was acknowledging Seifer’s presence now, however, which was a step in the right direction.

“Please,” he replied scornfully, “it’ll be a sad day indeed when you can put me down with just one hit.”

“Good to know,” Zell said with a smirk of his own, slipping his keycard into the door. “I won’t pull my punches anymore.”

Ooh, what’s got into him today? Seifer wondered to himself, realizing that what he was feeling toward Zell at that particular moment was something like admiration. The martial artist had been noticeably more on the ball today than he normally was, since the encounter in the train car, and though Seifer rather liked a flustered, annoyed, panicky Zell, there was something very appealing - one might say refreshing - about Zell being able to hold his own. Not that Seifer had ever doubted he could, if he tried, but he just always seemed to be more inclined to fighting back physically than verbally. Of course, this sudden change in demeanor was probably due to Zell now being more afraid than ever of getting at all close to Seifer, which was a bit off-putting, but certainly wasn’t enough to deter Seifer - if anything, Zell’s aversion to being near him only proved that there was something more there that the younger man didn’t want to admit to, and made Seifer all that much more determined to get it out of him.

Zell pushed the door open and stood just inside for a moment, looking around, while Seifer waited somewhat impatiently in the hall behind him. “Oi, d’you plan on going in or what...?” he muttered. He stepped up behind Zell, on the sudden idea that a closer proximity might put a little spring in the other man’s step; the result was almost instantaneous as Zell shot away from him, darting across the room and flinging his bags onto the bed near the window. When he turned around, however, he was grinning in a very secretive sort of way as he sat bouncily down on the bed.

“Dibs on the bed!” he declared cheerfully. Seifer, who had only just come through the doorway, hauling his luggage, stopped short, suddenly inexplicably apprehensive.

“What do you mean, ‘the bed’? There should be two beds.”

“There are,” Zell said, flashing a cheeky grin and nodding toward the opposite side of the room. “The other one’s in the sofa.”

“The fuck you say!” Zell began to laugh as Seifer spun around wildly, storming through the small hotel suite, only to concede with a dismayed sigh two minutes later that the other man was quite right - there was only the pull-out sofa in the front part of the room besides the bed that Zell had already claimed, and the very smug, unyielding grin the martial artist was wearing showed clearly enough that he wasn’t planning to give it up. Seifer grumbled under his breath, looking around for something to kick but there was nothing nearby but his luggage; he satisfied himself by knocking it roughly on its side, and then turned around to face Zell, who looked infuriatingly pleased with the situation, and he declared brusquely, “I’m not sleeping there.”

“Well you’re not sleeping here,” Zell said quickly.

“I wasn’t even going to go there, but if you’re offering...”

“What about the word ‘no’ don’t you understand?!” he snarled, jumping to his feet with fists poised.

“I don’t know,” Seifer replied, mock-thoughtful but with a hint of playfulness to his voice, “maybe it’s something about the fact that you keep saying it, and then you go and do something like snog me in the train car...”

“You started that!”

“I might have started it, but you certainly didn’t try very hard to finish it,” the gunblader said matter-of-factly.

Zell flushed a charming shade of pink at this reminder, and he retorted gruffly, if not quite as vehemently as before, “do you want to get hit again?”

“Yes, Dincht,” Seifer said with a sigh as he tossed cushions off the couch to get a better look at the pull-out, “I spend all my time thinking up ways to piss you off because I want you to hit me. Are you an idiot?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you liked it,” Zell said in a sing-song voice, his own mood, it seemed, brightened by the fact that Seifer’s had gone once more downhill. Seifer, choosing not to lower himself by answering to that charge, fought with the sofa for a further few minutes before he was able to get the mattress out, and he stood looking down at the sorry piece of furniture for a short while.

“I’m getting another room,” he finally declared.

“Good luck,” Zell laughed, watching smugly from the bed as Seifer wrestled the pull-out mattress back into place. “There’s probably not an open room in the whole fucking city. Everyone’s here for Caraway’s lady’s coming out.”

“We’ll see,” Seifer murmured, stalking out of the room and down to the lobby with every intention of giving that Trabian bitch at the desk a piece of his mind - their nicest suite indeed! - however, fifteen minutes later when Zell came strolling through, that same maddeningly superior grin on his face, as Seifer was being told for the third time that the first available room wouldn’t be open until the following thursday, he ultimately conceded defeat; it looked like Zell was right - if even a dump like this one was booked full for the next two weeks, it wasn’t likely that there was anywhere left in the city that would take him.


“Any luck?” the martial artist asked chipperly, sidling up to the desk next to Seifer and looking as though he already knew full well that the other man had had no luck.

“You’re surprisingly cheery for someone who was so opposed to sharing a room with me just before,” Seifer bit back, but even this acerbic reply didn’t seem to faze Zell any.

“I don’t care about a room, I’m just not sharing a bed,” he stated shortly, flashing a cheeky crooked grin. “You are, however, welcome to the floor if you want it. Can we get going? I don’t want to be late and make a worse impression than just the fact that you’re there is already going to make.”

He turned and walked away, leaving Seifer to stare open-mouthed after him in shock at such audacity. That was twice just in the last half hour that Zell had zinged him - either the boy was getting sharper, or Seifer was losing his touch, and that didn’t bear thinking about. But this was fun, too - trading quips with Zell, instead of their usual routine of Seifer taunting him and Zell throwing a punch in response. Sure, it was probably just because Zell didn’t want to risk being even near enough to him to get a good hit in, but that was not entirely a bad thing; if Zell was so acutely aware of his attraction to Seifer, it would make it all that much easier to get him to give in to it... and all that much more enjoyable, as well.

“He’s leaving you behind,” the Trabian girl pointed out quietly, giving him a sly look that suggested that she thought whatever cold behavior Zell was showing Seifer probably had coming. He stared at her for a moment, and she quickly busied herself with a stack of papers. Even civilians were getting uppity with him now - Hyne forbid he actually was getting soft. He followed Zell out the door, musing on it, but he concluded that it wasn’t himself getting slower, it was Zell getting quicker - he’d had too much exposure to Seifer’s teasing, and he’d acclimated to it, that was the problem. He’d have to tone it down a bit from now on, but only a little bit, just enough to lull Zell into a false sense of security. As if it would be difficult - the boy was patently oblivious to what was in front of him, even when Seifer wasn’t trying to be subtle. And what fun it was, Seifer thought to himself, grinning as he followed out the door.


Zell was strangely quiet as they entered the Caraway estate and were shown into a small study by a man who looked more like a military guard than the butler he claimed to be, who informed them that the general would be with them in a few minutes before bowing and backing out the door, leaving them alone. Seifer took a moment to look around, although the office was nearly exactly what he would have expected; elegant and tasteful, but with just enough military memorabilia - a framed photo of Caraway standing with the president of Galbadia here, one of him looking at a complicated machine next to Odine there, a few plaques displaying service medals placed modestly back on a bookshelf - to serve as a gentle reminder that, despite a two-year absence from the political scene (due mainly, Seifer figured, to a spiteful stubbornness after having been so ruthlessly outed as the head of the army during the war,) General Caraway was still one of the most powerful and influential men in the country. He’d done very well for himself over the past couple of years - the Galbadian government, in shambles after the dissolution of the sorceress’ reign, had practically begged Caraway to return to his former position (or so Seifer had heard,) and he hadn’t made an easy task of it for them, either; but he did return, after a long enough waiting period that even the most diehard supporters of the old regime were pleading with him to take back control of the country, and he was now steadily, if slowly, building Galbadia back up as the interim president, and no one doubted that soon enough he would officially take over the presidency. And to think, Seifer mused, half amazed at the idea, if things had gone quite differently during the war, I might have been where he is right now...

Zell was standing off to the side and hadn’t said a word since they entered the mansion; he was staring pensively into the corner of the room, and seemed to be deeply in thought about something. What was the cause of this sudden suppression of personality, Seifer couldn’t guess, but it was odd, the way he kept jumping from one mood to the next - one moment teasing and laughing, the next angry, the next silent and grave. But maybe he was always like that, constantly flitting from one emotion to the next; as Seifer had spent most of his time with Zell up until just recently trying quite hard to keep him in a state of perpetual ire, it wasn’t as if he had ever really paid attention to any of Zell’s other moods. For some reason, the fact irritated him a bit, and he turned to Zell and sneered, “What gives, Dincht? Most of the time I can’t get you to shut up, and now all of a sudden you’re mute?”

Zell gave him a dirty look, but he shrugged carelessly, and began to pace around slowly in a restless manner. “I was just thinking...” he began but didn’t finish, giving Seifer a meaningful look.

“What? Do you want me to congratulate you?” Seifer snapped crossly, and the other man shot him a disdainful glare.

“Fuck off,” he huffed, shuffling his feet as he stopped pacing. “I was thinking about the last time I was here. You should remember that as well,” he added sharply, turning and strolling aimlessly about the small study again.

“Hm,” Seifer sighed, leaning against the edge of the desk, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. It was a few minutes before Zell broke the silence again.

“I was thinking,” he went on thoughtfully, as though Seifer was not there at all and he was just thinking aloud, “the last time we were here, we still thought you were dead. Seems like a really long time ago, is all.”

“You what?”

“Yeah,” Zell mumbled, giving a half-shrug, and looking very much as though he wished he had never brought the subject up. “You know. It was right after that thing in Timber. Five years already, can you believe...”

“You thought I was dead?” Seifer repeated, frowning at this unexpected bit of information. Zell looked surprised at Seifer’s not knowing.

“Well, they told us you’d been executed,” he replied, as though it was common knowledge. And it probably was; Seifer had attacked and tried to kidnap the president of Galbadia, and had he not gone with the sorceress at the time, he certainly would have been executed for such a transgression. But the whole memory of the event was hazy, as if shrouded in a fog; Seifer’s recollection of the period of time between deciding to bust into the TV studio and finding himself, days later, standing next to the sorceress in the middle of Deling City was spotty at best. He was finding, more and more as time went on, that he couldn’t quite remember a lot of things about that time of his life - whether because he couldn’t, or because some part of him didn’t want to, he wasn’t sure.

“When was that?” he asked.

“I dunno...” Zell thought about it for a moment. “Couldn’t have been more than a day or two later, I think. We ran straight off from Timber to Galbadia Garden, and it was just after we got there they publicly announced the execution. Why, does it matter?”

“No, I’d just never heard,” Seifer said with a shrug, but it nagged a bit at him - it simply didn’t make sense; by that time, Vinzer Deling and Galbadia had been quite firmly in the sorceress’ grasp, so why make a statement of execution? To throw somebody off? It was possible that she had already known about Caraway’s assassination plot, and it wouldn’t take too much reasoning to guess at whom he might hire for such a task, so it could have been that she was merely trying to throw the moral of his team, but it seemed unlikely, and unnecessary, for someone who was powerful enough to stop a sniper’s bullet even before it hit to waste time trying to psychologically disable a team of assassins when she could just as easily overpower them physically.

And why should I care? Seifer thought to himself, feeling irritated over the matter. But it bothered him nonetheless, now that he knew. The whole time he was by the sorceress’ side, he had never seen her do something without a specific reason, a goal in mind. Maybe it wasn’t her then. Or maybe it was, and she was just fucking mad, he thought angrily, frustrated at himself for not wanting to let it go. Who cared why? It was in the past already, and he’d worked so hard to let all of that go; he wasn’t going to ruin it now by dwelling on something as insignificant as this.

“I don’t understand it,” he mumbled to himself. Zell heard, and turned to look at him for a moment, a strange, confused sort of frown on his face.

“Well... you did attack the president of the country on national television,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, thanks for that reminder, Dincht,” Seifer spat, startling the other man with this sudden acidity. “D’you want to say it a bit louder and remind everyone else around here? Or maybe you can just play the video footage for Caraway, in case he’s forgotten it?”

“What’s your fucking problem all of a sudden?” Zell snipped back, looking half-angry and half-offended by Seifer’s unexpected attack. “It was a dumbfuck thing to do, you musta known that at the time. Don’t get all pissed off at me for your own stupid actions,” he growled lowly.

“As I recall, you were the idiot who went shouting about which garden the dumb fuck who attacked the president had come from,” Seifer shot back trenchantly, his mood only slightly mollified by the expression of utter amazement that crossed Zell’s face at this affront. “You’re not one to talk about stupid actions.”

“What’s got into you?” Zell asked sharply.

“What was the point of bringing this up, Dincht?” Seifer said, ignoring the question. He took a few steps forward, stuffing his hands angrily down into his pockets and trying to look more nonchalant than he felt at the moment. What was Zell trying to do by telling him this? “Just nostalgic all of a sudden, I suppose?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Zell barked back, shooting Seifer a cutting glare, the quickness of this response surprising him. Looking aggravated and beginning to pace again, Zell went on, “We were all screwed up about that, alright? Don’t fuck around.”

“What?” Seifer said, somewhat less harshly; this surprising sentiment had caught him off-guard.

“No, really,” Zell said, a half-amused expression flashing across his features as he nodded, as if to assure Seifer that he was telling the truth. “Squall had a total fit, ran out the room and all. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Seifer was quiet, casting about for something to say, but nothing particularly smart came to mind. He hadn’t expected to hear that, and from Zell of all people, someone who, after all the hell he had been put through during their school years, Seifer would have thought would rejoice at such an occasion. Something of this must have shown on his face, because Zell’s expression went a bit softer, and he seemed less angry as he sat heavily down on a small, gaudily-upholstered sofa near the back of the room.

“For fuck’s sake, it’s not like you were our enemy or anything,” he explained with the weary air of someone who had just given a great deal of mental exertion. “Whatever happened after, up until then, you were one of us. Course we all felt shit about it. Frankly, I’m kind of insulted that you’d think we wouldn’t,” he finished with a sigh, looking frustrated.

“Getting a bit sappy, aren’t you?” Seifer grumbled, more gruffly than he intended mainly to hide the sudden wave of embarrassment that had overcome him at Zell’s uncharacteristic confession, but the younger man didn’t seem to appreciate his cynicism.

“Act like a prick if you want, but it’s true,” Zell said in a very final sort of tone, standing up again and bouncing restively on his feet. “I hated you back then, but hell, I didn’t want you dead... and neither did anyone else.”

He turned his back on Seifer then, and began to pace a bit more, every once in a while giving a small morose sigh while Seifer watched on. It was odd of Zell to be so divulging, especially about something that Seifer would have thought was the sort of thing the martial artist would take to his grave before admitting. He had never wondered about what the others had thought of his sudden disappearing act that day; he was so wrapped up in glory at the time that he hardly had time or emotion to spare fretting over people who might have been worried about him. Not that it had ever occurred to him that they would worry, but to know that they had - well, it wasn’t worth thinking about any more. It was in the past.

But why Zell had found this to be something he wanted to admit - or something that he thought Seifer would want to know - was beyond him. Seifer supposed that the city had unpleasant memories for the rest of them just as much as it did for him. Instead of mentioning on it, though, to get Zell’s mind on a different track, he said noncommittally, “you hated me then?”

Zell glanced over his shoulder, looking agitated but sparing Seifer a glare that suggested that his question was ridiculous. “You know I did,” he huffed.

Seifer paused a moment, a cocky grin stealing over his face at what Zell didn’t even know he’d just confessed to. “Implying,” he went on smugly, “that you feel differently now?”

“What?” Zell jumped around in a startled sort of way, looking suddenly very pink; but before he could answer to this accusation, or before Seifer could prompt him further, the door to the study opened, and they both spun round to face General Caraway as he entered.

“I appreciate your patience, gentlemen,” he announced in an undeniably military manner, standing very stiffly just inside the doorway for a moment as he looked over a sheaf of papers in his hand. Seifer held himself a bit straighter, and he saw Zell doing the same, somehow - miraculously - tempering down the vivid shade of pink that had overcome his cheeks moments ago; Seifer briefly wondered how he could even do such a thing - he’d never seen evidence of such a talent before, and after the past few weeks he fancied himself something of an expert on making Zell flush, whether in anger or embarrassment - but now was really not the time; Caraway had finished with his file and shut it, placing it haphazardly on a bookshelf near the door, and was turning his attention to the two of them.

Zell stepped forward smartly, looking more serious and professional than Seifer thought he had ever seen the other man - but then, this was work, and Zell wasn’t a SeeD for nothing. Seifer knew, of course, that the martial artist was good at fighting, but this mission was going to be more about diplomacy and tact than it was about fighting, and it hadn’t occurred to him that Zell might have some talent in those areas as well, but here he was. Somehow, it was a little attractive - Zell the SeeD, rather than the loud-mouthed brat Seifer always still envisioned him being. Caraway looked him over approvingly, and Zell introduced himself properly, “Zell Dincht, SeeD rank A, sir.”

Holy fuck, he’s rank A? Seifer thought to himself, completely surprised, but after considering it for a moment, it wasn’t really so surprising. Zell was an instructor, after all, he’d been on dozens of missions with all varieties of perils, hell, he had fought right next to Squall against the sorceress to end the war - why shouldn’t he be a highly-ranked soldier? Meanwhile, Seifer had been given a mere handful of assignments in the two years since he’d achieved rank, pissy errands the lot of them; and though he’d done himself exceptionally well on those, he liked to think, at this point in his career rank A wasn’t even a pipe dream, it was a flat-out delusion.

But as he thought about it, it really wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own - he griped a lot about Squall never sending him on proper missions, but in truth he never did much to earn the right to them; he purposely avoided making friends with anybody, so it was natural that no one would want to partner with him; and if he wanted to be brutally honest with himself, there simply weren’t a great deal of tasks he was equipped for these days - espionage was out, simply because he was instantly recognizable no matter where he went, and the demand for soldiers’ labor was at an all-time low with the war years gone now. Magic users were always a hot commodity, but Seifer wasn’t allowed a GF, even to train, so he had never become skilled in that area. He could complain all he wanted, but Squall would probably never have a proper use for him, which no doubt aggravated the headmaster just as much as it did Seifer; after all, who wanted a perfectly good soldier sitting around, wasting away fetching others back and forth from their missions? It was a terrible waste of his abilities, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

“Yes, I remember you,” Caraway said to Zell in response, looking rather impressed as he offered his hand and Zell shook it. “Though it’s been a while.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And...” Caraway went on thoughtfully, turning to Seifer with a closed expression on his face, lined and much more weathered than Seifer remembered it being the one time he’d met the man, years and years ago. “Yes, of course I know who you are,” the general said with a very slight, unreadable smile, and he gave Seifer a short nod, as if in approval.

“Seifer Almasy, SeeD twelfth rank, sir,” he announced himself promptly. Caraway swept by him wordlessly, striding toward the desk at the back of the room.

“It’s a bit of an odd coupling, you two, isn’t it?” he remarked, sounding amused but looking quite stern as both Seifer and Zell moved to stand before him. “The last time I saw either one of you, you were on opposite sides.”

Seifer gritted his teeth; something about the way he’d said it seemed infuriatingly disdainful. Zell, however, a half-smile flitting across his face, replied buoyantly, “Oh, you’ve no idea, sir.”

Seifer stared at him, but Caraway seemed to like this, for he gave a short bark that vaguely resembled a laugh as he began to search for something on his desktop, which was a mess of papers and files. Zell could have meant that any number of ways, of course, but Seifer had a feeling he knew exactly what had been meant as Zell shot him a sly grin, as if to say, “yeah, I said it, so?”

“Well, I won’t waste my time wondering how this-” Caraway waved his hand between the two of them to indicate exactly what “this” was “-came about. Squall assured me he’d send his best, so you two must be his best.” Here he paused, giving Seifer a short glance-over, as though secretly remembering the words “twelfth rank”, and Seifer had to force a smile. He’d had a feeling that he wouldn’t like Caraway, and it wasn’t gratifying at all to know he’d been spot on.

“Your objective is fairly simple, if perhaps not easy,” Caraway went on to explain, picking up a clip binder thickly-packed with papers, rifling through it for a moment, and then setting it aside, casting an occasional glance up at one or the other of them as he spoke. “My wife fears there may be a certain party of individuals after her. She is hosting a large amount of events this month-” he said the word “large” with the same infliction another might say “ridiculous” “-and your job is to ensure that they all go as smoothly as possible. Keep an eye on her, be on the watch for anything suspicious, and do anything else she asks of you. That’s the extent of it.”

Babysitting, then, Seifer thought gloomily to himself, but Zell chimed in, “So she’s aware we’ll be around?”

“I had originally planned it to be as covert as possible, but very little gets past her,” Caraway answered with what might have been a fond smile. “But no one else is to know - if there is anyone after her, I’d like to get a bead on them before they get scared off, if you know what I mean. Keep that in mind and be as discreet as possible.”

“Of course, sir,” Zell replied obediently. Seifer said nothing.

“You’ll answer to her second only to me,” the general continued, relocating a stack of thick books from one side of the desk to the other, and he gave a small exclamation of triumph as he seemed to find what he had been looking for this entire time. He pulled up two gray folders and held them out, one to Seifer and one to Zell, and though he was no longer smiling he seemed to be amused by something nonetheless. “She has prepared you each an itinerary.”

She’s really got him by the balls, hasn’t she? Seifer thought, suppressing a smirk at it, though he noticed the corner of Zell’s mouth twitching in rather a similar way. The documents inside the folder were very thorough - which parties they would be attending on which dates, at which ones they were allowed to divulge their occupation as SeeDs and at which ones they were to be strictly undercover, even their dress code - what does she think this is, a game of pretend? he scoffed to himself, but he couldn’t hold back that grin after all; somehow he couldn’t wait to actually meet this woman who had the guts to hire SeeD specialists and think she could order them around like common staff. Although, he had to remind himself, as long as she was paying for their time, they were very little less.

“It’s very, erm...” Zell said, failing to sound as enthusiastic as he was trying to look, “comprehensive.”

“Can I ask?” Seifer said hesitantly, flipping skatingly through the rest of the itinerary before looking back up at Caraway, whose full attention was now on him. “If your wife believes there’s someone after her, why is she throwing a month’s worth of parties upon just arriving here?”

“Dallia is not given to doing things in halves,” Caraway said in a weary sort of tone, and he sat down in the high-backed chair behind the desk, sitting up very straight in it. “You’ll understand better after you’ve met her, I suppose, but my wife has a way about her... a charm, you could say. If she wants to throw parties, who am I to say no to her?”

In other words, she’s a rich, spoiled princess, and she’s got you tied around her diamond-encrusted little finger, Seifer thought meanly, but he simply nodded in response to Caraway’s explanation, keeping his face impassive. Zell, beside him, was silent, and seemed to be thinking about something as he studied the file over, but he didn’t speak yet.

“Are you two up for it, then?” Caraway asked, in a tone that suggested he was daring them to refuse it.

“Of course we are, sir,” Zell said immediately, before Seifer could get out his own reply to that loaded question, and Caraway nodded approvingly. Zell seemed about to say something else, but stopped himself short, as though he couldn’t quite find a way to phrase it. He glanced over at Seifer with an unreadable expression on his face, but just as quickly he looked away again.

“Everything is already taken care of as far as guest lists and invitations and such go, courtesy of my wife again,” the general remarked in a voice that Seifer was now sure was distinctly amused, and it was becoming quite clear why. “You should have no trouble getting in wherever you need to be. She has turned the entire city out for these events.”

“That so,” Seifer couldn’t help remarking under his breath; luckily it escaped Caraway’s notice, but Zell shot him a rather admonishing glare.

“Is there anything else we ought to be aware of, sir?” he asked smartly, and Seifer resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Professionalism was fine and all, but when the client wasn’t even taking this assignment seriously - as Caraway clearly wasn’t - Seifer felt that exempted him of the obligation to take it seriously, as well. But as long as Zell was playing up the rank for Caraway, Seifer wasn’t going to let himself be upstaged.

“No, I don’t think so. Everything should be covered in your itinerary,” Caraway said with a huff of a laugh. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow for a week in Esthar, so you’ll have to make your first report back after I’ve returned. Dismissed.”

Zell gave a short, stiff sort of bow - if he salutes, I swear I’ll kick him in the fucking head, Seifer thought bitterly - and the both of them promptly dropped off the radar as Caraway turned his attention to the small mess of documents on his desktop as he tried to sort them out. Typical government heels; the hired help were invisible as soon as they were finished being ordered about. As the general was no longer watching, Seifer allowed himself a disdainful sneer at the man’s expense, one that didn’t go unnoticed by Zell, whose narrowed eyes promised punishment for the impropriety.

They were escorted off the manor grounds by the military butler, and together headed back toward the hotel under a gray, gloomy sky. Zell looked morose and thoughtful as he walked alongside Seifer, seeming to have forgotten his earlier resolution to keep a distance. “What do you think of this?” he asked after a few minutes.

“I think it’s piss work, and they’re mocking us,” Seifer replied honestly, giving a careless shrug.

“Yeah?” Zell chewed on the corner of his lip, pondering it. “It looks like some kind of trap any way you view it, I think.”

“What it looks like, is that Caraway married some high society princess who thinks it’ll be fun to hire SeeDs for playmates while she’s in town,” Seifer spat. Zell looked doubtful.

“D’you really think...? I mean, Caraway’s got to know better.”

“Knowing better doesn’t make a fucking bit of difference if she’s got him on a leash,” Seifer pointed out.

Zell thought about it, frowned, sighed, and conceded, “Yeah, I suppose. Fuck, what’s Squall thinking, taking this on? I’m rank A for fuck’s sake,” he grumbled, looking seriously disgruntled at this. His expression was so perfectly resentful - and so very adorable - that Seifer had to laugh, though to go by the instantaneous darkening of Zell’s bearing, he had just set himself back another week of winning the other man over.

“Welcome to the world of grunt SeeD work, Dincht,” he said chipperly, flashing a cheeky grin Zell’s way; Zell, in response, gave him a look that suggested he’d like very much to punch Seifer at that moment. For whatever reason, he didn’t, and Seifer felt a bit cheered by the fact, insolently adding, “and just think, we’ve got a whole month ahead of us...”

“Shiiit,” Zell groaned.


~

terribly long time for an update, I know D: