It's hard to imagine what their lives could have been if Squall had never planted the idea of Garden or SeeD in Edea's mind. Neither would need to know how to identify edible flora or what coloring signifies a poisonous hide in local monsters for starters. It pains him to know Seifer has had to utilize that knowledge. If he could wring the past from them like a wet rag, he would. Give them both fresh starts.
...That's not how time works.
It ticks ever onward. Like the strikes of their hammers into the roof, like the roaring of the fire in the hearth, like the beating of his heart as Seifer approaches. Squall gets a startling flash of deja vu as Seifer twists the washcloth, resulting in a splash of water into the basin, but it's only in Squall's mind that he's imagined the sight. He's seeing it for the first time and it takes him a moment to acknowledge the words.
"Buried with the bar, I take it?" It's wry. A joke in the furthest stretch of the word because the words seem distant, even to Squall's own ears, as he feels the wet touch of the rag. The breath he lets out is slow, deliberate. This is all real.
"I'm not," he says of the scars. "They tell me where I am." When he is, more precisely. He doesn't expect Seifer to understand but maybe he does. After seeing the state of Seifer's back, maybe Ultimecia tortured him beyond the physical limitations of his body. Squall wants to ask but knows it will only pave the way to having to talk about his own experiences.
It's easier to reach over his scarred shoulder and stop Seifer's hand, to pull his arm around his chest for a brief embrace before loosing the rag from his fingers, freeing it. He rinses it with methodical precision, field experience from a time when he too had to survive off the bare minimum, before turning to reach for the hem of Seifer's shirt.
The gesture harkens back to a simpler time. When their bodies were freely given for inspection after a spar or monster hunt. As if they didn't have an entire war's worth of experience hurting each other. Squall half expects Seifer to stop him but still he reaches.
no subject
...That's not how time works.
It ticks ever onward. Like the strikes of their hammers into the roof, like the roaring of the fire in the hearth, like the beating of his heart as Seifer approaches. Squall gets a startling flash of deja vu as Seifer twists the washcloth, resulting in a splash of water into the basin, but it's only in Squall's mind that he's imagined the sight. He's seeing it for the first time and it takes him a moment to acknowledge the words.
"Buried with the bar, I take it?" It's wry. A joke in the furthest stretch of the word because the words seem distant, even to Squall's own ears, as he feels the wet touch of the rag. The breath he lets out is slow, deliberate. This is all real.
"I'm not," he says of the scars. "They tell me where I am." When he is, more precisely. He doesn't expect Seifer to understand but maybe he does. After seeing the state of Seifer's back, maybe Ultimecia tortured him beyond the physical limitations of his body. Squall wants to ask but knows it will only pave the way to having to talk about his own experiences.
It's easier to reach over his scarred shoulder and stop Seifer's hand, to pull his arm around his chest for a brief embrace before loosing the rag from his fingers, freeing it. He rinses it with methodical precision, field experience from a time when he too had to survive off the bare minimum, before turning to reach for the hem of Seifer's shirt.
The gesture harkens back to a simpler time. When their bodies were freely given for inspection after a spar or monster hunt. As if they didn't have an entire war's worth of experience hurting each other. Squall half expects Seifer to stop him but still he reaches.