It’s that look she gives him when she assigns him a week of detention: arrogant sparkle in her eye, brows raised in lofty challenge, tempting him to spit back obscenities into her face. Xu and her fucking Disciplinary Committee think they own the world, now that Kramer finally signed off and made it official, fucking little cards they get to carry around proudly like the ass-kissers they are.
He doesn’t deserve a week of time for punching Dincht and they both fucking know it. She’s abusing the power, and of course Seifer’s her first and favorite target. Always has been.
- - -
This is the third week in a row he’s been stuck in this goddamn room; when Xu opens the door and says sweetly, “You can go now,” he’s waiting for her, leaping from the desk in a move worthy of its own Knight movie; the door slams shut and she’s trapped in the corner of the room.
He’s panting. “What is your fucking deal,” and she shoots him a half-lidded glare, backing deliberately into the corner, palms pressing the wall.
He doesn’t even remember being kissed; what he remembers is the red-hot sting to his lips, after, as she leaves.
- - -
She makes him trudge his way through the Training Center this time, completely messing up his brand-new gunblade model with Grat guts and dirt and blood, the grip already sweat-stained, and he’s tired enough from swinging the damn thing by the time he gets to this ‘secret area’ that he thinks about ditching: this is the most Knight-like thing he has ever done for a fucking girl and he hates how he loves it, fighting his way to her side as if the hot scrabbling fuck they’ll have is a badge of honor, with dead Grats and bruises as foreplay.
- - -
This might be the worst game Seifer has ever played – worse than sandcastles, worse even than teasing Dincht – because he is always losing at it, the little challenges Xu leaves in her wake like treasures wrapped just for him, the way she always knows how to push his buttons and make him follow just one last time. She’s up on Kramer’s desk, legs wrapped around him as he buries himself in her, moaning: and he knows they could both get kicked out for this, his dream evaporating in one dumb mistake, and he wishes he cared a little bit more.
- - -
She comes back triumphant, tall and regal with it and glowing like a fucking beacon; just looking at her is making him horny, the unhealed cut across her cheek like a medal of honor more tangible than the uniform she has just earned. She won’t even acknowledge him at the banquet, breezing past him on Trepe’s arm like cadets don’t even exist and Seifer feels so low for one stupid moment, kicked to Garden’s curb.
She meets his eyes once, her gaze burning with challenge, and he knows they’ll meet up later; he nods, as if it’s okay. She smirks.
- - -
I hate you, he wants to say, later, in the darkness, as she’s bent over Instructor Ido’s desk, perfect SeeD uniform skirt hiked up over her hips, nothing beneath, nothing in the room but the sound of her panting and the way the desk shakes a little every time Seifer thrusts into her – hard, because he wants her to feel it – her hands gripping the edge of the desk, his clutching at her hips so hard she’ll bruise tomorrow, matching her other wounds.
He likes that, somehow: reminder of him imprinted on her skin, somewhere she can’t smirk it away.
- - -
Her second mission goes wrong, and she’s in the Infirmary for days, eyes quivering but closed every time Seifer sneaks in after midnight to try and see her. Her skin is pale and pasty and covered in cuts so razor-thin he wouldn’t think them possible, and her chart is full of long unintelligible words interspersed with gut-chilling phrases like blood loss and tourniquet.
Tubes snake in and out of her arms and nose and mouth. Seifer is filled with rage and the undeniable urge to hurt something. Instead he clumsily tucks the blanket around her and punches the wall, once.
- - -
“Why do you care?” Xu’s words are clipped, cold, and it’s like the surgery replaced her heart with a fucking stone, grey and lifeless instead of hot and angry, some doctor’s awful mistake. She has ignored him for days, uniform a navy-blue wall, and Seifer hates that his last memory of her naked is in that stupid hospital gown with a needle in her arm.
“I guess I don’t,” he says, and his words are laced with venom as he turns away. He has his lock changed on principle; she could pick it regardless, but he knows that she won’t.
- - -
“You know that if you abuse this, the consequences will be severe.”
Bullshit, Seifer thinks, because Xu fucking abused it and abused him too, and nobody ever checked whether Seifer’s six weeks of almost-constant detention served any purpose other than giving her a fucking mindrush of absolute power. “Yes, sir,” he says, instead, because he wants this so badly he can taste it. It’s the last time he’ll follow her, and for a reason completely unlike all the others.
“Well, then,” says Kramer, with that goofy smile that makes him want to punch walls. “Welcome to the Disciplinary Committee, Seifer.”
- - -
He opens the door and deposits the snotty little brat in the classroom with officious ceremony. Xu and Trepe both look up, but he only has eyes for one, a glare so potent he thinks for a second it’ll catch fire, Balamb Garden burning to ashes around them and why the fuck does he care, again?
Making SeeD is bullshit: you either die, or wake up without your soul.
“Here you go,” he says, sneering a sweet smile, his badge clearly visible - and as Xu’s face darkens, the first emotion he’s seen her wear in weeks, he finally wins.
FFVIII, Seifer/Xu (R): Alchemy
He doesn’t deserve a week of time for punching Dincht and they both fucking know it. She’s abusing the power, and of course Seifer’s her first and favorite target. Always has been.
- - -
This is the third week in a row he’s been stuck in this goddamn room; when Xu opens the door and says sweetly, “You can go now,” he’s waiting for her, leaping from the desk in a move worthy of its own Knight movie; the door slams shut and she’s trapped in the corner of the room.
He’s panting. “What is your fucking deal,” and she shoots him a half-lidded glare, backing deliberately into the corner, palms pressing the wall.
He doesn’t even remember being kissed; what he remembers is the red-hot sting to his lips, after, as she leaves.
- - -
She makes him trudge his way through the Training Center this time, completely messing up his brand-new gunblade model with Grat guts and dirt and blood, the grip already sweat-stained, and he’s tired enough from swinging the damn thing by the time he gets to this ‘secret area’ that he thinks about ditching: this is the most Knight-like thing he has ever done for a fucking girl and he hates how he loves it, fighting his way to her side as if the hot scrabbling fuck they’ll have is a badge of honor, with dead Grats and bruises as foreplay.
- - -
This might be the worst game Seifer has ever played – worse than sandcastles, worse even than teasing Dincht – because he is always losing at it, the little challenges Xu leaves in her wake like treasures wrapped just for him, the way she always knows how to push his buttons and make him follow just one last time. She’s up on Kramer’s desk, legs wrapped around him as he buries himself in her, moaning: and he knows they could both get kicked out for this, his dream evaporating in one dumb mistake, and he wishes he cared a little bit more.
- - -
She comes back triumphant, tall and regal with it and glowing like a fucking beacon; just looking at her is making him horny, the unhealed cut across her cheek like a medal of honor more tangible than the uniform she has just earned. She won’t even acknowledge him at the banquet, breezing past him on Trepe’s arm like cadets don’t even exist and Seifer feels so low for one stupid moment, kicked to Garden’s curb.
She meets his eyes once, her gaze burning with challenge, and he knows they’ll meet up later; he nods, as if it’s okay. She smirks.
- - -
I hate you, he wants to say, later, in the darkness, as she’s bent over Instructor Ido’s desk, perfect SeeD uniform skirt hiked up over her hips, nothing beneath, nothing in the room but the sound of her panting and the way the desk shakes a little every time Seifer thrusts into her – hard, because he wants her to feel it – her hands gripping the edge of the desk, his clutching at her hips so hard she’ll bruise tomorrow, matching her other wounds.
He likes that, somehow: reminder of him imprinted on her skin, somewhere she can’t smirk it away.
- - -
Her second mission goes wrong, and she’s in the Infirmary for days, eyes quivering but closed every time Seifer sneaks in after midnight to try and see her. Her skin is pale and pasty and covered in cuts so razor-thin he wouldn’t think them possible, and her chart is full of long unintelligible words interspersed with gut-chilling phrases like blood loss and tourniquet.
Tubes snake in and out of her arms and nose and mouth. Seifer is filled with rage and the undeniable urge to hurt something. Instead he clumsily tucks the blanket around her and punches the wall, once.
- - -
“Why do you care?” Xu’s words are clipped, cold, and it’s like the surgery replaced her heart with a fucking stone, grey and lifeless instead of hot and angry, some doctor’s awful mistake. She has ignored him for days, uniform a navy-blue wall, and Seifer hates that his last memory of her naked is in that stupid hospital gown with a needle in her arm.
“I guess I don’t,” he says, and his words are laced with venom as he turns away. He has his lock changed on principle; she could pick it regardless, but he knows that she won’t.
- - -
“You know that if you abuse this, the consequences will be severe.”
Bullshit, Seifer thinks, because Xu fucking abused it and abused him too, and nobody ever checked whether Seifer’s six weeks of almost-constant detention served any purpose other than giving her a fucking mindrush of absolute power. “Yes, sir,” he says, instead, because he wants this so badly he can taste it. It’s the last time he’ll follow her, and for a reason completely unlike all the others.
“Well, then,” says Kramer, with that goofy smile that makes him want to punch walls. “Welcome to the Disciplinary Committee, Seifer.”
- - -
He opens the door and deposits the snotty little brat in the classroom with officious ceremony. Xu and Trepe both look up, but he only has eyes for one, a glare so potent he thinks for a second it’ll catch fire, Balamb Garden burning to ashes around them and why the fuck does he care, again?
Making SeeD is bullshit: you either die, or wake up without your soul.
“Here you go,” he says, sneering a sweet smile, his badge clearly visible - and as Xu’s face darkens, the first emotion he’s seen her wear in weeks, he finally wins.