Adult-FanFiction.org : Final Fantasy

Mind Games	By : danihouse Category: Final Fantasy VIII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 940 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or any of the characters represented in the story, and I make no profit from it.

Chapter List
- 1-Mind Games
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 4-4
- 5-5
- 6-6
- 7-7
- 8-8
- 9-9
- 10-10
- 11-11
- 12-12
- 13-13
- 14-14
- 15-15
- 16-16
- 17-17
- 18-18
- 19-19.1
- 20-19.2
- 21-20
- 22-21
- 23-22
- 16
- 17
- 18
Zell scowled at his breakfast as he listened to the sounds of Seifer finally getting up in the other room. He’d been sulking since his slinking return to the room last night, and had been pretending to sleep most of the morning, in a petulant way that Zell supposed was meant to make him feel guilty, but he was determined not to. What did he have to be guilty about, anyway? One would think Seifer would be used to getting hit by now, what with his propensity for being an arsehole. Furthermore, Zell felt he had let the other man off easy - he’d been rather inclined to dismember the ex-knight, in the very extremely literal meaning of the word, and the only thing that had really stopped him was the thought that it would be somewhat difficult to explain such a thing to Squall when he got back to Garden. Then again, maybe not - taking their history into consideration, it might be the greater surprise if either of them returned from this trip without having maimed the other.
The worst part was that Seifer had been right - and if he hadn’t been such a dick about it, he’d probably be getting up, well-rested and smug, from Zell’s bed right now, instead of grumbling and bitching from the couch. He hated it when Seifer was right. It wasn’t like it was a well-kept secret that there was something in the air between them, and something powerful at that, but Zell was for damn sure not going to be the first one to admit to it. Seifer’s game was, for whatever reason, to make him cave, and Zell was done playing. Whatever Seifer was bent on getting out of him, he sure as fuck wasn’t going to get it without some caving of his own.
He chewed violently on his toast and listened to Seifer stumbling around in the next room. He certainly wasn’t a morning person, and spending two and a half weeks on that rack-like contraption that passed for a fold-away bed probably wasn’t helping his mood any. Zell brightened up a bit at the thought. Whether or not Seifer realized it, there was a nice, comfy bed just waiting for him in the other room as soon as he was ready to swallow his pride and stop playing these ridiculous mind games.
Zell tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, games were really all Seifer knew. At the very least, he got no respect from pretty much anyone, and from most of the people at Garden, a lot less than that. If he wasn’t a dickhead, then what else did he have? Not to mention, the relationship between the two of them had always been something like that of gasoline and fire at the very best of times. It was possible that to actually be friendly and honest with Zell might cause Seifer literal physical harm - alright, maybe that was stretching it, but only by a little. Old habits died hard, and even though Zell had completely changed his way of thinking about Seifer over the past few months (well, mostly,) he too had found that his natural behavior wasn’t quite as easy to overcome; hostility was ingrained in him, had been for nearly two decades. But he had overcome it, and with moderate success too. It was impossible to keep up when Seifer was actively being an arsehole, which was most of the time, but it could be done.
“Good morning,” Zell said, not amicably, as the other man shuffled into the kitchen. Seifer made a half-intelligible noise in response, heading for the coffee pot which Zell had purposely left empty that morning just for the other’s reaction, which was gratifyingly pouty and gruff. Zell wasn’t exactly an early bird himself, though he did try to get up at a decent hour even on his off-days, but Seifer was in an entirely different class of late-rising; Zell figured he operated on max sixty percent brain function at least until noon most days. It was actually pretty funny, for the most part. He watched Seifer work at starting up the coffee pot, idly wondering how much resistance the gunblader was likely to put up if Zell grabbed him by the shirt, pushed him down onto the floor, and started undressing him. Probably not much, if any. Getting him while he was sleepy and susceptible (it had taken Zell a while to be able to put that word in conjunction with Seifer’s name with a straight face,) might be the key to getting Seifer to finally break down so they could end this ridiculous standoff. Heaven knew Zell wasn’t going to be the first one to cave, no matter what Seifer might think.
He was so absorbed in planning that it took him a minute or two to realize Seifer was mumbling something at him. He hadn’t expected the other man to be articulate so soon after getting up. “I said, what are your plans for the weekend?” Seifer repeated when Zell looked up inquisitively.
“None of your business what they are, they don’t include you,” he replied frostily. Truthfully he didn’t have any plans, but of course if he told that to Seifer the gunblader would find some way to make plans. Seifer smirked, dropping bread into the toaster.
“Bitchy,” he muttered.
“Takes one to know one,” Zell said under his breath, not going unheard by Seifer if his sneer was any indication. The other man didn’t respond, buttering his toast in dignified silence. Zell gritted his teeth; he had never mastered Seifer’s infuriating knack for conveying utter disdain sheerly through silence. He finished off his breakfast, his last bit of toast sticking like a piece of carpet in his throat as Seifer sashayed into the other room in a manner clearly calculated to draw Zell’s gaze to his arse. He got up from the table, gathering his dishes noisily as Seifer switched the TV on in the other room.
“You better not be eating on my bed,” he called through the doorway in warning, but there was no reply. No doubt the bastard was shaking toast crumbs all over the place just to make a point, the infernal creep. Zell cleaned the dishes with a fury he rarely unleashed on mundane chores, trying not to let Seifer annoy him, but it was so much easier said than done; Seifer could be maddeningly passive-aggressive when he wanted to, and Zell was just no good at handling him. He preferred to be straightforward; if it was fighting, with words or fists. Over the course of this trip, Seifer, evidently, had found all of Zell’s buttons and knew just how to push them; he might as well have just handed the other man a manual, he was so good at winding Zell up - he himself, meanwhile, couldn’t even figure out from one day to the next whether Seifer was just jerking him around, like him or hated him, if he was just being a dick for the hell of it, or if he had some other agenda.
“Zell,” he heard Seifer call from the bedroom. He ignored it, scrubbing the dishes well past clean and pretending not to have heard. He could do with a bit less of that, as well - since last night it had been “Zell” this and “Zell” that, as if Seifer had suddenly forgotten that he had spent the last fifteen years or so calling Zell by a variety of colourful names, none of which were his given one. And the way he said it - all low and breathy, like just being able to call Zell by his name was a treat - hell, Zell almost preferred he go back to “chicken-wuss” if this was going to become a regular thing, though he wouldn’t admit that to Seifer. It was too intimate, and it was really starting to grate on Zell’s nerves.
“Zell,” Seifer repeated insistently.
“What?” he yelled back grouchily. He was pretty sure Seifer was baiting him - when wasn’t he? - but when he went into the other room, Seifer was standing beside the bed, his toast, uneaten, in one hand and the remote in the other, and a very troubling expression on his face. He gave Zell a look of weary exasperation.
“Have you seen the news this morning?” he asked, nodding toward the TV, where some cheesy tabloid program was showcasing a photo of him and Dallia on the patio of the hotel, the First Lady of Galbadia pink-faced and giggling. Seifer’s back was to the camera but Zell was willing to bet he was scowling, since he was never in a worse mood than when Dallia was in a good one; to the casual observer, however, the photo was certainly an incriminating one. Several more covert shots followed of the two of them leaving and entering other establishments, a few of which were hotels (Zell himself was torn between feeling extremely grateful that he didn’t feature in any of these pictures and being slightly annoyed - he was a celebrity too, wasn’t he?) which had been purely on business but certainly wouldn’t appear that way to bystanders. Zell continued to watch, dumbstruck, as the reporter gave a very stunted - and not flattering - biography of Seifer, highlighting in particular his role during the war and emphasizing his “preference for women of power”, and he was only startled out of watching when Seifer hurled the remote control across the room, where it met the wall and burst into a dozen pieces.
“Calm down,” Zell said.
“Why should I calm down?” Seifer said, his toast the next thing to go; Zell watched its trajectory across the room and into the corner, and then he turned back to Seifer, trying to gauge his temper before the situation turned unpleasant. “Can you believe this shit?”
Despite his words and his violent display with his breakfast, Zell didn’t think that the other man really seemed all that angry - not at the stupid report on TV, in any case. It had been five years, after all, and he had to have gotten used to the gossip, the tabloids, the badly-narrated biopics that always placed him in a bad light. Seifer was scowling and he was clearly not happy, but he was calm, which was unsettling. “What were you guys doing?” Zell asked.
“Nothing. Just talking,” Seifer answered, and sighed. “She should have fucking known better, though.”
“What do you mean? Did you know you were being followed?”
“Well, there were paparazzi everywhere,” was all he said, retrieving the bulk of the remote from off the floor and mashing buttons until the TV switched off, cutting off in the middle of a colourful segment detailing the similarities between Dallia, Edea, and Rinoa - which were, now that Zell thought about it, eerie. Small, fair, dark-haired, they all also had the effect of making others want to protect them... at least until you got to know them, and realized that protection was the last thing any of them needed from someone else. Zell suddenly had a strange thought: Seifer definitely had a type, and Zell was not at all it. He was, as a matter of fact, just the opposite; even if Seifer did like guys, someone like Squall was probably more up his alley - which was an even more disturbing thought...
“I don’t see what’s funny,” Seifer snarled, trying without success to cram the pieces of the remote back together. “How long do you reckon before the General hauls us in about this?”
“What’s this ‘us’ business?” Zell muttered back, trying to shoo the unsettling images that last train of thought had provoked from his mind. “I ain’t in any of those pictures.”
Seifer gave him a look that could have burned through the drywall. “We’re supposed to be a team or some shit.”
“Well, for us bein’ a team, you’re sure going off and doing your own thing a lot,” Zell shot back with a shrug, feeling a lot less nonchalant about the situation than he was acting. The truth was, they were probably going to get their arses handed to them by the General, Squall, and Quistis, not necessarily in that order, and they had, as of now, about ninety percent botched their mission. Undercover? Well, that had been a joke from the beginning, but there was a difference between being recognizable and being blatantly famous - or infamous, in Seifer’s case. If the two of them managed to keep Dallia from harm during the remainder of her stay in Deling City, Zell might get away from this assignment with nothing more than a docked rank, but it would likely be a long time before Seifer would be allowed anything resembling real SeeD work, undercover or no. Despite himself, Zell felt a little bad about that; it was clear that Seifer had very few other joys in life.
The coffeemaker went off in the kitchen and Seifer followed it, apparently lacking a decent retort to that last accusation. Zell remained in the bedroom, thinking. It occurred to him now that it was unusual that Caraway would let a story like that air in the first place - it might not be said, but he certainly held enough power around here to keep his wife’s scandals out of the public eye, whether or not she wanted it that way. Seifer seemed to think that Dallia was playing some kind of game with them; was it possible she’d had some part in this? Not that Zell thought she’d set up such a situation, or even that she’d known about it, but if she thought that to be the center of such attention was amusing - well, that sounded like her. Not to mention, all she had to do was lift one tiny manicured finger to the phone and that story would never have seen the light of day. She had a mischievous side, one that seemed to delight in making his and Seifer’s working life a hell.
The phone rang, and Zell jumped. “Gee, I wonder who that is,” he heard Seifer scowl grouchily from the kitchen, followed by the sound of the other man stirring milk into his coffee violently. Zell made a face that Seifer couldn’t possibly see, and then answered the phone himself, and then spent the next five minutes humming and “yes sir”ing through painful conversation with Graydon, the General’s butler, with some restraint managing not to slam the phone back down until after the line had clicked off. The noise drew Seifer back into the room, a steaming mug of coffee clutched in his hand.
“What did he have to say?” he asked, though his expression said he knew perfectly well.
“What do you expect?” Zell replied, sighing as he replaced the phone gingerly. “We’re not to leave the hotel or make any appearances until he gives us further instruction. He’ll call again tomorrow.”
Seifer looked thoughtful at this news, sipping his drink carefully. He seemed calm and understanding, but not at all angry, which Zell was beginning to think should be suspicious. “Figures,” he said finally, making a frustrated sound and sitting on the edge of the bed. “What about Dallia?”
“I assume she’s got enough sense to stay out of the public eye for now,” Zell said, though on second thought, he wasn’t sure he did believe that. Seifer made a pained face that said that he was having the same thought.
“Well,” he said after a few minutes, standing up and heading back toward the kitchen with a half-smirk on his face - yeah, he was definitely too cool about this whole deal; Zell was starting to feel distinctly uneasy. “I guess that’s it for your plans, then,” Seifer remarked, looking smug.
Zell felt his heart sink. That was right - he hadn’t had any plans, but now he had even less than that; he had virtually been ordered to stay locked in this room with Seifer for the next twenty-four hours. They’d been told not to leave the hotel, but he couldn’t even reasonably leave the room without risking exposure - they didn’t know how many people had been tailing Seifer or what was waiting out there for them. And Seifer... that bastard, that’s why he wasn’t at all angry; this situation was working out perfectly to his advantage, at least for now. He had Zell just where he wanted him: close at hand and unable to escape.
“Time for room service,” Seifer announced.
“What? It’s barely ten o’clock,” Zell replied.
“So? What else have we got to do today?”
Zell gritted his teeth, watching the other man place the call. Seifer had a point, after all; what else did they have to do but sit around and try to tolerate each other for the rest of the day? And although he wasn’t a fan of Seifer’s propensity for day-drinking, well, why not?
“You don’t seem too torn up about this,” he said casually. Seifer looked up, and gave a half-shrug, the phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear.
“To be honest, anything that causes her grief is fine by me,” he answered, and he looked, indeed, like he couldn’t be less worried about the situation at hand. “Anyway, this mission was a joke from the start, so it’s not like it can get worse.”
“Well, we agree on something,” Zell said tersely, gathering up his clothes and heading for the refuge of the bathroom, making sure to slam the door shut behind him before Seifer could get in a reply.

He took an extra-long shower just to piss Seifer off, but when he emerged from the bathroom a half hour later, he was surprised to find that they had company. “Seera?!” he said, slicking still-wet hair back from his face as he went to the door, where the tiny girl was unloading a case of beer and several grocery bags off a cart. “What the... hell is this?”
“Room service,” Seifer answered from behind him, grinning cheekily.
“Room service?!”
“Special request,” Seifer elaborated.
“Seifer explained your situation to me so I did him a favor,” Seera chimed in before Zell could go off on him. Judging by the more-than-a-little begrudging look on her face, it had taken some doing on Seifer’s part. “We don’t keep cases of beer in the kitchen and he was very specific,” she went on, whipping the case off the cart with surprising strength and setting it down hard on the floor very close to Seifer’s bare feet. She gave him a sweet smile and he took a wary step back, taking his groceries with him.
“What the fuck,” Zell sputtered, following Seifer into the kitchen, where he was unloading his snacks. “You can’t make her run errands for you.”
“It’s her job,” Seifer said, studying a bag of cheddar crisps.
“It is not,” Zell hissed.
“Don’t worry, I tipped.”
He stomped back into the living room, where Seera was waiting with a slip for him to sign. “Look, Zell,” she said, glancing toward the kitchen furtively, “don’t give him too much hassle; I mostly did it for your benefit. I don’t know how you can live with him like this.”
“Did he tip you?” Zell asked.
“Um... no,” she said, looking bemused. Zell went to the sofa and grabbed Seifer’s jacket, and started rifling through the pockets while she watched on, frowning. “Look, Zell,” she said again, taking the handful of bills he pressed into her hand without looking at it. “Most of the hotel staff have seen the thing on telly this morning so I just wanted to give you a head’s up. They should know better than to come and mess with you but I can’t vouch for all of them. If you need anything, you ought to call me personally at the front desk.”
“Oh, well, thanks,” Zell replied, unsure whether to be grateful that she was being so helpful or annoyed that she was so involved in his business. After a moment of deliberation, he opted for the gracious route and decided to be thankful; after all, with Seifer not going out of his way to make Zell’s life any easier, he could use an ally. He smiled, wishing Seifer had carried more cash so that he could tip better.
“Say,” she remarked after a moment, peering with a sour expression toward the kitchen, from which Seifer had not yet emerged. “He’s not... really sleeping with Dallia Caraway, is he?”
“What?”
“No, of course not,” she answered herself without giving him time to even deny it; she cracked a smile, something Zell had rarely seen her do, and waved her hand as though the question was so stupid she couldn’t even believe she’d asked. “He’d never. Definitely not. Sorry I asked.”
“Don’t be,” was all Zell said in response. He had a feeling she was implying something he wasn’t sure he liked, but instead of pursuing it, he merely watched in silence as she made to leave, peering through the peephole of the door to make sure the corridor was clear before exiting. He was still going over the exchange in his head and trying to figure out exactly what she had been getting at when Seifer, who had clearly been occupied in the kitchen waiting for the coast to be clear, re-emerged, two cans of beer in one hand and half of a sandwich in the other.
“Finally gone, huh?” he said, settling back down on the bed as though he belonged there. Zell scowled his hardest but to no avail; Seifer didn’t even blink an eye.
“You’re lucky I didn’t let her feed you to the paparazzi, with the way you act.”
“Blah, blah,” Seifer said, waving an idle hand. He held up a beer in Zell’s direction. “Join me?”
“Sometimes I can’t believe how much of a dick you are,” Zell murmured, walking away.
“Sometimes I can’t believe you’re still surprised by it,” was Seifer’s reply.
Zell gnashed his teeth without answering. Clearly Seifer was determined to be flippant and Zell knew from experience how little would be gained by engaging him. Well, if Seifer was bent on playing games, Zell was going to twist the rules a little his way. He turned back and walked to the bed, snatching the beer from Seifer's hand and plopping right down next to him on the mattress. He smiled, feeling pleased at Seifer's expression of bewilderment. "Anything good on telly?"
"They're replaying last night's match," Seifer replied, manipulating the mangled remains of the remote control until he could flip channels.
Several beers and one remarkably boring football match later, Zell was beginning to worry about his plan of action. For the last hour or so, Seifer had been abnormally quiet and absorbed in watching what was on TV, which had to mean he was plotting something. Zell refused to believe he was that interested in the outcome of the match (which had been clear from the first ten minutes anyway; everyone knew that the Esthar Elnoyles always choked in cold climate, and Trabia United was unstoppable this season.) He was probably doing the same thing Zell was doing: trying to formulate his next plan of attack. They couldn't just sit around watching telly and drinking all day. At the very least, they should try and figure out what to do about the situation with Seifer and Dallia, which, judging by some of the snippets they were seeing in between channels, was escalating in the typical manner of celebrity gossip - that is to say, with absurd rapidity. Zell was paranoid to open the shade on the window lest they be blinded by the flashing cameras of a mob of paparazzi.
Seifer spoke before he could begin to think how to breach the subject. "Do you suppose she has a plan?" he asked wonderingly, cracking open a beer and tossing the empties into the small bin next to the bed, which was quickly getting full.
"What do you mean?"
"Like... who do you think she's trying to piss off? Aside from the two of us, obviously," Seifer elaborated.
"Her husband," Zell offered dubiously.
“I don’t think so. Does he seem very pissed off to you?”
“Well... no, I guess.”
“If anything, he’s being unusually docile about her behavior on the whole. Which makes me think that whatever she’s up to, he must at least be aware of it,” Seifer declared, thinking aloud. Zell shrugged, but since the other man didn’t seem to be listening one way or the other, he didn’t reply. He was mostly talking to himself, but at least he wasn’t goading, Zell mused, feeling grateful for the respite. “Man, I hate Trabians,” Seifer said.
“How can you say that?” Zell scolded, getting up from the bed to gather up the empty cans. “You can’t know that. You haven’t met every Trabian in the world.”
“I’ve never met one I liked yet,” Seifer said.
“If anything, it’s the Trabians who should hate you,” Zell went on. “You did blow up their Garden, after all.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Seifer grumbled, chucking his beer can onto the floor. Zell picked it up and threw it in the bin, scowling with marked disapproval at the other man.
“Can you at least try not to be in a completely foul mood, since I have to be stuck here with you all day?” he asked sourly.
Seifer, to his credit, looked chagrined. “This is such bullshit. This mission was a total joke, and we still managed to fuck it up. I’m going to be pushing paperwork for the rest of my miserably short life as a SeeD.”
“There you go again with that ‘we’ stuff,” Zell remarked. “I’m pretty sure the only fucking up I’ve done is letting you get away with all the fucking up you’ve done. How do you think it looks on me to be partnered up with someone who can’t even handle basic bodyguard detail? She’s a bloody heiress, for fuck’s sake,” he finished, tying off the plastic bag he had just finished stuffing cans into. He left the room without even looking back for Seifer’s reaction, only to find the gunblader, on his return, staring at him with an expression something like shock.
“You’re not being very reassuring,” Seifer said accusingly.
“I’m not trying to be. Now can you quit with the fucking pity party and maybe do something constructive, like help me decide what we’re going to do about this mess?”
“I’m inclined to let Dallia deal with it and happily watch it all blow up in her face,” was Seifer’s answer. It occurred to Zell that the other man was not sober, so instead of arguing, he left the room, fed up with the exercise in futility that was trying to have a straight conversation with Seifer. He went into the kitchen aimlessly, it being the only of the three small rooms that was farthest from Seifer at the moment. He banged around for a short while with some dishes to sound productive, until he realized that Seifer had followed him and was watching from the doorway with unconcealed amusement.
Zell clanked some glasses together noisily, but it didn’t make the other man leave. Instead, he came into the kitchen, walking to the counter and standing next to Zell. “Look, can I ask you a question?” he said.
“No,” Zell replied shortly, stowing the glasses back on the shelf before he did something regrettable, like smashing one over Seifer’s thick skull. He wasn’t sure the expense would be covered by Garden.
“Zell,” Seifer said, his tone low. “I’m being serious. Would you look at me?”
“And I’m being serious,” Zell answered, obliging the gunblader, but only to glare at him. “I’m not going to answer your question. You complain that I’m always trying to punch my way out of a real conversation, but you’re always trying to run around one. So, no, you can’t ask me a question.”
He turned and walked away, trying his hardest not to flounce, but again Seifer followed him before he’d gotten far. “Fine,” Seifer said, giving a little smirk that Zell didn’t have time to decide whether he liked or not before the other man took him by the arm and steered him toward the couch. Zell let himself be led across the room and then stood watching, half puzzled and half curious, as Seifer went to the minibar set up in the corner and began unloading it.
“What do you mean, ‘fine’?” Zell said suspiciously.
“I mean, fine,” Seifer murmured, gathering up tiny bottles of liquor, “you answer my questions and I’ll answer yours. I think we’re capable of having a real conversation.”
“Uhh,” was all Zell could manage, unable to formulate a valid excuse for refusing. Only when Seifer knelt down on the floor next to the couch, arranging the small bottles in a row, did Zell gather himself enough to ask, “well, why the liquor?”
“We’ll make a game out of it,” Seifer said, standing up and going back to the kitchen. He returned with the half-empty case of beer and set it down beside the couch, and then sat down on the floor himself. He waved Zell down to his level, and Zell, still bemused, took a seat on the carpet. “Yes or no questions only; you don’t want to answer, you drink.” He paused, thoughtful, and grinned. “And a two drink penalty for throwing punches.”
“This is pretty stupid,” Zell began, but Seifer’s smug expression stopped his protests. Trying to cop out of this ridiculous game Seifer had devised would only prove his point; and Zell had to give him credit, at least he wasn’t trying to cop out himself. They had a problem communicating: he’d come up with a solution, even if that solution was twisted and very likely to end badly for one or both of them.
“You can start,” Seifer said graciously, grabbing two beers and passing one to Zell.
“Umm,” Zell said stupidly. Seifer merely stared at him, patiently waiting. “Okay... you said yes or no questions only?”
“Yep,” Seifer said. “My turn.”
“That doesn’t count!”
“It was a yes or no question. Now, let me think,” he went on, pretending to spend a great deal of thought on his question. Zell drank his beer, scowling and trying to think of something he could ask Seifer. There were a million things, even if the scope was narrowed by yes or no answers. He could think of questions alright, but having the nerve to ask them was a different matter; did he really want things to be that open between them? “Aha,” Seifer said, as if he’d just come up with the answer to the great secret of life. “I’ve got it. Are you gay?”
“No!” Zell sputtered, spitting beer down his shirt. Seifer snorted in laughter and Zell wished he’d tempered his reaction. Clearly Seifer’s aim was not to get his questions answered, but to jerk him around some more. Well, two could play that game. “Are you?” he shot back.

Seifer gave a slow smile. “No,” he answered, sitting forward. “Don’t make this difficult.”
“You’re the one starting off with absurd questions,” Zell hissed.
“It’s your turn.”
“Why does it have to be yes or no?”
“Not a yes or no question. That’s a penalty drink,” Seifer declared. He pulled a bottle from the lineup, peered at the label for a moment, and then peeled the seal off. “Drink up,” he said encouragingly as Zell took the bottle uncertainly. “Now, are you going to play this game seriously?”
“Well, are you going to stop asking stupid questions and be serious?” Zell countered.
“Yes,” Seifer said.
“Then, yes,” Zell agreed, taking a tentative sip of liquor. Trabian whiskey wasn’t his favorite, but it wasn’t bad.
“As long as we’ve got that sorted,” Seifer said, nodding approval. “The answer to your question, by the way, is because it’s more fun this way. You actually have to think about what you want to ask instead of just blurting things out, the way you usually do.”
“I don’t do that.”
“You just did it twice in as many minutes. But by all means, keep it up - the quicker you’re drunk, the more fun this game will be,” Seifer declared, looking smug, as though relishing the prospect. Zell refused to humour him. The quicker he was drunk, the quicker this silly game would be over; and with that thought, Zell decided to go on the attack. Seifer had a fair start on him already, and with the right questions, the gunblader would be passed out in a drunken stupor in no time. On the flip side, Zell would have to be entirely honest so as not to end up drinking himself, but in truth he was past caring - he’d been too dishonest for too long, both to himself and to Seifer, and that was part of the problem.
“Whatever,” he said bitterly, “it’s your turn.”
“Okay. Do you, and I’m being serious this time,” Seifer said, waving a tiny bottle of white wine, “do you fancy guys?”
“No,” Zell replied coolly, which was mostly true. “Are you asking me that because you’re hoping the answer was ‘yes’?”
Seifer gave a sly smile and took a drink. Zell huffed. “You’re such a wuss,” he said.
“Says the chicken-wuss.”
“There’s my next question: are you ever going to stop with that name-calling shit? ‘Cause it’s gotten real old,” Zell retorted.
“It’s not your turn, but the answer is no,” Seifer said. “Now I get two. Here’s one: do you have a thing for me?”
“Yes,” Zell said, “it’s called loathing.”
“Ha ha ha ha. You’re funny.”
“Just ask your damn question,” Zell muttered, drinking his beer. Seifer had already finished his first and was going for another; Zell counted him three beers ahead already, which was going to make things a lot easier if Seifer kept up the pace. It was hardly past noon, but the gunblader didn’t seem to care, and Zell wasn’t going to bother to mention it. Besides, a drunk Seifer was much less clever, and therefore much more agreeable, than a sober one; so why complain?
“Are you being facetious just to annoy me?”
“Yes, obviously,” was Zell’s answer. “You’re wasting your questions asking stupid stuff.”
“That’s what you think,” Seifer replied, shaking his beer at Zell, until it slopped over the rim of the can. “Maybe I’m asking all the right questions and you just don’t realize it.”
“Are you drunk or what?”
“No,” Seifer said. “Now tell me really. Do you hate me?”
Zell pondered that one for a moment. Despite how often he might say it, he obviously didn’t hate Seifer - that was what was really frustrating; he couldn’t. He probably never had, but it was just his natural response after fifteen years or so of dealing with Seifer. In fact, he couldn’t say with any certainty what he did feel toward Seifer, which was annoying. At the best of times, Seifer was hard to get along with, but he could be amiable when he had a mind to - the problem was just that; as long as Zell continued to be distant, Seifer was going to purposely be difficult just to irritate him.
There was the issue. He wanted to like Seifer, he really did; the ex-knight just made it so damn hard. The fact that he did it on purpose boggled Zell. The fact that Zell himself fully well knew this and still, for whatever inexplicable reason, found himself sort of perhaps liking Seifer anyway baffled him more. There was something about the way he always casually let some of that charm shine through - little peeks here and there of the kind of person he could be, fun and witty and pleasant, as if to show Zell what it could be like if only he would cooperate. Summing it up so neatly in his head like that, Zell decided he was going to be even more determined not to give in.
“You know I don’t,” Zell finally said in response to Seifer’s question, scowling and wondering to himself if it would be worth having to take two penalty drinks just to wipe that smirk off Seifer’s face just now. “But fuck do I wish I could.”
“I’ll bet,” Seifer said.
“It’s my turn,” Zell said, trying not to smile as he decided to go on the offensive. “Do you regret the choice you made?”
“What choice would that be?”
“To go,” Zell said softly, and Seifer, despite being quite a ways from sober, grasped what he meant at once.
“Every day of my life,” he answered, peering down the neck of his miniature bottle of wine, presumably in order to not have to meet Zell’s eyes. Zell might have called him a coward, except he was a little surprised himself at the honesty with which the other man had faced the question. He had expected more runaround, more drinking; he certainly hadn’t expected Seifer to suddenly get serious. He waited quietly for Seifer’s next question, feeling unnerved by the sudden awkward atmosphere.
“Well, that’s not exactly true,” Seifer said next, looking very thoughtful on the subject. “On one hand, going with her definitely fucked up my life probably forever. But who’s to say I’d have liked what my life would have been like if I hadn’t made that choice?”
“You’d have been just like the rest of us,” Zell speculated, mulling the idea over - somehow, it didn’t sit well in his mind.
“No,” Seifer said, swigging beer. “I’d already failed the SeeD exam twice. Even if they’d let me take it again, I wouldn’t have. I probably would have skipped out on Garden entirely - moved to Timber or somewhere shady like that and started a jolly life of crime. Eurgh,” he said, making a face as if he’d suddenly had a particularly unpleasant thought, “I’d probably still be dating Rinoa...”
Zell didn’t reply right away, and they both spent a quiet minute drinking. “I don’t know about all that,” he replied after thinking about it for a short while, but Seifer shook his head, his expression firm.
“There are things about my life now that I wouldn’t give up, even if I had a chance to change things,” he said, almost as if to himself as he continued to stare down at the bottle in his hand. “So I guess the answer is yes and no - I regret it, and at the same time, I’m perfectly content with the way things turned out.”
Zell was about to ask him how that could possibly be, until it occurred to him just in time that it wasn’t a yes or no question; all the same, now that his curiosity had been piqued, he was itching to know if Seifer was being truthful or if he was just talking out of his arse again. He didn’t seem like the type who regretted many things in his life, which was partly why Zell had asked, but more than that, he also didn’t seem like the type who was “perfectly content” with his life, or really content at all. He was on the verge of asking anyway, penalty drink be damned, just to see if Seifer would be honest with him; but the thought of that was a little scary in itself, and while he hesitated, Seifer seemed to get a hold of himself.
“My turn,” he announced, sounding jaunty but still not meeting Zell’s eyes. Zell tried to give him the benefit of the doubt; he supposed Seifer hadn’t been honest enough in his life to feel comfortable at it yet. He’d already taken this question-and-answer game farther than Zell would ever have believed; that was something, he supposed. “Did you mean what you said?” Seifer asked.
“What I said?” Zell repeated, not following. Seifer made a quiet noise like frustration, looking away.
“The other day,” he elaborated after a moment, “about... choices.”
Zell had to think for a while until he could recall the conversation Seifer was referring to. HIs expression was nothing less than utterly casual, but there was something in the way that he’d asked the question that made Zell wonder if he’d been working up to this - nearly a full month of (at times, unbearable) closeness with the gunblader had given Zell the opportunity to learn a lot of his tones, but he’d never heard Seifer sound quite so close to desperation as he did just now. His answer, though, was easy, and he smirked as he replied, “yeah, sure. Have you been worrying about that this whole time since then?”
Seifer considered the question, and then, his lips curling into a smug little grin, took a drink. His face morphed smoothly from disquiet to ease, but Zell didn’t miss the flash of relief that crossed him like a shaft of sunlight - there and gone before anyone who hadn’t just spent three overwrought weeks having ample occasion to study Seifer’s facial expressions would notice. He had been worrying about it. Zell had been mostly joking, but he was slightly dumbfounded by the realization. He’d never known Seifer to really care what anyone thought about his pre- and post-war choices, and he’d certainly never shown an inclination to care what Zell thought about him at all. Or was he wrong?
“You’re not drinking much,” Seifer remarked.
“I thought the point of the game was to ask questions, not to get drunk,” Zell shot back.
“It is, but why not kill two birds with one stone?”
“It’s hardly past noon,” Zell said, trying not to sound too much like Quistis and, to judge by Seifer’s pitying shake of the head, failing.
“What does it matter? Caraway made it pretty clear we’re not to do anything until further notice, so we might as well have as much fun as we can...” He trailed off, giving Zell a sly sideways look as though he could think of a number of ways they could have more fun if only he would cooperate. The smug look on his face was enough to ensure that Zell would happily choose to rot in hell before doing anything like cooperating with Seifer in any way.
“I hate to break it to you, but I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed any time you’re drinking,” Zell said in a clipped tone.
“Are you sure?” Seifer replied, finishing off another beer. He leaned forward, smiling, and said, “we are still playing a game, don’t forget.”
Zell scowled, and took a swig of his whiskey. He had nearly forgotten, but he was under no circumstances going to admit to Seifer that he had, in retrospect and after wriggling his way out from underneath a mountain of denial, in fact, enjoyed their drunken makeout sessions - well, he had enjoyed the sober ones, too, but drinking had the benefit of making Seifer forget to be suspicious of the fact that Zell was no longer protesting. Seifer, however, didn’t need to know any of that, so Zell put his next question forward. “Are you really being honest? Because I don’t see any point to sitting here and wasting my time if you’re just fucking around because you’re bored,” he said, sounding sharper than he intended.
He half-expected Seifer to phrase a vehement denial, or at the very least, to drink to that - instead, the other man gave him a long, lingering stare, looking neither angry at the question nor amused. “I’m actually offended that you asked that,” he said after a moment, and he sounded it, which seemed to surprise him as much as it did Zell. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that maybe Seifer was actually trying to be honest - that this ridiculous game and Seifer’s drinking were necessary because Seifer really couldn’t just be straight with him; he had to go to absurd lengths to even have a normal conversation. But why not? Zell thought privately, it’s not like anyone takes him at his word anyway, and being an arsehole is probably one of the very few enjoyments he has in life.
“Yeah, well, it’s not like we’ve made it a habit to be truthful with each other up until now,” he said bitterly, hating the hot curl of shame that was creeping through his gut. Sure, Seifer was a dick, but there was no denying that Zell and the others shared some responsibility in that; they’d never given him much of a chance.
Seifer seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Am I supposed to be entirely to blame for that?” he asked, grabbing another can of beer from the case beside him, his movements imbued with a stiffness that belied his nonchalant expression. “I mean, at least I try, even if you don’t believe me. Tell me when was the last time you were honest with me - or yourself, for that matter,” he added, his tone short and sharp.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zell said, getting angry.
“Don’t play dumb. You’re so thick in denial you can’t even see it when I’m slapping you in the face with it,” Seifer went on; his tone was sour, but he only seemed to half be talking to Zell, who was damned if he knew what the other man was on about now. He was going off-track and the conversation with him; Zell was doing his best to keep his temper in check, but he was coming real close to being fed up with Seifer’s bullshit.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? Or are you trying not to?” Seifer said, his expression going dark. Zell suddenly felt a sense of uneasy foreboding, which was momentarily amplified when Seifer set down his drinks and got up on his knees, moving forward toward Zell, who leaned back only to find the barrier of the couch just behind him. Seifer was trying to corner him again; Zell refused to be intimidated, but he had nowhere to go as the other man moved in close, leaning over Zell with his arms on either side of him, boxing him in. “Why don’t you stop being a wuss and just admit you want me?”
“Fuck you,” Zell said, glad he sounded cooler than he felt at the moment. He thought Seifer had taken the hint last night; apparently the gunblader had a thicker skull than Zell had thought. “What are you after, Almasy? I’m getting real tired of all this dicking around.”
Seifer only stared at him for a long, charged moment, his expression, under a placid mask of anger, etched with musing. Zell was past caring if the other man was drunk or not; he was starting to become nonsensical and Zell had had quite enough. Still, he wanted to avoid getting in a fight with Seifer if he could help it, so he didn’t make a move, instead waiting to see what Seifer’s next would be.
“That’s not a yes or no question,” he said finally, a smirk forming on his lips.
“Oh, is that right?” Zell answered, flashing a grin himself as he raised his fist to pop Seifer hard on the jaw, sending him tumbling backwards, head over feet, empty beer cans and tiny bottles of liquor scattering behind him. He was well aware that ending the conversation like this was feeding right into Seifer’s accusations of him, but even so, something about smacking Seifer around was terribly gratifying. He watched with satisfaction as Seifer lay on the floor, clearly having accepted defeat and not making a move to get up.
Zell stood, taking the mini bottle of whiskey and finishing it off in two gulps. Hey, no one could say he didn’t follow the rules. “I’m through playing,” he declared, throwing the bottle down. To hell with Caraway - if he had to spend another minute locked in this room with Seifer, he was going to do something highly regrettable. So, before he could change his mind (or Seifer could recover enough to do it for him,) he turned on his heel, grabbing his jacket from the hook beside the door, and stormed out, slamming the door extra-hard behind him just for good measure.

“This is probably the worst idea in the history of the world,” Seifer said morosely, scowling behind his sunglasses.
“Just shut up,” Zell said.
“No, I mean it. What could she be thinking? There’s no way Caraway approved of this,” Seifer went on.
“Just stop talking, will you?” Zell snapped, but his brusqueness didn’t even turn Seifer’s gaze from the darkened window through which he’d been staring absently throughout the car ride so far. “I’m sick of hearing your voice. In fact, just don’t talk again today. This shit heap of trouble we’re going to be in is bad enough without you making it worse by spouting off.”
Zell was still pissed off about what had happened the day before, but if Seifer either noticed or cared, he was doing a good job not showing it. He’d been preoccupied the whole morning - hungover, Zell reckoned - and seemed determined to languish in self-pity, which Zell wouldn’t mind so much if the other man would just shut up and leave him alone. He was, however, right about Dallia - she was clearly deluded if she thought that holding a press conference was going to do anything but make the situation worse for all of them. But they couldn’t exactly refuse to go, which is how Zell ended up stuck in a car with a vehemently bitching Seifer, on their way to the Galbadia Grand Hotel where undoubtedly a crowd of reporters and journalists were waiting to paste his face all over the entertainment page, sending his career swirling down the drain for good. The only small consolation was that Seifer was surely going to be in more trouble than he was.
“I think it’s about as worse as it can get,” Seifer said, making faces at his reflection in the window. “There can’t possibly be any way it can get worse.”
“I can hit you,” Zell suggested.
“Please. Put me out of my misery. If it deprives Leonhart of the satisfaction of firing me in person, by all means, kill me now,” the gunblader went on.
Zell only sighed. Clearly there was going to be no talking to Seifer, so he gave up, letting the other man get back to his brooding. Zell tried to think of a way this situation could be not as bad as he thought, but failed. What was Dallia planning to say? Denying an affair would be worse than ignoring it; and in any case, having their faces aired across Galbadia standing next to her pretty much went blatantly against the clause in their contract that said something about being undercover.
“Pull yourself together, would you?” Zell muttered as the car pulled to a stop outside the hotel. He slipped his sunglasses on. “If you say a single word, I’ll personally cripple you. Just let Caraway do all the talking and try not to piss anyone off.”
Seifer turned, giving Zell a long look over the top of his sunglasses. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and then evidently thought better of it, instead opening the door and stepping out of the car. Zell followed suit and they entered the hotel, where he saw that most of the crowd was waiting, although a few photographers had been lingering outside and were doing their damnedest to get a few words out of either him or Seifer as they made their way in. Zell shook them off, heading for the conference room Dallia had summoned them to, with Seifer trailing unenthusiastically behind him.
The lady herself was waiting for them just inside, and she beelined for Zell as he entered, ushering him and Seifer toward the back corner of the room. “Perfect, you’re here,” she declared, smiling widely and fussily straightening the front of Seifer’s jacket. Then she turned to Zell and pretended to brush some dust from his sleeve, and said, “Put on a smile, now. You’re going to be on TV.”
“Don’t remind me,” Zell murmured, but he managed to twist his lips into something like a grin. “At least try not to look like you want to kill yourself,” he said to Seifer, who hadn’t even removed his sunglasses and was scowling around the room.
“I find that preferable to Caraway doing it for me,” he said darkly, but he worked his face into a neutral expression. Zell was on the verge of making a snarky comeback when, upon looking around the room, it occurred to him that the General wasn’t there.
“Fury’s not joining us today,” Dallia explained, and if Zell didn’t know better, he’d say her expression was more scheming than not. “We didn’t want to make a big deal out of this. I’m just going to make a short statement and there will be no questions.”
“Is that the best way to handle this?” Zell mused. Personally, he didn’t think the press were going to take Dallia at her word, especially if she didn’t even give them the chance to put up some questions, but then, what did he know?
“What are you going to tell them?” Seifer asked coolly.
“Come on, it’s time,” she replied instead of answering, and waved them to follow her to the front of the room, where there was a mic and a few chairs set up. “Now, just stand next to me and try to look like you know what’s going on,” she instructed.
Seifer shot Zell an apprehensive look, which he returned, feeling more uneasy than reassured by Dallia’s remarks. However, he did as she said, pasting on a smile and feeling a bit queasy as he watched people crowding up to the front of the room, a veritable mob of paparazzi. Seifer, on Dallia’s other side, had shed his sunglasses but was looking a little less than peak himself, although to his credit his expression was perfectly calm and unassuming. Cameras flashed and the chatter died down as Dallia tapped the mic with her fingernail, letting the crowd’s attention settle on her.
“Hello,” she said, as if to test the sound. “Oh. Hello, everyone. Thanks for coming.”
She paused, smoothing out her skirt and flashing grins to the reporters. Zell shot another look over at Seifer, but the other man was now apparently absorbed in doing what Dallia had said and feigning nonchalance.
“Now,” Dallia went on, still smiling brightly, “you all know why you’re here, of course, but I’ll bet you want to hear what I’ve got to say. The truth is, it was supposed to be a secret until next month, but I don’t want you all running around with the wrong idea.”
There was a small murmur from the crowd, and Zell tried not to scoff. He didn’t know what Dallia was planning but he had a feeling that putting the wrong idea in their heads was just the sort of thing she’d find great enjoyment in.
“You all, I’m sure, know my associates - Seifer Almasy,” she said, waving a hand toward Seifer, and then turning to Zell, “and Zell Dincht, both SeeDs at Balamb Garden. Some of you may be aware that I’ve been in the planning stages of a new Garden that would be located in Esthar. The boys have been a great help to me in the development of this project.”
Seifer managed to turn a sneer into a tight half-grin as Dallia turned to him with a sunny smile on her face. Zell’s cheeks were beginning to hurt from the expression he had plastered on, but Dallia wasn’t done yet; a moment later, over the gentle muttering of the audience, she declared, “also, I’m very pleased to say that, after weeks of pestering, I have finally convinced Mr. Almasy to come and teach for me. I’m happy to announce that he will be one of the first instructors at my new Garden.”
A silence fell over the room; not even a camera clicked. Zell was afraid to turn and see what kind of expression Seifer was sporting as the quiet stretched painfully on. Not a question was asked. Dallia took timely advantage of the silence to add, “that’s all for today, thank you everyone for coming! No, no questions,” she said as the crowd erupted with talk, all of them pressing forward with mics and cameras until Zell worried they were going to be smothered. “You’ll have to wait for the official press release next month for all the details! This was just a teaser, you understand; now don’t go making me spill anything I shouldn’t!”
She laughed as though the whole thing were a joke, and took Zell and Seifer by an arm each to lead them out of the room by a back door. Two burly security guards at the door stopped them being followed, but they could hear the chatter of the crowd even as they made their way down the dark, lonely corridor toward the back of the hotel.
“That went very well, didn’t it?” Dallia said cheerfully, ignoring Zell’s expression of speechless shock. “That will give them something to gossip about for a while.”
Over her shoulder, Zell shot Seifer a look of bafflement; Seifer returned it, appearing equally as bewildered and stunned as Zell himself was. They both let Dallia pull them along, lost for ideas as to what to do now. Seifer’s expression made it clear that he was thinking on the same lines as Zell: Dallia was undeniably, certifiably insane...
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Mind Games