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Lightning.	By : KittyMeowMaxwell Category: Final Fantasy VIII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 667 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Kitty:
I remember what he tells! XD

Eoko: You had better. It's your chapter.

Kitty:
Woo! My chapter! Hey, the Tigers are leading! But still a
quarter and five minutes to go. Still plenty of time to lose the game...

Eoko: Don't talk like that, Kit! And for all you weird non-AFL followers,
the Tigers are the Richmond Tigers, and they rock! Sometimes.

Kitty:
Hardly... But that's 'cause we're rebuilding at the moment. I'll tell you this
much, Seifer would look hot in an AFL uniform...
Those short shorts...

Eoko: Yea, okay. You just try to get him into those, then
we can talk about hotness level.

Kitty:
He would be hot! They make even the worst arse look
good.

Eoko: I should get me a pair of those...

Kitty:
I don't know how they'd look on a girl... ANYWAY! We should let these good
people find out what Zell tells Seifer.

Eoko: Since we already know and all. Yes, indeed! Read away!

Chapter, The
Twenty-Third: In Which Zell Tells Seifer.

Seifer didn't move from where he was until Zell had fallen into a restless, exhausted sleep. Then he
slid quietly off the fighter's back and carefully removed his shoes, pausing
every time Zell made a sound, so that it took him
almost fifteen minutes per shoe.

"The things I do for
you, Chicken Wuss..." Seifer
murmured as he pulled a sheet up over Zell's broad
shoulders.

Fuck, he looked awful. Seifer brushed damp bangs out of puffy, red eyes, then
sighed and went to sit down, silently watching the sleeping fighter. Even
unconscious, he didn't look happy. It wasn't just the red eyes. The curve of
his mouth was downward, and there was obvious strain in the youthful features.

And all for
the fucking Cowboy.

Seifer rubbed at his eyes, hunching down in the chair, and
propped his cheek on his hand. He had half a mind to go and find Irvine and
tell him just what he'd done to Zell. Maybe then
he'd get it, and stop being a brat about all this. Then again, he reflected,
some selfish little part of him was awfully glad things hadn't gone well, and
damned if he could figure out why.

He growled and stood up
again, stalking over to the little fridge to get himself a drink.

What the hell was wrong with
Irvine anyway? People would kill to have Zell want
them. Okay, so the fighter had been a bit of bitch to the sharpshooter, but
damn! Surely he could see how sincere Zell was?

"I fucking need a
cigarette!" Seifer hissed as he threw himself
back down in the chair, but it was Zell's room and
he'd been forbidden on several occasions to never, ever smoke in there,
on pain of never being allowed back. And he didn't want to upset the fighter
anymore than he was already.

Zell murmured in his sleep and made a sorrowful face, lips
shaping Irvine's name and Seifer wanted to break something.
Preferably Kinneas' neck. He
entertained that thought for a long, long while. It helped him stop thinking of
smoking.

- - -

When Irvine awoke Monday
morning, he couldn't remember what he had done from the time Selphie left until he crawled, naked, into his bed and
cried himself to sleep. He only knew he'd cried himself to sleep because his
pillow and his hair were still damp. He shifted a little, utter misery making
his breath catch again, and realized he held something in his right hand. He
opened his fingers and found Rubedo - Zell - Rubedo's note there with
his phone number.

"Rubedo..."
Irvine whispered, tears coming to his eyes again.

He felt as though someone
close to him, someone so important to him that his heart beat faster just at
the mere thought of him, had died. He would never see Rubedo
again. Those strong arms would never hold him again. That gentle mouth would never... never...

Hyne!

Ever since the kisses they
had shared - had that only been a couple of days ago? - Irvine had been
allowing himself quite the imaginative daydreams about certain other things
they might do. It had been difficult without a face to put to the man, but it
was by far more difficult to put Zell's face
to him.

Zell.

Zell...?

Zell!

Fuck! He had class with Zell tonight!

He seriously considered just
skipping the whole damn thing, but then he remembered Aki would automatically
fail them and groaned. He didn't want to fail. He couldn't afford to fail.

The day seemed to past
quickly after that realization, his other classes flying past in a blur, and he
wasn't even sure what happened at lunch. Rikan, he
thought, looked especially mournful, but he couldn't find it in him to care,
since he couldn't find it in him to feel much of anything but pain.

His friends tried all day to
find out why he barely talked, and looked as though "someone had run over
his dog", as Hiro so delicately put it, but he
refused to tell them. At any rate, they entered the Training Room in a
protective cluster around him, which only tightened when they saw that none
other than Seifer Almasy
was leaning against a wall, foot propped up against it and arms folded across
his chest. His eyes lit on Irvine, but the sharpshooter wasn't looking. Terry
and Harada glared at the gunbladist, who only smirked
and gave a small, derisive laugh through his nose that was little more than an
exhale.

Irvine had eyes only for Zell.

The little blonde was running
through several complicated moves, his face set and his eyes unreadable. But... he...

"He looks as bad as I
feel..." Irvine whispered.

"What?" Terry asked
swiftly, looking at him.

"...N-nothin'..." Irvine said vaguely, watching Zell's muscles flex beneath his shirt.

He'sss the sssame persss-

"Don't even bother,
Levi..." Irvine muttered. The Cadets didn't even glance at him. They'd
soon grown used to him suddenly saying something out of the blue, and knew what
it was. But still, he couldn't stop staring at Zell.

Seifer narrowed his eyes at Irvine, and the second Zell stopped moving, he was at the fighter's side. Irvine
hesitated after the role had been called while everyone else automatically
found their partners and began on the stretching exercises. Zell
didn't even look at him, so he put his hat aside and went through the stretches
as well.

"Okay, everyone," Zell said after a while. His voice sounded softer than
usual, and several of the students exchanged glances at the lack of his general
exuberance. "We're going to be working on breaking holds today. Say you
don't manage to get your weapon back, or you're a little slow to block, so you
end up in someone's arms. And not in a good way, either."

There was a murmur of
laughter, but even that line was delivered with far less enthusiasm than was
typical for the fighter, so they didn't react as they usually did.

"Something's
wrong..." Harada whispered to Irvine, who said nothing, because he knew
she was right.

"Seifer..."
Zell said, then he lifted a
hand when Seifer moved towards him. "Oh, I
almost forgot. For those of you who don't know him, this is Seifer.
Contrary to popular belief, he doesn't bite."

"Unless you ask," Seifer murmured, showing his teeth.

Zell rolled his eyes.

"Okay, Seif. Enough terrorizing my students.
Let's do this."

Seifer smirked and winked at the class, then shrugged out of
the velvet jacket and tossed it aside before putting his arms around Zell from behind, pinning the fighter's own arms at his
sides. Irvine couldn't keep his mind from taking a swift slide into the gutter.
Seifer's eyes met his and the gunbladist
smirked. Irvine flushed and looked away.

"Seifer
and I are pretty evenly matched," Zell said,
quelling the murmur of his class. "He's taller than me, but I'm stronger.
He's faster than me, but I'm more agile and I know more about fighting without
a weapon. However, none of that matters. It's about weak points. I'd figure
most of you, especially the girls, will know where to hit. Any
takers?"

"Groin!" one of the
small girls piped instantly.

"How did I know that
would be the first one? Anyone else?"

"Solar
Plexis."

"Right."

"Neck
or throat."

"Yes."

"Knees...?"

"You're right, don't be
so hesitant."

"Instep," Irvine
said after a long pause where everyone looked at everyone else. Zell just nodded.

"Right, all of you, but
I'm not about to go bashing Seifer up."

He spent the next twenty
minutes demonstrating how to break holds, then set the
class to it. Irvine stood, looking at a loss, as Zell
drifted through the class, correcting and assisting where it was needed. After
about five minutes when it became obvious Zell wasn't
going to approach him - for which Irvine forced himself to be grateful - he
took a step forward, intending to go and remind Zell
that, even though he hated him, he needed to pass the class. A hand fell on his
shoulder.

"S-S-S-"

"The
one and only. You can practice
with me today."

The way he
said it left no room for argument, and Irvine was too tense for the first
twenty minutes to have any hope of doing what Zell
had showed them all. But he became
steadily aware that Seifer was being highly
professional. Especially when, after the fifth time Irvine had made a sound of
utter terror, the gunbladist told him flatly to stop
being an idiot, because he wasn't about to fuck up Zell's
class by doing anything less than teacherly towards a
student.

He still found himself
wishing it were Zell's arms around him several times
before he could squash the wish.

Zell dismissed the class ten minutes before finish time
with congratulations and a few final notes on what they'd done. Irvine was
leaving when a hand touched his shoulder and he turned to find Seifer looking at him.

"In case you care,"
the gunbladist said lowly, glancing over to make sure
Zell was occupied with the couple of students he had
asked to stay back to go over a couple of things they hadn't seemed to grasp.
"He spent hours crying after you left him out on the plains yesterday. And
he-"

"Right. Like I'm goin' to believe anythin' you say. You were probably in on the whole
thing!"

Seifer bristled, a hand coming to Irvine's collar and
lifting him a little onto his toes.

"If you don't
fucking-"

"Thanks, Zell!" one of the students said, and Seifer released the sharpshooter, since Zell's
distraction would soon be gone.

"I can't tell why the
fuck it is, Priscilla, but he cares about you. And you're stupid to throw that
back in his face."

Irvine said nothing, eyes
fixed on some point around the vicinity of Seifer's
shoe. When it became apparent the gunbladist wasn't
going to say anything more, Irvine turned on his heels and left, silent tears
running down his face.

Zell didn't care. He didn't care. He didn't care. He
didn't care! It was all just a mindfuck. It
had to be. It was Seifer, for Hyne's
sake! Of course he'd help the fighter fuck up Irvine's life even further.

I hate you! Damn you, I
hate you! I'll always hate you! Always!

- - -

Zell lapsed into a thoughtful silence the moment they
exited the Training Room and remained that way all through their dinner and
their return to Seifer's room. They went over the
class, but Seifer could tell the fighter was barely
paying attention to what they were talking about. It was starting to piss the gunbladist off, but he couldn't bare
to set Zell crying again, so he didn't say anything
about it.

They were talking about the
members of the class that were doing the worst when Zell
suddenly slapped his thigh and snapped his fingers.

"That's it!"

Seifer blinked several times at him.

"What's it?"

"Lightning."

"Pardon?"

"That's the way."

"The
way to what?"

"Irvine."

"Lightning?"

"Yes."

"Magic?"

"No, a
chocobo."

"A chocobo? You
mean Qu-"

"No!" Zell stared at him like he was stupid. "What the hell
are you on, Seifer?"

"Me?! I don't even know what the fuck you're going on
about, Chicken! Talk sense, and it might actually mean
something!"

The fighter sighed, then started to explain to him as though he were a
two-year-old.

"Irvine had a chocobo called Lightning. He had to sell him, because he
couldn't afford to feed him anymore. Our fault..." Zell
trailed off briefly, then picked up again. "I'll
get him back, then Irvine won't be able to... to hate
me anymore."

It was Seifer's
turn to stare.

"Zell,
all damn chocobos look the same. How are you going to
know which one it is? And where are you even going to look in the first
place?"

"Well..." Zell considered. "He wouldn't have sold it to anyone
who he didn't think would look after it, so most likely he sold it to a ranch,
and a good one at that. Possibly it'd be close, so he could visit, plus he
wouldn't have been able to take Lightning far away to sell in the first place,
because then how would he have got back? If it's been called Lightning since it
was a chick, which it most likely has, then there's no way they'd be able to
change it's name. And, let's face it, how often does a
six-foot, genuine cowboy with blue eyes and a long
ponytail turn up wanting to sell a chocobo? Whoever
he sold it to will remember. Then I can pay to house it and feed it... and... and maybe..." He trailed off, running a hand over his
face.

"Zell-"

"Don't
fucking try to talk me out of it, Seifer!" the
fighter snapped suddenly.

Seifer backed off and stuck a cigarette in his mouth,
getting pretty damn near to pouting.

"I get that you're
attracted to him," the gunbladist said after a
while, ignoring the sharp snap of Zell's eyes to him.
"Felt damn good to hold him today, and he's pretty sexy, for a nancy cowboy, but is it worth all
this damn aggravation?"

"Yes," Zell said simply, standing suddenly and heading for the
door.

"Why? He's
already kicked you in the guts."

"It doesn't
matter." The door hissed open.

"Of course it does. He
hurt you."

"I hurt him first."

"But you said you were
sorry, and he didn't even give you the time of day!"

"It doesn't
matter," Zell repeated, looking over his
shoulder, eyes warm. "I love him."

And Seifer
could only stare as the gentle admission hung in the air between them as Zell headed off down the corridor to his own room.

In that moment, Seifer hated Irvine Kinneas with
a passion he hadn't felt since the day he realized Ultimecia
had played and manipulated him only for her own gain. And the worst thing was,
he was starting to realize why everything about this situation pissed him off,
but it was too damn late.
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Lightning.