Oh, the kiss is nice, it's sweet, it's something he's longed for. That doesn't stop Seifer from pulling back from it and looking Squall in the eyes. Staring in them. Watching them closely as his hand comes up to cup Squall's cheek.
"No. You finish that sentence, Leonhart. You let me know how long you've been reciprocating and frustrated over it. Because I've wanted you since I was fourteen and didn't know what to do with all of that. And I want to know just how annoyed I need to be with you."
Hyne. Since they were fourteen. Could they have disrupted fate if Squall had been a little bit braver? A little less bristly? His breath comes in sharp, a pained sound smothered in his chest, as shame burns through him under Seifer's gaze and the tenderness of the hand cradling his face.
"Very," he confirms. Squall knows annoyance is the bare minimum of what Seifer should hold against him for their unspoken mutual attraction. There's a myriad of secrets yet to be shared, but he owes it to them to muscle through the embarrassment of sharing.
"Longer. I think. The memory is...Fuzzy. We were getting fitted for a new year of uniforms and you'd come out, a big smile on your face," his words trail off a moment as Squall searches Seifer's face for the kid he'd been at the time. Both of them young. Gangly teenagers. Squall's expression pinches with the memory. "You caught me staring." He's certain Seifer knows how that turned out. How he'd flushed and rolled his eyes, blowing off anything that might have given him away. He's tempted to do the same now, but pushes the reaction down with a deep, bracing breath.
His expression is briefly hidden in the warmth of Seifer's palm, turning his face into it before exhaling and straightening himself to meet his eyes. "I loved that look on you. Like you could take on the world. You came back from town with the same look when you got your coat. Fujin and Raijin strutting beside you like they believed you could."
The vulnerability is its own gnawing ache as Squall remembers the accompanying emotions that had come with those moments. The jealousy and inferiority, how he'd always wanted more but felt like he couldn't compete against the everything Seifer was always chasing.
Longer? Seifer doesn't remember the day Squall mentions, but he remembers days like it. And man is that annoying. They could have... This could have... He might not have failed out if he felt there was someone like Squall to stay for. It made him angry, annoyed...
But also resigned. Because he'd known Ultimecia was from the future. And in a way, the connection between him and her had therefore always felt inevitable. Inescapable. Fated. He never could have had Squall because he was always fated to belong to her. Perhaps even now a small part of him did.
Squall knows better than to lay the blame entirely on their shoulders. So much of their past is distorted through the lens of half-eaten memory thanks to the GFs. And yet...There's the hand he's played in all of this. The one responsible for why they were set on their paths in the first place. The guilt gnaws at him and Squall presses their foreheads together more ardently, knocking them against each other in a gentle butting before easing back to finally, finally trace the length of Seifer's own with his fingertips.
"What happened?" His hand curls a little on the back of Seifer's neck, anticipating the cheek because Squall knows what happened, he was there, but he'd blacked out almost immediately after reciprocating the blow that resulted in the marks they both share. "I never got a chance to ask how I got to the infirmary. I'd always assumed it was you, but...You kept yours." His thumb fans out again over the scar in question. "I've never stopped wondering...or hoping that it was on purpose." Because as fucked up as it was, leaving their marks on each other had meant something to Squall then and still means something to him now. That they've marked each other in a way no one, not even their GFs, could take away from them.
What a question to ask. The scar had been nothing but trouble for Seifer since everything had ended, making him infinitely more recognizable, even though it was no longer the highly obvious and glaringly bright red that had been there so soon after they had wounded each other. Honestly, Seifer didn't enjoy thinking about the thing, about what he had done to Squall. Seifer? He'd deserved the scar, a reward for his failure to stay aware during their match multiple times. But Squall?
"It was a reminder," he says with a sigh. "At least, it was at first. A lesson in being mindful, in the repercussions for my actions. Felt like I needed to live with it, to be better. And then... Well, she once offered to take it away from me, to heal it completely. Probably wasn't possible by then. She said she didn't wish me to be so marred by someone as unworthy as you. But I said I wanted it. The reminder of what you'd done to me."
Something to feed the fires of the hate he didn't think he'd ever really felt. And a small act of rebellion.
At what point had all of Seifer's romanticism rubbed off on him? Was it because of Rinoa? Did being a knight change something in you? Unlock it so that anything was forgivable under the right lens?
No. That wasn't it. Squall had never begrudged Seifer the scar. That want of connection, for it to serve a greater purpose had been there from the beginning, a throbbing reminder of who it was he was always striving to meet and one he'd risen to the challenge of when pushed as seen mirrored in Seifer's own scar.
His brows furrow with the explanation. The way Seifer punished himself by keeping the thing. How it had served as a different kind of reminder. A less gentle one. Against the ache of what that means Squall offers, "Esthar's advanced beyond anything the rest of the world is used to. If they have the technology...I could..."
Squall can't bring himself to say it so he doesn't, averting his gaze instead to stare down at their shoes. "With the others too. You don't have to carry these anymore."
The very idea that any country would have the tech to take away scar tissue earns a scoff. But he still shakes his head. The punishments would always be a reminder.
"You're already offering the impossible. So no, I don't want to talk about something like that, okay?"
Because he needs to sit in the world of reality. The more impossible things that Squall is offering, the more unreal all of this is. The more of an illusion. A delusion. The other sort of punishment he was often given.
The impossible isn't offered lightly and won't come without a cost. Squall's certain that even if Laguna keeps his end of the arrangement, other nations will refuse to honor the amnesty Esthar provides. Strangely, of the two things he's proposed, the scars don't seem the most unreasonable.
Still, he acquiesces with a nod, easing back to better look at Seifer. The urge to say a million things start and stop on his tongue. Time briefly slips away and after a long moment, Squall shakes himself back to reality with a deep pull of air. "The roof, then?"
They owe Nomura plenty but it still rankles Squall to hear it, especially given his suspicions around their entanglement. It sparks a jealousy in him that he's not proud of. The kind that wants to bite marks into Seifer that the other man can wear fondly as opposed to all of the others they've left on each other. That others have left on them.
He turns his face and lets Seifer's lips skate across his cheek so he can latch his mouth to Seifer's neck instead which he nips before grumbling, "Nomura's not really on my mind right now."
His fingers tangle in Seifer's too-long hair to better allow his teeth the ability to scrape over skin, tasting him and drowning in the warmth of him.
"Shit," Seifer hisses once Squall's got even the briefest amount of teeth into play. Not what he was expecting from the guy. At all.
"Down, kitty," he says, gently pushing Squall away. "We've got limited sunlight, and you've got to use that while it's here. You can get your claws out later."
The patented Leonhart eyeroll returns as he's eased away. For some reason, on the heels of Nomura's name, it rankles him further but Squall doesn't protest. The faint evidence of his mouth on Seifer's throat is enough to briefly satisfy him. Proof of the moment written in his skin.
"Fine, fine," it's a begrudging grumble as Squall breathes through the years of frustration, burying it the way he'd learned to while they were cadets. He doesn't remember it being this hard. "Go get your tools. I'll dig up Revolver."
The idea of leaving Seifer doesn't sit well with him. It causes him to hover in his spot, uncertainty flashing in his gaze as he takes the other in, absorbing the sight of him so as to better cement it in reality. Squall thinks to say something but ultimately settles for a nod. He can do this. He can put his emotions away and put himself to the task ahead.
Seifer can't imagine what good the weapon will do them for right now, but he isn't going to argue. Not for right now at least. Not when Squall could be annoying as Hyne if he wanted to be. When he wanted to be. Which was pretty often in general and especially today.
"Alright then. I'll see about getting you something to drink too. You thirsty still? Not for coffee?"
The cleaning kit in his gunblade case will come in handy for the tools since Seifer insists on putting them to work on the place. He hasn't needed to wield a gunblade for anything more than training in the time since the war and prefers it that way. Seifer is right though, Squall can be prickly and annoying when things don't go the way his mind has insisted they do and right now he's still trying to reorient himself after the confessions that have been aired out between them.
It's not innuendo but Hyne, it's definitely not helping.
"The coffee's fine." It's not. It's field grade and black, but he's the kind of psychopath who will nurse a single cup the entire day, temperature of it be damned. It takes a moment for him to remember basic civility. He understands Seifer's trying to do something for him so he relents some of his tightly knotted independence enough to ask, "But if you're bringing water in, I wouldn't mind enough to wash up."
Squall's always been fastidious that way and after a train ride and trek through Timber, feeling a little human would do wonders while they navigate the uncharted territory of their confessions.
"Water and soap it is," Seifer agrees before moving to the bedroom again. If he's going to work, he's putting the dirtier clothes back on. Seems smarter in his mind.
Once he's changed he heads right back outside to start hauling water so Squall can clean up, and probably so he can make some effort at being ready for dinner later. Because, you know, practical thoughts. Keeps his mind from racing away from him with everything he's learned today.
There won't be any point in cleaning up before they've tackled the roof, but Squall knows they'll need the water eventually. It feels especially true after he's dug Revolver up, unearthing its case and his duffle about a half mile from the cabin. Lugging provisions wasn't exactly unfamiliar, but Squall was grateful all the same when he finally got them inside.
It's a much more delicate affair after. Opening his gunblade case to fetch his cleaning kit without flashing the blade inside is a conscious decision. He's not here to make Seifer feel on edge. Even after their confessions, there's still the violence they'd enacted against each other to own up to.
"What are you working with first? I'll make that a priority," he remarks of the tools Seifer's found. Their condition are in varying states of rust or grime. Nothing he can't sand or polish out. The work is good. It gives him something to focus on that's not Seifer's mouth or the ever nagging fear of Time.
By the time the hole is mostly patched, the sun is just touching down on the horizon, casting golden light through grimy windows. Squall's never been more grateful for a basin of water to wash his hands in, annoyed by the splinter he managed to get somewhere during their day's work. Worth it, however, for the view that came with Seifer glistening with sweat and focused on something that isn't trying to kill him.
"It'll hold," he calls to urge Seifer down. The final touches were ones he left Seifer to, dividing the labor of heating up their water but mostly wanting to get back inside.
It will hold. Well enough at least. Seifer sighs and looks down. He's been pleasantly caught up in the work. It's helped him not think too much about everything that has been going on. What he's learned. What Squall is asking. What he fears will come of it. But he can't just hide up here all day. With a sigh he tucks the tools back into the bundled up shirt he turned into a makeshift sling, and lowers himself back down to the ground. After that he heads in after Squall.
"It better. That hole is over what I think was Nomura's room. At least the stuff in it seems like it. Figured you'd prefer not getting rained on. Unless you want to sleep in the main room near the fire."
The seeming familiarity between Nida and Seifer vexes him. It scratches at some part of Squall that can't make sense of how or when it would have developed or where. The mention of him also reminds Squall that Nida will be there when they arrive in Esthar having been the one to tell him about Seifer in the first place. "The main room is fine," he insists. Sleeping in Nida's old room feels a bit too much like trying to replace him, especially with Seifer under the same roof.
Besides...If anyone tries to come through the front door on the suspicion of who Seifer is, there will be a line of defense.
His fingers test the slowly warming water with one hand while passively gesturing to the hearth where the fire is still going, a twin pair of MREs cooking in the pot of boiling water. Focusing on the work, focusing on their food, focusing on the basin, they all give Squall something other than the aired out confessions and the reality of their circumstances to dial in on.
"Those should be ready in a few minutes," Squall remarks, deciding the basin water is hot enough. He's scrounged for a washcloth, rinsing the dust from it throughly in the small bucket of unused water, and now that it's relatively clean, he sets it beside the basin for Seifer, his own already in hand.
By the time Squall eventually gets over the mortification of his own assumptions, his scar will likely blend in with his blush. As it stands, he's convinced there was something there and worse, something unfinished between Seifer and Nida. It's the least he can do, he rationalizes, to give Seifer some return to normalcy by reuniting the two.
He's spent his whole life getting in the way of Seifer's dreams, however unwittingly, and so it's possible he's gone a little overboard in course-correcting.
"If MREs are spoiling you, then the bar must be on the ground," Squall deadpans. There's a moment, brief but palpable, as he weighs his next steps before slowly peeling out of his shirt, revealing his own souvenirs from the war. His are significantly less grotesque. Battle damage that cures and potions have mostly been able to heal. Except for the jagged scar at his back and its twin in his shoulder.
They are both creatures of independence. Cripplingly so to some respect. It's not habit or instinct but rather a deliberate lowering of his guard that has him offering the washcloth to Seifer. "Help me get my back?" Squall knows it's unlikely the sentiment will shine through. It rarely does, commonly mistaken between them, but it's a gesture all the same. One he hopes Seifer will let him return.
"Bar is buried," Seifer corrects. He had been hunting. Not all monster class animals made for tasty eating, even if they were nutritious at times. "Made me thankful for wilderness survival courses."
Being forced to memorize what things could be eaten had been... important. It kept him alive this long.
As for Seifer, well, his eyes are drawn to motion. To the motion of Squall partially stripping down. He sees the scars, some of which he knows were left by his own blade. It makes him feel guilty. How could it do anything less? Honestly he wants to run away. To flee. Because Squall should surely remember in this moment why he should want Seifer dead.
Instead he steps forward and takes the offered wash cloth.
"Sorry I didn't get a loofah on a stick for his highness," he says as he wrings the water out of the washcloth a bit before reaching out to clean the guy's back.
Scarred, but still so beautiful. A temptation under his hands.
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.
Seifer does chuckle at the attempt at the joke. IT's more than he's used to from Squall, so he's taking it in the spirit it is given. which he thinks is a white flag. Yet another one to their strange day and reconnection.
"The scars tell you that you're in a broken ass cabin in the middle of the woods?"
If he heard when, he'd get it better. But that wasn't something Squall was sharing. Not like he was sharing his skin for Seifer to run the wash cloth over. Slowly. Deliberately. Thoughtfully. Only, of course, to be stopped by Squall's hand. To be pulled into what can only be termed a proper embrace. One he would hold forever if he had a chance.
But the wash cloth is gone and he expects the moment is too.
Or was it? Because the way Squall was turning under his arm, pulling at his shirt... There was nothing simpler about this for Seifer. Not after already having his skin under Squall's eyes. Not after letting the man see how bad it was from one side. Though he supposed, in for a bit, in for a gil. With a sigh he reaches down, pulls his shirt off and over his head.
Turns out his front was nearly as bad as his back. Here the wounds were clearly more cuts and burns. But in some places it looks like claws raked down his skin.
"You should see the other guy," he deadpans, even though they can both put together that the people who did this to him, Ultimecia included, are ultimately dead.
The laugh is nice. It feels like progress and allows Squall to be good natured when Seifer obfuscates his words. "They tell me I'm here in a broken ass cabin in the woods and not...lost in time somewhere imagining it." He takes a beat to consider the fact that Seifer doesn't know about his experiences in Time Compression. That the only ones who know he'd been lost to it are the friends who were there with him at the end. And even then, he's never told them everything that entailed.
A frown pulls at his mouth and he's grateful Seifer can't see it while he wars with how much to divulge. Even now he feels a faint undercurrent of distress thinking about it, ebbed only by the hand that tethers him to the moment as it wipes the sweat from a hard day's work off his back. "I still feel like that sometimes. Like I'm drifting through the current, experiencing things through a pane of glass while someone else lives out the present in my skin." Who else was looking through his eyes at any given moment? These weren't fears exclusively caused by Ultimecia but his own sister too.
"This helps," he says quietly while reaching to brush his fingers over the scar at his shoulder where the ice had penetrated. When Squall reaches further to cover Seifer's hand, he adds, "So does this." And then he's turning so they can look at each other, so he can return the favor of cementing this into reality through careful touches.
The scars are agonizing to look upon but Squall does not divert his eyes or flinch. If Seifer can bear them, so can he. But it doesn't make the ache that it was done to him lessen. A raw, primal fury vibrates through him as his fingers skate over the claw marks. Some part of him intuitively knows it must have been Griever even if he hopes it wasn't. "I would do worse if I did," he says flatly. Killing has never been personal before but it would be if he ever found the monsters responsible for what's been done to Seifer's body.
He cleans it reverently, slow and mindful of the marks before offering Seifer the other rag so that he isn't trapped under the microscope of Squall's gaze. So he too can have something to do with his hands. "I thought I hated you after you tortured me," Squall confesses as the rag follows one of the jagged claw marks, knowing that it will still be there no matter how many washes.
"Not because you did it but because the way you did it was so impersonal. I thought, surely, I had to be worth more than someone else pulling the lever. Garden taught us all the gruesomely efficient ways to break someone but you didn't use any of them on me...And that hurt in its own way until I realized you weren't entirely there. That eventually lessened the sting, but I think She knew if you had done this to me...If She compelled you to hurt me like She hurt you...It would have broken whatever spell or hold She had. I think that's why Fujin and Raijin made it out unscathed. I think somewhere deep inside She knew She could never make you a monster no matter how monstrously you were treated."
"Hate's a passionate words. There's always two sides to those, and one is easily corrupted to the other and back."
His pride in Squall's success became jealousy. His frustration with Squall's compliance into anger. It had all been so hard, and he'd barely seen straight in those days. But... he likes to think maybe Squall was right about the other stuff.
"Thing is, I'm not sure you're right," he says softly as he lets the rag run over his skin. "Because I still hurt you. I could still hurt you so many ways."
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"No. You finish that sentence, Leonhart. You let me know how long you've been reciprocating and frustrated over it. Because I've wanted you since I was fourteen and didn't know what to do with all of that. And I want to know just how annoyed I need to be with you."
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"Very," he confirms. Squall knows annoyance is the bare minimum of what Seifer should hold against him for their unspoken mutual attraction. There's a myriad of secrets yet to be shared, but he owes it to them to muscle through the embarrassment of sharing.
"Longer. I think. The memory is...Fuzzy. We were getting fitted for a new year of uniforms and you'd come out, a big smile on your face," his words trail off a moment as Squall searches Seifer's face for the kid he'd been at the time. Both of them young. Gangly teenagers. Squall's expression pinches with the memory. "You caught me staring." He's certain Seifer knows how that turned out. How he'd flushed and rolled his eyes, blowing off anything that might have given him away. He's tempted to do the same now, but pushes the reaction down with a deep, bracing breath.
His expression is briefly hidden in the warmth of Seifer's palm, turning his face into it before exhaling and straightening himself to meet his eyes. "I loved that look on you. Like you could take on the world. You came back from town with the same look when you got your coat. Fujin and Raijin strutting beside you like they believed you could."
The vulnerability is its own gnawing ache as Squall remembers the accompanying emotions that had come with those moments. The jealousy and inferiority, how he'd always wanted more but felt like he couldn't compete against the everything Seifer was always chasing.
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But also resigned. Because he'd known Ultimecia was from the future. And in a way, the connection between him and her had therefore always felt inevitable. Inescapable. Fated. He never could have had Squall because he was always fated to belong to her. Perhaps even now a small part of him did.
"Guess we're both idiots."
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"What happened?" His hand curls a little on the back of Seifer's neck, anticipating the cheek because Squall knows what happened, he was there, but he'd blacked out almost immediately after reciprocating the blow that resulted in the marks they both share. "I never got a chance to ask how I got to the infirmary. I'd always assumed it was you, but...You kept yours." His thumb fans out again over the scar in question. "I've never stopped wondering...or hoping that it was on purpose." Because as fucked up as it was, leaving their marks on each other had meant something to Squall then and still means something to him now. That they've marked each other in a way no one, not even their GFs, could take away from them.
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"It was a reminder," he says with a sigh. "At least, it was at first. A lesson in being mindful, in the repercussions for my actions. Felt like I needed to live with it, to be better. And then... Well, she once offered to take it away from me, to heal it completely. Probably wasn't possible by then. She said she didn't wish me to be so marred by someone as unworthy as you. But I said I wanted it. The reminder of what you'd done to me."
Something to feed the fires of the hate he didn't think he'd ever really felt. And a small act of rebellion.
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No. That wasn't it. Squall had never begrudged Seifer the scar. That want of connection, for it to serve a greater purpose had been there from the beginning, a throbbing reminder of who it was he was always striving to meet and one he'd risen to the challenge of when pushed as seen mirrored in Seifer's own scar.
His brows furrow with the explanation. The way Seifer punished himself by keeping the thing. How it had served as a different kind of reminder. A less gentle one. Against the ache of what that means Squall offers, "Esthar's advanced beyond anything the rest of the world is used to. If they have the technology...I could..."
Squall can't bring himself to say it so he doesn't, averting his gaze instead to stare down at their shoes. "With the others too. You don't have to carry these anymore."
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"You're already offering the impossible. So no, I don't want to talk about something like that, okay?"
Because he needs to sit in the world of reality. The more impossible things that Squall is offering, the more unreal all of this is. The more of an illusion. A delusion. The other sort of punishment he was often given.
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Still, he acquiesces with a nod, easing back to better look at Seifer. The urge to say a million things start and stop on his tongue. Time briefly slips away and after a long moment, Squall shakes himself back to reality with a deep pull of air. "The roof, then?"
Because that's something they can fix.
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"I guess I sort of owe it to Nomura to fix the thing. Between the squatting here and the him sending you after me, it makes sense."
He says that, but of course he's focusing instead on moving in to kiss Squall once more.
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He turns his face and lets Seifer's lips skate across his cheek so he can latch his mouth to Seifer's neck instead which he nips before grumbling, "Nomura's not really on my mind right now."
His fingers tangle in Seifer's too-long hair to better allow his teeth the ability to scrape over skin, tasting him and drowning in the warmth of him.
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"Down, kitty," he says, gently pushing Squall away. "We've got limited sunlight, and you've got to use that while it's here. You can get your claws out later."
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"Fine, fine," it's a begrudging grumble as Squall breathes through the years of frustration, burying it the way he'd learned to while they were cadets. He doesn't remember it being this hard. "Go get your tools. I'll dig up Revolver."
The idea of leaving Seifer doesn't sit well with him. It causes him to hover in his spot, uncertainty flashing in his gaze as he takes the other in, absorbing the sight of him so as to better cement it in reality. Squall thinks to say something but ultimately settles for a nod. He can do this. He can put his emotions away and put himself to the task ahead.
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"Alright then. I'll see about getting you something to drink too. You thirsty still? Not for coffee?"
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It's not innuendo but Hyne, it's definitely not helping.
"The coffee's fine." It's not. It's field grade and black, but he's the kind of psychopath who will nurse a single cup the entire day, temperature of it be damned. It takes a moment for him to remember basic civility. He understands Seifer's trying to do something for him so he relents some of his tightly knotted independence enough to ask, "But if you're bringing water in, I wouldn't mind enough to wash up."
Squall's always been fastidious that way and after a train ride and trek through Timber, feeling a little human would do wonders while they navigate the uncharted territory of their confessions.
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Once he's changed he heads right back outside to start hauling water so Squall can clean up, and probably so he can make some effort at being ready for dinner later. Because, you know, practical thoughts. Keeps his mind from racing away from him with everything he's learned today.
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It's a much more delicate affair after. Opening his gunblade case to fetch his cleaning kit without flashing the blade inside is a conscious decision. He's not here to make Seifer feel on edge. Even after their confessions, there's still the violence they'd enacted against each other to own up to.
"What are you working with first? I'll make that a priority," he remarks of the tools Seifer's found. Their condition are in varying states of rust or grime. Nothing he can't sand or polish out. The work is good. It gives him something to focus on that's not Seifer's mouth or the ever nagging fear of Time.
By the time the hole is mostly patched, the sun is just touching down on the horizon, casting golden light through grimy windows. Squall's never been more grateful for a basin of water to wash his hands in, annoyed by the splinter he managed to get somewhere during their day's work. Worth it, however, for the view that came with Seifer glistening with sweat and focused on something that isn't trying to kill him.
"It'll hold," he calls to urge Seifer down. The final touches were ones he left Seifer to, dividing the labor of heating up their water but mostly wanting to get back inside.
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"It better. That hole is over what I think was Nomura's room. At least the stuff in it seems like it. Figured you'd prefer not getting rained on. Unless you want to sleep in the main room near the fire."
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Besides...If anyone tries to come through the front door on the suspicion of who Seifer is, there will be a line of defense.
His fingers test the slowly warming water with one hand while passively gesturing to the hearth where the fire is still going, a twin pair of MREs cooking in the pot of boiling water. Focusing on the work, focusing on their food, focusing on the basin, they all give Squall something other than the aired out confessions and the reality of their circumstances to dial in on.
"Those should be ready in a few minutes," Squall remarks, deciding the basin water is hot enough. He's scrounged for a washcloth, rinsing the dust from it throughly in the small bucket of unused water, and now that it's relatively clean, he sets it beside the basin for Seifer, his own already in hand.
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"Lack of comfort is up to you," Seifer says with a shrug. He's not going to argue. Not when he can come and get clean again.
"Already eating better than I was. You're going to spoil me, Commander."
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He's spent his whole life getting in the way of Seifer's dreams, however unwittingly, and so it's possible he's gone a little overboard in course-correcting.
"If MREs are spoiling you, then the bar must be on the ground," Squall deadpans. There's a moment, brief but palpable, as he weighs his next steps before slowly peeling out of his shirt, revealing his own souvenirs from the war. His are significantly less grotesque. Battle damage that cures and potions have mostly been able to heal. Except for the jagged scar at his back and its twin in his shoulder.
They are both creatures of independence. Cripplingly so to some respect. It's not habit or instinct but rather a deliberate lowering of his guard that has him offering the washcloth to Seifer. "Help me get my back?" Squall knows it's unlikely the sentiment will shine through. It rarely does, commonly mistaken between them, but it's a gesture all the same. One he hopes Seifer will let him return.
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Being forced to memorize what things could be eaten had been... important. It kept him alive this long.
As for Seifer, well, his eyes are drawn to motion. To the motion of Squall partially stripping down. He sees the scars, some of which he knows were left by his own blade. It makes him feel guilty. How could it do anything less? Honestly he wants to run away. To flee. Because Squall should surely remember in this moment why he should want Seifer dead.
Instead he steps forward and takes the offered wash cloth.
"Sorry I didn't get a loofah on a stick for his highness," he says as he wrings the water out of the washcloth a bit before reaching out to clean the guy's back.
Scarred, but still so beautiful. A temptation under his hands.
"I'm sorry you have to wear these marks."
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...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.
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"The scars tell you that you're in a broken ass cabin in the middle of the woods?"
If he heard when, he'd get it better. But that wasn't something Squall was sharing. Not like he was sharing his skin for Seifer to run the wash cloth over. Slowly. Deliberately. Thoughtfully. Only, of course, to be stopped by Squall's hand. To be pulled into what can only be termed a proper embrace. One he would hold forever if he had a chance.
But the wash cloth is gone and he expects the moment is too.
Or was it? Because the way Squall was turning under his arm, pulling at his shirt... There was nothing simpler about this for Seifer. Not after already having his skin under Squall's eyes. Not after letting the man see how bad it was from one side. Though he supposed, in for a bit, in for a gil. With a sigh he reaches down, pulls his shirt off and over his head.
Turns out his front was nearly as bad as his back. Here the wounds were clearly more cuts and burns. But in some places it looks like claws raked down his skin.
"You should see the other guy," he deadpans, even though they can both put together that the people who did this to him, Ultimecia included, are ultimately dead.
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A frown pulls at his mouth and he's grateful Seifer can't see it while he wars with how much to divulge. Even now he feels a faint undercurrent of distress thinking about it, ebbed only by the hand that tethers him to the moment as it wipes the sweat from a hard day's work off his back. "I still feel like that sometimes. Like I'm drifting through the current, experiencing things through a pane of glass while someone else lives out the present in my skin." Who else was looking through his eyes at any given moment? These weren't fears exclusively caused by Ultimecia but his own sister too.
"This helps," he says quietly while reaching to brush his fingers over the scar at his shoulder where the ice had penetrated. When Squall reaches further to cover Seifer's hand, he adds, "So does this." And then he's turning so they can look at each other, so he can return the favor of cementing this into reality through careful touches.
The scars are agonizing to look upon but Squall does not divert his eyes or flinch. If Seifer can bear them, so can he. But it doesn't make the ache that it was done to him lessen. A raw, primal fury vibrates through him as his fingers skate over the claw marks. Some part of him intuitively knows it must have been Griever even if he hopes it wasn't. "I would do worse if I did," he says flatly. Killing has never been personal before but it would be if he ever found the monsters responsible for what's been done to Seifer's body.
He cleans it reverently, slow and mindful of the marks before offering Seifer the other rag so that he isn't trapped under the microscope of Squall's gaze. So he too can have something to do with his hands. "I thought I hated you after you tortured me," Squall confesses as the rag follows one of the jagged claw marks, knowing that it will still be there no matter how many washes.
"Not because you did it but because the way you did it was so impersonal. I thought, surely, I had to be worth more than someone else pulling the lever. Garden taught us all the gruesomely efficient ways to break someone but you didn't use any of them on me...And that hurt in its own way until I realized you weren't entirely there. That eventually lessened the sting, but I think She knew if you had done this to me...If She compelled you to hurt me like She hurt you...It would have broken whatever spell or hold She had. I think that's why Fujin and Raijin made it out unscathed. I think somewhere deep inside She knew She could never make you a monster no matter how monstrously you were treated."
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His pride in Squall's success became jealousy. His frustration with Squall's compliance into anger. It had all been so hard, and he'd barely seen straight in those days. But... he likes to think maybe Squall was right about the other stuff.
"Thing is, I'm not sure you're right," he says softly as he lets the rag run over his skin. "Because I still hurt you. I could still hurt you so many ways."
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